PechaKucha Presentation Task

PechaKucha Night, set up in Tokyo in February 2003, is a special event intended for designers to discuss new ideas and meet new artists. During the event, a presentation - containing different artistic images - is shown, though the designers only have twenty seconds to discuss the image before the next slide appears. Our class task was based on this. As a small group, we had to first research twenty typefaces - gathering images and information - before we were to show our presentation to the rest of the class, where we would then have twenty seconds to discuss each typeface individually. My slides are shown below.

I found it quite difficult to get all the information I had discovered across in only twenty seconds - and often found I was still talking when the next slide appeared. However, this meant that I was quickly trying to get the more important information across to the rest of the class.

When I was researching Bodoni, I was surprised how different in looks on different logos. For example, I wouldn't have realised that it is the same font used on Nirvana's album cover and Mamma Mia!'s theater posters - perhaps this is because Mamma Mia! and Nirvana are two very different areas of culture. However, Bodoni manages to achieve the right mood for each of them.

I was surprised - when I was researching these fonts - of how many appear on logos, and yet when you view these logos you don't take the type in as that specific font. I found it very interesting. I think that I will now definitely be looking at logos a lot differently. Knowing the font, for example, leads you to wonder why the designers chose to use it. Fonts usually have a background to them, which is why the designers chose to use it. For example, I learned from another group that Didot is used in many fashion brands, as it screams sophistication, high prices but good quality.

I was unable to include the information during my twenty seconds, but I found Eurostile to be a very interesting font. This was because that, though it appears quite square-shaped, the style of the font manages to stop appearing harsh due to the curves seen, for example, on the O and C. I also found it interesting to find that it was used extensively in the Science Fiction genre.

I felt that this task was a good way to expand our knowledge on fonts, as not only did I learn from the research I underwent, I also learned a lot from the presentation of others.