Type As Decoration

For Your Typographic Information

Thinking outside the alphabetical box

These patterns were made by combining/pairing/alternating the daggers and asterisks of ITC Bodoni Seventy-Two Pro.

Type is usually meant to be read. But not always! With a little imagination, you can use many typefaces to create engaging decorative elements. These include: bands, borders and rules; textures and patterns; typographic illustrations and type in a shape.

You can apply your original ornamentation to just about anything, from greeting cards and announcements to posters, book covers and editorial spreads. You can also use decorative type elements effectively on the Web and other dynamic applications. They can make great background patterns. Animating, or judiciously layering, these elements literally add a dimension of visual interest.

Creating your own embellishments can be a double-win: First, you take advantage of fonts you already have in your library. Second, you can design graphic or illustrative elements using the same typeface or family you’ve selected for your text. This unified look and feel can be quite pleasing.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be an illustrator extraordinaire to design non-typographic elements with type. A willingness to experiment, a bit of ingenuity – or even inspiration! – and a good understanding of your software are truly all you need.

Here are techniques to get you started:

• Search your type library (or your typeface of choice) for some interesting or inspiring glyphs. After skimming the regular and alternate characters, look at ampersands, signs and symbols, punctuation and accents.

• Start by either repeating one character or alternating two characters, until you get an interesting pattern or image. Tip: Don’t overlook cool numerals.

These decorative borders were created from the ampersands of ITC Chino Display Thin and Ultra.
The same arrangement of ampersands in a different typeface – such as American Typewriter Pro shown here - can create a very different effect.
This organic flourish was created using a variety of elements from Libelle Pro.

• Try all the weights of your chosen typeface. Thickness and other nuances may make for a great design in one weight, but a lackluster one in another. Combining weights can create a totally different effect.

• Mix it up. Use tracking, kerning, baseline-shift, as well as flipping, flopping, rotating… to see where it takes you.

• Copy and paste as needed to lengthen or deepen your pattern. Try alternating alignments for consecutive lines (F/L and F/R, for instance) to get a geometric pattern.

• Blend, combine, or alter shapes as desired. You may need to convert to outline to achieve the desired result.

• Last, but truly not least, play around with color. You will be able to sense whether your creation should take a lead role or be a supporting character.

Put on your creative thinking cap and have a blast playing around with this. After all, the objective of visual communication is to be seen, not necessarily read!