Typography Analysis

For this assignment, I chose a cover page for an article, about a 90s-band-gone-indie from a music, film, and culture magazine entitled Paste (February 08). Although it isn’t anywhere online, it’s fairly simple to describe: three film strips run horizontally across a yellow page spelling out “Beautiful Beat: Nada Surf Rides on” in all capital letters. In between each film strip are the words “Nada Surf managed to parlay a dopey one-hit wonder into a credible career,”,”switching from a major label to a beloved indie and gaining a considerable fanbase.”,”Now back with their fifth LP, Lucky, they’re done trying to please anyone besides themselves.” The strips themselves are transparent, with pictures of the band caught in the first, the second becoming blurrier, and the third finally just showing streaks of colors. All of the letters done on this page are capital, including author and photographer name, in a smaller size on the third strip.

In total, there are two fonts are used and six sizes (although the film strips also have their own type that say “Fuji RHP III 29,” and it lends to the credibility of the photo strip. The bigger and bolder letters that introduce the title of the article are clear, and being put against the background of the photos going “faster” depict the title actually “riding on,” like the band is said to be doing in their career. It is also fitting the last segment in between enhances the band “being done.” By the bottom of the page, you can no longer see their faces in the film strip and it helps to enhance the image of them being past what people care, and even past the view of the reader.

As there are two different things going on vertically (line 1, line a, line 2, line b, line 3, line c), the eye is at first overwhelmed with both sets of texts, not really focusing on which one to read. I saw the letters in between easier than if I read the actual title, and it would have probably been too exhausting to read the storyline in the huge, transparent text. On the other hand, the biggest letters are in the middle, depicting the band’s name on top of the hazy photograph of them. The top line, in smaller capital letters reads “Beautiful Beat:”, and it almost animates the page even more, the strip seems to be ‘beating’ as it continues flashing down the page. 

Although there are only two fonts going on, there are a lot of sizes and three styles: purple clear, and yellow on top of a yellow, almost burnt page. The images on the film strips help to portray a moving design that is also (not coincidentally) the topic of the band’s movement. It works very well as a cover page for the article, and still held my interest after 10 minutes, but once you start to realize the movement of the page and film as you read down, after about a half an hour of looking at this, I’m starting to feel sick.