How much time do you usually spend on font promo images (specimen)

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  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,436
    @Claudio Piccinini I used Coolors. I locked two blues from my logo when generating palettes, that way all my color schemes have a harmonic relation to one another.
  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    Ray Larabie said:
    @Claudio Piccinini I used Coolors. I locked two blues from my logo when generating palettes, that way all my color schemes have a harmonic relation to one another.
    Thanks! It looks very useful. Does it provide the service for free?
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,436
    @Claudio Piccinini Coolors is free. You can make an account to save palettes if you like but it's not required. If you use common colors like I do, you can bookmark it and it saves the hex codes in the URL.
  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    Matthijs Herzberg said:
    I used to be worried that heavily stylized promotional images would skew the way in which potential customers view a typeface, but so far I have seen many folks use them in contexts I couldn't have possibly imagined.
    I understand about the "heavily stylized", that’s related to my observation on "fake uses". What you have done here, however, is more of a simulation of outdated or worn artefacts, which is different. More in the line of an illustration than of type showcase.
  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    Frode Helland said:
    For a recent release, we commissioned a series of collages by Dado Queiroz in collaboration with printer and designer Benjamin Hickethier. We collected discarded remnants of industrial production and packaging to be recreated and remixed with new type and printed on a selection of different stock in Stavanger before shipping to Brussels. We spent about 6 months, a good part of which stuck in customs pondering how to tax a stack of papers – raw material for art.



    This one is my favourite of the ten produced.

    I noticed them in your recent PDF specimens, and I loved the "type in actual use" feel of these, especially since you treated them basically as photos.
  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    I would like to do promo pictures (aside from the technical specimen) for the launch of De Vinne. If I do so, I might post them here for discussion on imagery related to historical typefaces which "already have had their own time" exposition.
  • Russell McGorman
    Russell McGorman Posts: 262
    I released this face about 5 days ago. On the face of it, it took me two days to make the 15 posters and another day to to put together the glyph images. However, the font was substantially completed 4 or 5 years ago, so I've had plenty of time to play around with it and I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do when it came time to make the posters. 
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    edited June 2021
    Russell McGorman said:
    released this face 

    Stellar stuff, I see no way it could be improved. 

  • Russell McGorman
    Russell McGorman Posts: 262
    Vasil Stanev said:
    Russell McGorman said:
    released this face 

    Stellar stuff, I see no way it could be improved. 

    Thank you! 
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,436
    I love the lack of "pinching" in this one and how it looks saturated. I've been thinking about how exaggerated weight compensation on joints is due to fall out of fashion any day now.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    @Cristóbal Alarcón Thanks for the detailed and precise input with particular examples, I find it very helpful.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Here is what I came up with for my latest release: https://bit.ly/3iUelhM

    Analysis: 

    - It's a one weight font (handwritten, display) so I had to rely more on "in-use" examples and shiny colorful visuals instead of classic specimen images (that Cristobal mentioned)

    - Because it's not a family I decided to keep a reasonable number of images (10) 

    - 1 Cover Image: Again, I've been told that cover images with color/texture/photo overlay backgrounds go better than solid color (especially better than the white background). This probably makes sense for this kind of "small" fonts and stores specialized for them (Creative Market for example). 

    I made a free version of the font available (all caps, limited multilingual/punctuation set). So I put a big sign "FREE FONT" on the cover image to grab attention on Behance and wherever the news about the freebie will be shared. 

    - 2 Influenced by Vasil's comment, the second image goes right to the "suggested use" which is an inspirational quote visual. Big font size, motivational message, photo-based background.

    - 3 Album cover, convenient to show figures and medium size font. The front shows all caps setting, background Title Case. The price shows sterling :)

    - 4 Suggested use (for notes and comments around the main text) combined with the typeface style features. Two birds with one stone. Very big characters so the features (ink traps in particular) could be clearly visible. Up to 5 features not to make the image crowded.

    - 5 Suggested use: Stickers and sticky notes, some motivational events mentioned in the text, and pleasant activity depicted on the sticker.

    - Then relatively short text description, mentioning my Instagram account.

    - 6 and 7, classic specimen images showing words at different font sizes and various multilingual words. These words are reused from previous specimens since I found these words' lengths convenient.

    - 8 Suggested use, a postcard, reused from the earlier specimen.

    - 9 Paragraph with one "fancy exotic" character very large next to it.

    - 10 Full Set. I put this very important information at the end, guessing that careful buyers will anyway look for it, while "short attention span buyers" prefer in-use and fancy designed images. Maybe a mistake.


  • Eris Alar
    Eris Alar Posts: 455
    edited June 2021
    As a type user I might be more old school, as I find samples like the ones Anita used for Every to be enough to sell me the type. It was reinforced by the generous discount ( I could not justify the cost otherwise), and being on her email newsletter list where she explains some of the philosophy of the design. https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/anita-jurgeleit/every

    I have licensed more type due to email newsletters than anything else. Combined with launch discounts and seasonal sales, the newsletter puts a spotlight on the release and the marketing copy (if well done) helps me feel like an insider being shown behind the curtain and let in on a secret. It's also one reason I love David's Font of the Month Club. 
  • Cristóbal Alarcón
    Cristóbal Alarcón Posts: 78
    edited June 2021
    This is my opinion, it may differ from one to another.
    The presentation is overall nice, but there's something there that doesn't fits. I can't really say what it is, but one thing I notice is that it's a slanted/Italic typeface, which, I believe, limits the contexts it can be used.
    For example, you used it in designs with a reasonable amount of text like that letter, but I think a more appropriate use would be for "Quotations" examples due to its slanted/italic nature.
    Another thing I saw is that in the 4th image it says it's best for comments and notes. Without saying it, I think this typeface should be better in display uses rather than for long texts, except for "Quotations" as mentioned previously. Maybe providing more examples of short texts could be a better option?
    Overall, I think the most solid images are 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7, and maybe 3



  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    @Cristóbal Alarcón Thanks for the careful look and for your comments, they really make sense :) I wanted to have a kind of "paragraph" to show that it can stand a few lines of text, especially in the handwriting simulation context, but Postcard might be quite enough for that purpose. That YEN image might be redundant, and one more juicy display usage instead might be a better choice. Thanks!
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Monotype's take on the promo images:
    https://foundrysupport.monotype.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042244111

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