OUGD404 Accents: Who are you?

For this studio session we are asked to display 11 different accents in the form of type.

the accents we were given were:

• Scouse
• Geordie
• Essex
• Yorkshire
• Welsh
• Irish
• Jamaican
• Austrailian
• Pirate
• Russian

We then got in to groups of 4, we randomly laid our accents out on the table for another group to assort in to the correct accents. I found when doing this task that the easiest way of finding fonts that matched the accents was by employing strong stereotypes on each, e.g. The french is seen as a romantic, traditional and flowing accent, therefore most people tended to use script fonts with lots of detail and design. The task proved more difficult when we had to uncover the accents such as Geordie, Yorkshire, and Scouse. This was because these accents don't have obvious, glaring stereotypes. It was also hard to differentiate between the 3 as they are all very similar and all from northern england. Over all i think i performed well in this task. It was enjoyable and interesting to see how others had interpreted the task.

Here are my interpretations:

i found this task quite hard so looked at the connotations and imagery of each accent to help contextualise the typeface and the accent.

This was my typeface for geordie, the accent is very broad and heavy, much like the typeface i chose to represent in. There is a lot of glottal stops and it is a throaty, thick accent. Its is also not a very flowing accent which is why I have chosen square, block typeface, that is very separate.

This was my chosen typeface for french, i played on the connotations of romance and embellishment. The typography reminds me of the lettering used for an old bakery or dress shop in paris.

Focussing on the connotations of show biz and glamour of essex i chose this typeface.

This is my typeface for the Jamaican accent. It is reminiscent of the hippy and laid back life style of Jamaica. The heavy letters also show the slowness and relaxed pace of the accent when spoken.

This is my interpretation of the Liverpool accent. The accent is very nasally and quite spotty. It is spoken fast and can often be hard for other accents to understand, which is why the typeface is so close together, as the reduced legibility of the words mimics the difficulty it sometimes is to understand.

I found this one hard. This is my interpretation of the pirate accent. I chose to focus on the connotations and pick a typeface that was stylistically reminiscent of Pirates. I them added extra emphasis on to the word 'are' as it echoes the way in which pirates would speak.

This is my russian typeface. it is similar to the typefaces that would have been used in the russian constructivist era. It is also boxy and square, this shows the abrupt sounds of the accent, as it is very sharp and to the point, there is no embellished or emphasised words or sounds.

This is my choice for the yorkshire accent. It is quite a monotonous and smooth accent, hence the level letters and rounded soft edges. It is also seen as a friendly accent which is another reason i chose the round edges. I chose a san serif font as the accent is what it is, it is a widely spoken accent and isn't particularly considered a posh or pompous accent.

This is my choice for the welsh accent it is a rhythmic and poetic accent, when spoken it normally starts and ends high pitched mimicked through the sweeping of the typeface.

I also took away the 5 fundamentals of type:.

• use no more than 3 different typefaces at one time
• Always consider legibility
• Always consider readability
• Gothic or roman only for body copy.
• No more than 3 weights at one time.