make 'em POP
type specimen deck
to create a type specimen around a particular typeface, and choose a theme to enhance the chosen type's unique personality.
The specimen would be presented in the form of card deck (4 suits of 13 cards each and 2 jokers) to promote the typeface using a topic of choice as a vehicle for content.
I chose to explore four decades of pop culture — the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s — using the iconic Avant Garde Gothic.
The challenge
typography / illustration
Skills Used
ADDY Silver: Packaging design
Awards (!!!)
Prof. Judy Salzinger
SCAD Atlanta
Mentor
Fall 2023
Completed
What's poppin' with
Avant Garde?
...and what screams POP CULTURE more than Avant Garde?
Sleek and modern with sharp edges and geometric faces, Avant Garde, designed around 1968 by Herb Lubalin for the magazine that shares its name, is famous for its rule-breaking nature and unconventional style (and it's one of my personal favorites).
And so I thought, "What better typeface to dive into four decades of pop culture than this?"
Colors for every decade
Nothing says pop culture like bold, bright colors and visuals that well and truly POP - or at least stand out. Speech bubbles also became a tool for me to display popular slang of the decade.
Too much pop culture means too little space.
40 years of pop culture is...a lot. And you know what they say:
Figuring out the visuals
For my illustration style, I used a style with thick outlines to really make them pop (that's pretty on theme, if I do say so myself). Illustrations always had a reference to the time period AND the card.
For the content itself, I chose slang and phrases that were popularized during that decade, along with movie quotes, song lyrics, and references to literary material released.
Telling the story of pop culture ain't for the weak, okay.
Lemme tell you something.
This system is ELABORATE, okay?
One of the first things I did was set up a system to organize what information would be displayed on each card - with respect to both the typeface and the decade of pop culture being reflected. Different content from the decade of pop culture I was referencing was matched to a certain aspect of the type specimen, and I tried to stick to the same formula throughout.
I came up with a grid system for each similar set, to maintain order in all the chaos, and to help identify each set of cards from another.
Time to lay all my cards on the cable, one decade at a time.
