Trade Gothic Zine
Tamzyn O'Reilly | n10465090 | DVB201: Typographic Design | Assessment 2: Zines
RESEARCH/INSPIRATION:
Katarzyna Wenda Courier | Typographic zine
Wenda’s zine on typography was a great inspiration to me when creating my zine. Their use of colour scheme is something I found comfort in as they only used black and white and I was quite intimidated by the task of only using three colours. Their use of the grid structure guided me in what my bounds and limitations were. I loved their ability to make text an image.
Franco Dames: zine | energías, astros, tarot
Dames’ zine was a great contrast to look at in comparison to Wenda’s zine, as they use a strong grid structure but still break it in parts. I enjoyed their use of scale and the minimalistic look of their zine.
ZINE CONCEPT AND THUMBNAILS:
Zine Concept:
The concept of the zine is “A Font for the People” as when American Gothics came back into trend in the 1940s it was predominantly used for newspapers and websites as its blocked, clear, legible design made it a communication staple for working people. The overall aesthetic of the zine is to lean into the trade aspect of the font Trade Gothic to create a recognisable scene of walking paths, crossings, road closures, and other such normalities as seen in the urban world.
Thumbnails:
ZINE CONTENT:
Page 1: Front Cover
1. Gothic
2. A font for the people
Page 2: Contacts
1. 3. Trade Gothic’s History
2. 4. Trade Gothic in Use
3. 6. Trade Gothic’s Future
4. 7. Technical Aspects of Trade Gothic
5. 8. About the Designer
6. 12. Trends of the Trade Gothic Font
7. 14. About the Zine
Page 3: Feature Article
1. The History of Trade Gothic
2. The History of Trade Gothic starts in 1948, when it was first released, under its original name Gothic no. 18. Designed by Jackson Burke who, for the next 12 years, worked on expanding and improving the font, adding further weights and styles to the font family, naming them simply Gothic no. 17 through to Gothic no. 20. It wasn’t until several years later that the face was proven to be popular among what was then called “jobbing” or “Trade” work. The font family was then drawn with regular proportions and the group of faces was given the name “Trade Gothic”.
Three
Page 4-5: Feature Article
1. Four
2. Trade Gothic in Use
3. Trade Gothic has been used numerous amounts of times on record album art. It is seen used for the informational text like the track list or lyrics but also seen used sometimes for either the title of the album or the Artist’s name. In this context, Trade Gothic is popularly paired with artistic serif fonts that are flowy or edgy. The Trade Gothic family gives the album art a solid basis for the eyes to rest upon, it is a readable and recognisable face for people making it feel as if it is a font for the people.
Page 6: Feature Article
1. Trade Gothic Future…
2. Six
Page 7: Technical Aspects of Trade Gothic
1. Seven
2. Ty(t)i
3. At the first initial look at the Trade Gothic scripts, it is an atypical sans-serif face with a large X-height. The type is categorised as modern but has an impactful visual, meaning the font stands out when paired with other types, regardless of the other’s width or height. The discrepancies in the typesetting and the human-crafted features in the shape of the characters generate a sense of naturalism reinforcing the name that the typeface was given (Trade) as the human aspect makes the face a font for the people.
Page 8-9 + 10-11: About the Designer
1. J
2. B
3. Trade Gothic was designed by Jackson Burke who was born 1908 in San Francisco, California. He studied and graduated from the University of California in Berkeley and went on to have an incredible career in type development. Such incredible moments in Burke’s career were when he stood as the director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype between 1949 and 1963 where he and his team were responsible for the development of the TeleTypesetting System (TTS) for magazines. It was also there that Burke created three types: Trade Gothic, which he worked on between 1948 and 1960, Majestic, developed between 1953 and 1956, as well as Aurora, released in 1960. He also designed books for the Stanford University press in 1946, and up until his death he was in the committee on printing of Yale University Press. On a personal level, Burke enjoyed collecting Japanese artworks with his wife Mary Griggs. He also adored yachting as he was the former commadore of the Hobe Sound Yacht Club as well as a member of the New York Yacht Club and the Champion Island Yacht Club of Saint Paul. Jackson Burke passed away in 1975, at the age of 66 while living in Hobe Sound, Florida.
4. 美術
Page 12-13: Trends of the font
1. Twelve
2. Trends of the Trade (Gothic)
3. Gothic No. 18 (Trade Gothic first cut) is very similar to News Gothic as the typeface, when printed at a smaller size, had more of a nineteenth-century face, but at a large-scale was effectively the same as News Gothic Condensed. However, when the favourability of American Gothic returned in 1948 after the popularisation of European San Serifs had replaced it for a while, Trade Gothic’s smaller size was re-cut to match the larger ones and all collectively paired together being named Gothic No. 20. In the preceding years a condensed version appeared in both weights being called Gothic No. 17 and 19. When the bold weight emerged, as well as the regular weight, Trade Gothic was once again comparable to News Gothic, however, the bold weight sustained more of a flat side of its round letters (which would eventually return to its round edges) and the regular retained a rounder side to its edges, dissimilarly to that of News Gothic. Unfortunately, in some of Linotype literature they were instances in which Trade Gothic Regular was called lighter leading to the confusion when the actual light version emerged in later years. Trade Gothic, though compared to many other Gothic typefaces, it’s collection of all the weights, sizes and versions brought together into one font family, is what makes it great, easily accessible, well-functioning, recognisable and ideal for users.
Page 14-15: About the Zine
1. T
2. When creating my zine I was very appreciative of the wide variety and versatility of the font to Trade Gothic. With fourteen different styles, I could keep the layout interesting and appealing as the font would contrast and compliment itself. My chosen colour scheme of black, white and yellow first arose when I learnt that Trade Gothic received its name due to its popularity amongst “jobbing” work, which immediately reminded me of high viz yellow. However, in the context of this zine and with the contrast of the black, the bright yellow feels more grounded and approachable, reinforcing my idea and feeling that Trade Gothic is a front created for the usability of people making it a font for the people. As this was my first experience creating a zine, I learnt the importance of using negative space, the fact that an image can be more impactful if it is not crowded by unnecessary information. I learnt to look at each page and consider the hierarchy, balance, alignment, proximity, and legibility to benefit the visual appearance of the zine, but also to know when it is appropriate to ignore those elements to create a more dynamic mood.
3. G
Page 16: Back Cover
1.Trade
2. By Tamzyn Ianna
FINAL ZINE:
Final Mock ups
Final Spread
REFLECTION
Typeface
I exclusively use Trade Gothic’s typeface throughout the entirety of my zine. Thankfully Trade Gothic has more than fourteen different designs giving options and diversity amongst its own face.
Hierarchy
Considering hierarchy, I broke the normality of having bold large text for titles and small text for body but rather demonstrated hierarchy by the types of Trade Gothic’s font designs. I used Trade Gothic LT Regular for all body text and used Trade Gothic LT Condensed 18 Bold for all titles. Though the largest text on the page is the page number, its size can be considered too large to draw the viewer’s attention, therefore placing it lowest in the hierarchy.
Colour
The two colours I chose to use were yellow and white with a page colour of black. I chose to do this as when I heard the word “trade”, high viz yellow first came to mind, though in the context of the zine I muted the yellow giving it a more urban feel to draw on the concepts of construction and street design, as well as people in the real world.
Grid
In most parts of my zine I stuck to a three-column grid to maintain regularity and consistency amongst what might be chaotic in other parts. The strong structure of the grid allowed for the zine to be readable and permitted other non-text elements to creatively flow in the space.
Alignment
In the beginning I chose to have all text aligned to the centre as the justify all lines alignment I considered to be not as aesthetically pleasing. However, the more I created I realised my use of columns was not correct and when placed correctly the justify all lines alignment was the best option.
REFERENCES
Jackson Burke, Designer of Type. (1975, June 2). The New York Times. Page 28. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/02/archives/jackson-burke-designer-of-type-mergenthaler-aide-dead-collected.html
Linotype. (2023). Font Designer—Jackson Burke. https://www.linotype.com/671/jackson-burke.html
Linotype. (n.d.). Trade Gothic. https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/trade-gothic/story
Wenda, K. (2022). Courier: Typographic Zine. https://www.behance.net/gallery/150120353/Courier-Typographic-zine
