I began by mocking up the layout of the zine in Notability. I was trying to incorporate lots of hidden Star Wars references but ultimately decided against this as it did not align as well with the content aesthetically. My original colour pallet was blue, yellow and cream (as seen bellow). I chose not to continue with this colour scheme as it was not visually appealing and was too dark. Thus, I chose a much more saturated pallet of bubblegum pink, hot pink and the same cream. This allowed two complimentary colours with one neutral tone to balance out the vibrance and create interesting focal points. 

Page 1: Front Cover

Written Content:

1. Trade Gothic

2. ZINE BY LUCILLE BENNETT

Page 2: Contents

Written Content:

1. CONTENTS

2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

3. Introduction, Designer, Different Types, Usage, Features, Size Scale, Design Trends, Reflection

Page 3: Introduction

Written Content:

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. “From the first glance, Trade Gothic is a grotesque sans-serif font that has a large x-height.” The type is highly modern, but powerful. Thus it was typically used throughout the middle of the 20th century in America for the newspaper headlines and sub-headers. There are more irregularities across the type-setting than other sans-serif font families, such as latter types like Helvetica. This is evident through the more condescended default bold weight compared to the regular weight on some digital releases, which opposes the NORM. While the humanistic shaped features of the letters creates a sense of naturalism. Therefore Trade Gothic is more appealing to designers looking for a characterful effect to include from this typeface. 

Page 4: Different Types

Written Content:

1. Trade Gothic Light

2. Trade Gothic Light Oblique

3. Trade Gothic Pro Roman

4. Trade Gothic Pro Oblique

5. Trade Gothic Condensed #18

6. Trade Gothic Condensed #18 Oblique

7. Trade Gothic Bold Condensed #20

8. Trade Gothic Bold Condensed #20 Oblique

9. Trade Gothic Extended

10. Trade Gothic Bold Extended

11. Trade Gothic Pro Bold

12. Trade Gothic Bold #2

13. Trade Gothic Pro Bold Oblique

14. Tade Gothic Bold #2 Oblique

15. DIFFERENT TYPES.

Page 5: Usage

Written Content:

1. USAGE.

2. Trade Gothic is most well known for being the font utilised by the Star Wars Film Franchise. This is for their famous opening crawl that sets up the film’s disposition. All nine Star Wars films start with almost identical openings. They begin with the phrase “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” followed by the iconic logo “Star Wars” then in all capitals, a summary in three paragraphs of the previous story’s events.

3. Trade Gothic Bold #2 is the predominant typeface used for the crawl’s text. It is paired with Univers Light Ultra Condensed for the film’s titles. Their uniform and simplist letter forms combine well to create a brutal futurastic aesthetic.

Page 6-7: Size Scale

Written Content:

1. S i z e. S I Z E. S i z e. S I Z E.

2. x a e

3. The font has curved lower-case letters that extend just past their x-height. Most likely, this is to create an illusion that the letters are all the same height. As such, the curved letters appear shorter than those in the typeface with horizontal strokes or edges at the bottom and top of the letters. This is because the curved forms take up less space as they would horizontally.

4. A few of the lower-case letters in the typeface have varying heights across its ascenders. Notably, the lower-case is in line with the cap line, however the f is indeed taller than the cap line, while the t is even shorter.

5. A t h f

6. SCALE. SCALE. SCALE. SCALE.

Page 8-9: Features

Written Content: 

1. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz x4

2. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ x4

3. FEATURES.

4. F & E have differing lengths for interest, unique, clean, no nonsense, uniform lines

Page 10-11: Design Trend

Written Content:

1. D

2. Design Trend

3. 1234567890@#&*'"+:+;:!?{}..._^[]~\<

4. The year is 1908 and the most popular font, News Gothic was just released. Designed by Morris Fuller Benton, the original design had two condensed faces and was essentially Franklin Gothic but a lighter version. Fast forward to the late 1940s where the once successful sans serif fonts popular in Europe, such as Futura and Gill Sans, are declining in public interest. Thus, Trade Gothic was created in 1948. It was done so in response to the aforementioned “workhorse sans-serifs” that were becoming dated. At the time, the font face simply went by “Gothic” accompanied by a numeric suffix from 17 to 20. It was popular amongst advertisements for “trade” work jobs due to its condensed sans serif style. This is because after World War Two, Switzerland and German designers ignited modern design trends through the Swiss Design movement, also known as the International Typographic Style. The aim was to creates an objective and neutral approach to design that focused on the de-emphasation of individual expression. Thus the emerging designs were harmonious and clear, perfect for a modern age at the beginning of rising technology.

Page 12-13: Designer

Written Content:

1. JACKSON BURKE x10

2. DESIGNER.

3. Born in 1908, San Francisco and died 1975, Jackson Burke was an American type designer. After studying at the University of California, Burke became Mergenthaler Linotype’s Director of Typographic Development from 1949-1963. There, he designed many type faces, mostly the family of Trade Gothic.

Page 14-15: Reflection

Written Content:

1. Wow! I loved creating this zine! I have been making personal zines for my art for a few years now and every time it is so much fun. Although, all of those have been physically, handmade using cut up magazines. I was going to utilise this same process of hand collecting each letter and design element, however I did not go down this path for a few reasons. The task required the usage of only three colours which really limited how much I could use from the magazines as they contain hundreds of colours but rarely the same three hues for me to successfully create a physical zine. Also, the extensive time to individually cut out each letter definitely deterred me. Therefore, for this project it was my first time digitally designing a zine. Being able to use InDesign made the process easy for aligning the text and various elements. Also the ability to select an object and quickly change its colours into the desired one out of the three selected made designing very efficient. A challenge I faced was designing various page layouts that were interesting enough to stand out while also appearing as a cohesive zine. I was able to persevere through this by using a few repeated elements. These included all heading being 25.3 in size and the body as 13, evenly spaced out paragraphs, asterisks as a decorative element and always having all three colours on each page. An improvement I would make for the future would be including physically elements (either text lettering or elements) scanned in to add texture onto the flat digital design.

2. REFLECTION.

References:

1. Fonts In Use. (2023). Trade Gothic. Cargo Fonts In Use. Retrieved June, 2023 fromhttps://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/33/trade-gothic 

2. Fonts Family. (2019). Trade Gothic Font. Fonts Family. Retrieved June, 2023 from https://freefontsfamily.com/trade-gothic-font-family/

3. Star Wars Fandom. (2023). Opening Crawl. FANDOM. Retrieved June, 2023 from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Opening_crawl

4. Meggs. P.B. (2007). The International Typographic Style. Britannica. Retrieved June, 2023 from https://www.britannica.com/art/graphic-design/Graphic-design-1945-75