DIN SHRIFTEN
TYPOGRAPHY 1 FINAL
DIN SHRIFTEN is a final project I had in Typography 1 class where we needed to make a package of a font in a "gift shop" style manner. This gift shop is stationed within the museum of MOMA as it is one of the 16 fonts that has been accepted into the Museum of Modern Art font family.
It needed to have a couple requirements which included:
- a package design
- all font faces/styles
- an access code
- poster
- include pictures
- 750 words describing the font and its heritage
- only could allow 3 colors within the project.
Backstory:
Din Schriften, AKA DIN 1451, AKA FF DIN, is a Sans-serif typeface originally created in 1931 that is widely used for traffic, administrative, and technical applications. Dating back to the early part of the 20th century, the DIN 1451 type style is the original “industrial strength” sans serif design. Its name is an acronym for the German “Deutsches Institut für Normung” (German Institute for Standardization), and DIN was first used to identify railroad cars in Germany. Similar standards existed for stenciled letters.
As it is such a clear, simple, and likeable font it is WIDELY used today for not only german street signs but for brand campaigns for people and companies such as Adidas in some of their own personal campaigns as well.
Inspiration behind the assignment:
EVERYTHING HAD A MEANING!
There were multiple Easter Eggs that were within this assignment that I had a joy of creating during the process.
PACKAGE:
When I designed the shipping crate I needed to do something unlike usual packages that used currogated cardboard. for this project to have a successful image I needed to go above and beyond. For my font to be truely successful it needed to take on the persona of a true shipping container that a construction company or "crate" that the company DIN would ship out themselves. This is how the crate came to be, with included spray painted shipping labels such as "This Side Up", "Fragile", the company DIN logo, and more. On the top of the crate I also included a shipping crate number and the corresponding receipt bag for the shipping crate.
BOOK:
WIth this project I had to be really creative and clever with where I wanted to insert my text for my book. I thought since shipping crates have receipts why not create my receipt for the shipping crate and make the inside of it the book.
The front page is a receipt illusion, saying that the package is on its way to MoMA and its shipping label had everything included with the dates that the final was due on. The shipping address of MoMA and the Customer Number Name being D1N44 (which is one of the font families that were recreated from this original font).
I needed to include pictures within the project but I needed to keep the look of poor quality printing paper. This brought me to go into photoshop and manipulate the threshold value of the images to make it appear as if the image had gone through the receipt machine. Thus getting the images we have today.
INSIDE:
Inside of the shipping crate i wanted it to look very poor quality since it was shipping just a license plate. The inside is cushioned with the paper zigzag packing peanuts and includes a thin piece of plywood containing the access code written in marker, almost to make it look like an afterthought. Sitting in the middle of the packing peanuts lay a poster of monochrome license plates.
POSTER:
The poster included inside is double sided, one being all 18 font family type faces and the other being licence plates of Din Shrift. Each and every single name plate listed has a meaning. For example in the video you will be able to see a NYM 2014, which stands for "New York Museum 2014" Which is when it was inducted into the MoMA. The 3 monochrome colors chosen within the project was a yellow a brown and a grey. These were because I wanted to use colors most resembling and feeling like construction/street signs as possible.
