Caldwell’s Psychology of Color Infographic p. 72-73
This week, we look at color. There is so much about color that entire courses and books can be written about the topic. According to Cath Caldwell there are two psychological pieces about color. “How colors make us feel” and “The Symbolism of colors.” (Caldwell, p. 72). I could easily go down the path of color psychology and how it’s applied in branding and marketing, but I wanted to challenge myself. I love to learn about other cultures and see what similarities we share but also understand what difference we have and understand why. I’m a martial artist. I’ve studied American, Korean, and Japanese styles. Naturally, I could write about the differences between American and Asian cultures as it regards to color. Then, it struck me. My wife and I will be travelling in June to visit Norway. Why not start my learning of the Norwegian culture through the symbolism of color? For that reason, this blog is dedicated to Professor Akselsen. I look forward to meeting you and your family. Now here’s my blog on the meaning of color in Norway. Specifically, the meaning of Norway’s country flag!
Flag of Norway
A nations flag is symbolic of it’s people and the country itself. To understand the colors of Norway’s flag we first need to understand the history of the flag itself. You see, this was not Norway’s first flag. It is actually the sixth iteration. Note throughout the history of the flag red and white remained a part of the theme. This will become important for when we eventually get to the current version of the flag.
1200’s to 1380 (1st)
The first use of a banner of flag is believed to have started in the middle ages around the 13th century. While Norway was independent they flew a bright red flag with a gold upright lion holding a yellow and white axe.
1600’s to 1814 (2nd)
Then when Olaf Haakonsson assumed both the thrones of Denmark and Norway a simpler red flag with a nordic cross was created. This represented the political union of Denmark and Norway. The Nordic cross represents Christianity which was and still is the predominant religion of the region. The red flag with the white cross is actually the Danish flag.
1814 to 1821 (3rd)
With the defeat of the Danish in the Napoleonic war, Norway was now able to separate from Denmark. While similar to the previous Denmark-Norway flag, Norway added a modified version of the Norwegian crest. The gold lion with a yellow and white curved axe in the canton (upper left) of the flag.
1821 (4th)
This current version of the Norwegian flag was developed in 1821 and presented by Fredrik Meltzer, who was at the time a member of the constitutional assembly. The addition of the blue cross symbolized liberty. It’s believed that inspiration of the red, white, and blue colors were drawn from the flags of countries like UK, Netherlands, France and the United States. Meltzer saw these countries as a beacon of freedom.
1844 to 1898 (5th)
Political situations made it difficult for Norwegians to fly there own flag developed by Meltzer. While they could fly it on land, merchants and naval vessels were required to fly the Swedish flag to avoid capture by pirates. Otherwise, they were not protected. In 1844 per the King of Sweden a modification to the flag was allowed for merchant and naval vessels. The Norwegians had to place a smaller emblem in the canton of their national flag. This became known as the “herring salad” flag.
1905 to Present (6th)
While the present flag of Norway was used on dry land, the adoption of the current flag was delayed on merchant and naval ships. This delay to about seven years. It wasn’t until the union of Norway and Sweden ended on 10 June 1905, that all of Norway could fly the flag we see today.
Remember I stated earlier, a red and white theme remained throughout the history of the flag. Well, the red and white actually signifies their original union with Denmark, while the blue symbolizes their union with Sweden. The whole of the flag (red, white, and blue) represents the freedom they share with other nations such as the UK, Netherlands, France and the United States. Also, it keeps the connection of their history and how they were formed. So, you see a nation’s flag and the colors they choose can have a significant cultural meaning. Maybe in another blog, if we were to compare the flags of the nations here who share the red, white, and blue theme you would see similarities in color but differences in what they mean to a given nation.
Citations
Caldwell, C., et. al. (2019). Building Blocks. In Graphic Design For Everyone (pp. 71-89). , DK Publishing.
Typography. What is it? And why should we care? Well, I used to think that too until recently. The truth of the matter is we encounter typography everywhere; books, computers, mobile phones, TV. Just as we learn that we should stop and take in the world all around us. We can do the same for typeface. According to Jamie Hearn “typography is the art of arranging type to suit its context, and the bedrock of all good design.” (Hearn et. al., 2019, p.53). Jaye Hannah, of CareerFoundry.com, says this “Typography is the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the copy legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader.” (Hannah, 2023). So, in essence typography is a bigger deal than when we first thought. Designers use this knowledge to engage their audience. Therefore, knowing the audience as we learned in my prior blog sets up what typeface to use for which audience.
Before we start one important note that many designers will note is that the words typeface and font are used interchangeably and should not be because there are differences. I must admit I was (and from time to time) guilty of this mistake. Hearn points this out by explaining that “typeface describes a whole family of characters, regardless of size, or style, that share the same design features.” Whereas, “font describes a set of characters within the typeface that share a style.” (Hearn et. al., 2019 p. 52).
We could go down a rabbit hole about the anatomy and history of typefaces (serif, slab-serif, sans-serif, script, and display). Typefaces have been around for centuries and there are a lot of good material on their history. For now it’s safe to say there are many years ahead of me to learn more and choose wisely. However, for now I know that its best to stay away from the typeface Papyrus.
Comics Sans however, may need a rethink. Unlike my peer the “paragraph designer” (you know who you are) I’m a visual curator and one of my jobs is to ensure all our learnings are equally accessible for our employees. With that in mind I learned something new this week about typography. Did you know that according to Discovery ABA, 10% of the world population has Dyslexia. That’s about 780 million people! The British Dyslexia Association states that typefaces such as Comic Sans actually is easier for those with Dyslexia to read. An article in The Lawrentian, student newspaper of Lawrence University states “Especially due to its mimicry of the way humans instinctively write to make our natural inconsistencies more legible, Comic Sans optimizes readability.” (rukmini-raman, 2021). Something to think about before not using the Comic Sans typeface.
Mood Match
According to Grace Fussell of Envato Tuts, “Fonts that provoke a psychological reaction can be used to make a brand feel more trustworthy, friendly, or aspirational, with designers often turning to emotional fonts to give brand identities a powerful psychological impact.” (Fussell, 2024). All that to say certain typefaces and their fonts within evoke certain moods and reaction.
New to typography we were challenged to create a mood font demo. The challenge was to select 6 nouns. For each noun we needed to provide 3 different fonts to represent the chosen noun. All-in-all we would have 18 variations. However, before I set out to pick the fonts what nouns would I choose? Well for me it was simple. I’m an avid open water swimmer, rescue diver, and scuba diver. Therefore, I chose words of the ocean. More specifically, sea creatures large and small. They were dolphin, whale, shark, octopus, jellyfish, and starfish. After I picked my nouns carefully, I then wrote them out on my Remarkable notepad. Next to each noun I wrote 3 descriptive words. This would hopefully help me in choosing which typeface and font within I would use. After writing the noun and their descriptors, I sketched out roughly what I envisioned the font might look like (see image below). Then, once I was satisfied with the sketch, I went into Illustrator and came up with each of the fonts (see images below sketch).
Sketching ideas of the different typeface characteristics
In A Typeface Not So Long Ago…
For the next piece we were asked to create a “Type Specimen.” I’m like What??? I was quite intimidated at first because I wasn’t sure if I could pull this off. However, after looking at the plethora of examples provided, I was like “You got this!” But Tony what’s your heading got to do with this? Hold on, I’m getting there. So, I was looking for a typeface that spoke to me. Therefore, I began looking up one of my favorite movies Star Wars. Google: What typeface does Star Wars use? What I got back was Trade Gothic, Avenir, and finally, News Gothic. In researching my typeface I found out that George Lucas actually created the opening text crawl to mimic the text in two of his favorite films growing up: Cecil B DeMille’s Union Pacific (see below) and the 1940’s Flash Gordon Open crawl.
Union Pacific – look familiar?
It turns out that the title uses a newer gothic font but the opening text crawl and the end credits use the News Gothic typeface. There you now have how this heading ties into this section. Once I had this I went into Illustrator (design tool of choice) and knew my theme had to be based around Star Wars. Along the way I found out that the movie and music industries used News Gothic too. With this in mind I used the free transform tool and create outlines to come up with my final type specimen for News Gothic.
Type Specimen for News Gothic – An underrated typeface
Swag and More
The last part of this trip down typography lane was to create more business identity for branding. Given that today’s culture rarely uses paper, I’d thought it would be fun to continue the logo design I did for the Small Batch Kitchen. I created a business card, and 3 swag items (coasters, coffee/tea mug, and a water bottle) to continue their brand identity. I kept to the chosen green, brown, and white colors in the branding guide while showcasing one of their more popular items blueberry basil spread to bring in the blue color.
And Now for Something Completely Different
There’s this YouTuber Elle Cordova. When she’s not playing in her band, she’s doing this YouTube shorts. I happened to find this one about fonts (yeah I know it’s really typeface but hey enjoy). Knowing what I now know about typography (typeface vs fonts), I found these hilarious especially part 2 as Aptos is now the default “font” on my Microsoft Word documents. Enjoy!
The world of Graphic Design takes into consideration everything around it. What do I mean by that, you may be thinking. Great question! Before a graphic can be designed or even conceptualized, the designer must take into account who they are designing the asset for. This becomes even more true when being asked to come up with a company’s brand. A company’s brand is their identity, their story. Brand creates a connection between the customer and the company. Therefore, a graphic designer needs to think about the following: the client’s story, values, goals, audience and competitors. Once the designer understands this, they can choose a design to serve a function. That is, colors, typography, logo, layout, messaging, and emotion will create the connection between the target audience and the company.
In the book Graphic Design for Everyone, the first two chapters deal with Understanding Your Brand. Contributing author Julia Woollams states, “The starting point for any design project is to define the outcome you want. A clear set of aims or objectives will enable you to make the design decisions that will ensure you achieve the best results.” (Woollams, p. 15). The slide show below provides a high-level look at some of the steps when considering a branding strategy.
Brand Starts Here…Who’s Your Target?Research TrendsLogo and Type Design
Brand Design Considerations
Once the designer understands the messaging, mood, target audience, and competition, it’s time to begin building out the brand. According to Woollams “Once designed, a logo will be at the heart of your design tool kit.” (Woollams, p. 35). Because of the importance of the logo, the designer will want to consider multiple options for their logo design. Another consideration is the use of color. As part of the toolkit, the designer needs to keep imagery in mind. “Your logo should mean something beyond its design. Any imagery you use can represent a range of meanings, so consider them fully before you commit.” (Woollams, p. 36). Another important aspect of the brand strategy is to create a brand plan. By that I mean keep things organized to help keep track of your progress. To do this, break out your plan into three general sections: Preparation, Prelaunch, and Launch. (Woollams, p. 40-41). The following is a summary of what Woollams lays out in the section.
Preparation
During the preparation phase, you define the goals and outcomes of the brand strategy. This would also include writing the creative brief, which in turn will set the tone for how to conduct the next section prelaunch.
Prelaunch
It’s during this phase that several additional details are thought through. Broken down into four stages (research, verbal, visual, and development), each stage within this phase helps to propel you closer to the creation of the brand assets.
Launch
The launch phase is just that… the brand is released to the world for your target audience to see. During this phase, most of the emphasis is on promotion, publicity, and creating any additional assets needed to meet the needs and interests of the customers.
Citations:
Woollams, J., & Caldwell, C. (2019). Understanding Your Brand. In Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself (pp. 8–45). DK Publishing.
Local Business Re-brand…The Process
Based on all the information I learned from the great book Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself by Cath Caldwell, I thought I’d try re-branding one of the local business in my town of Lansdale, PA. The business I chose is called Small Batch Kitchen. They specialize in homemade specialty spreads, salts, and gifts. We are actually a customer and love their unusual spreads such as Blueberry Basil and Strawberry Rhubarb. The reason I chose this local business was because their logo, while simple, looked too bland. Therefore, I’ve created not only a re-design of their logo, but also a mood board to help guide my design, and finally a brand plan to pull it all together.
The business was established as a home-based business back in 2014, but outgrew it’s homebase by 2019 due to the popularity of their products. Sheila Rhodes is proud to use locally sourced produce in their product line. For a rebrand timed with the 10th anniversary of the store, I thought it would be good to tie in the sustainability and local sourcing idea along with the idea of farm-fresh ingredients. Working with this idea, I created a mood board to help envision the final logo concepts. Inspiration came from the Small Batch Kitchen website, the local farms around my area, color palettes in my home, and specifically researched stock photos. The images feature earth tones, which creates warm and welcoming feeling. The use of subtle greens and browns mixed with the bolder colors of red, blue, and green create some contrast.
Next was choosing the typography. What was the font weight going to be? Would I use a cursive font or a typed font? Or, a combination? I decided I was going to keep close to their original combination of handwritten font and typed font. However, I was going to modernize it a little. I believe this will help with the re-brand as existing customers won’t see it as a drastic change, but also as a chance to bring in new customers. Now that I found the two font types I was going to use, I needed to include imagery. The current branding is using what is known in the industry as Logotype. Knowing a simple logo will work better and do more, I used various line drawing imagery which would keep with the minimalist theme. The imagery I experimented with included: wooden spoons, mason jars, mixing bowls, herbs, fruits and vegetables, and a sustainability icon in varying configurations. No…not all at the same time. My goal here was to create the feeling of homemade and fresh ingredients but give a sense of local sourcing and being responsible. Below is a link to the brand plan I created for this project.
