Designing With Hierarchy Through Restraint
In my Typography I class at the Savannah College of Art & Design, our fifth project was called ‘Festival Hierarchy’. According to the project brief, the objective is to, “Experiment with typographic hierarchy. Use tracking, leading, font, and more, to build a sense of order and understanding. Help the user make sense out of nonsense.”
When I first started this project, I probably felt the least confident compared to everything else we’ve done so far in class. For some reason, something about creating grids just doesn’t fully click in my brain yet. I don’t feel like I have a solid handle on which grid type is which (column, modular, hierarchical, baseline, etc), and that made me nervous. But I also knew that once I got a better understanding of how to actually use these grids, I’d be able to create something I felt confident in.
We started with 50 hand-drawn sketches, which honestly felt like a lot at first but did help me loosen up. Then we moved into 6 digital comps, followed by composition thumbnails, and then digital mockups in InDesign. From there, we made 4 refined mockups and then more mockups for our second critique.
After my first critique, I got the feedback that I wasn’t using the complete grids. Specifically, I was ignoring the diagonal lines. My previous mockups felt kind of one-note, so I pushed myself to experiment more by actually using those diagonals and bringing in a shape. That instantly opened up more possibilities for variety and interest.
Finally, we had to create 4 final layouts, each with a different order of hierarchy between the festival name, location, date/schedule, and summary. The professor assigned which element needed to be the top priority in each layout, so we couldn’t just pick what looked best.
There were a lot of restrictions:
We could only use one typeface from a list of basic typefaces.
Everything had to be in black and white.
Shapes were allowed in three of the layouts, but only one per layout.
For the first two layouts, all the type had to be the same size.
So yeah, very strict rules, but that was the whole point. This project was really about learning how to create hierarchy without relying on color, effects, or other easy tricks.
Looking back, I feel like I have such a better understanding of grids now, and I’m really grateful for that. I know it’ll help me a lot in the future, especially when it comes to creating stronger compositions and probably saving me some time too.
At first, I really didn’t like this project. I was frustrated because everything I made felt boring to me, and the restrictions felt suffocating. But once I started experimenting more, especially with the grids and diagonals, I found myself gaining confidence. I ended up actually liking what I created, even without color or intricate design elements.
This project definitely stretched me out of my comfort zone, but in the end, it was worth it.
