Vice 'Rule Britannia' Type and Logo

We wanted quite a hand drawn aesthetic for all the type to co-inside with Jessie's illustrations. While she worked on sketching out some characters from some of the episodes in the series I experimented with the type we would be using. The Vice logo had to be included in the ident so I started there. We couldn't make any changes to it however we could do what we wanted with the 'Rule Britannia' logo and 'A Vice Original Series' text.   

Vice Logo

After scanning in the drawings we decided which one we liked the best and matched Jessie's sketches to link both our work together. 

We wanted to move away from the obvious use of red, white and blue and create something that would make the videos stand out. During the crit a few people suggested that we use colours from the union flag but with a different Hue or twist to them.

Below are colour samples from the union flag adjustments.

Here are some .gif versions to see how they would animate in the video.

A VICE Original Series 

Wanting to continue the theme of British but not obviously British I started looking at what typefaces I could use for the rest of the text we needed. 

I came a across post on the website Font Deck Celebrating British Type which featured common typefaces created by British designers and used in the UK (Gill Sans in tube stations for example). 

Gill Sans

Eric Gill took inspiration from Edward Johnston’s typeface for London Underground. Gill Sans is described as having absolutely legible-to-the-last-degree letters by Gill himself. The typeface works well for both text and display work and has been used by British Rail until 1965, Penguin Books in the 1930’s and is currently used by the BBC.

Transport

Another British typeface associated with transportation is the appropriately named Transport. Created for the Department of Transport by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, this highly legible, sans-serif typeface is used on road signs throughout the UK. This typeface works great for bold and clear headings.

Calson 

In 1720, the English gunsmith William Caslon turned his hand to typeface design, and in 1722 designed a typeface in his name. The typeface took cues from Dutch Baroque types, which were then used extensively in England. Because of their remarkable practicality, Caslon’s designs met with instant success. Caslon was the Helvetica of it’s time; a legible and all-round typeface which saw widespread use. And three centuries later, this typeface is still as popular as ever.

These typefaces become popular because of their versatility and legibility which is important to consider when choosing a typeface for the ident as the information will need to be communicated as clearly as possible.  

Above are some British designed typefaces which can be used for the titles.