In my last update I was up to the point of my initial draft of my Contego coat of arms so the next step was to focus on the typographic elements. As mentioned in my last update the graphic style employed by the Soviet administration has influenced my work on this project quite heavily and as I looked at adding some type to the coat of arms I decided to look at some Soviet propaganda posters for inspiration.
I looked at the type of numerous Soviet propaganda posters and noticed the typefaces used typically have characters with strong bold strokes, are angular in form and in keeping with the doctrine of the Soviets decorative elements are kept to a minimum. The next step was to look at typefaces with similar characteristics I could use for the Contego coat of arms.
I looked at various typefaces that had a Soviet influence and narrowed it down to the four featured above but each of them had elements I didn’t like. I thought that ‘Nyet’ and ‘East Bloc’ were too compact in form and that the counter areas (hole in the ‘o’) of the characters in ‘Kremlin’ and ‘Eurocentric’ were too large so I decided to make my own typeface.
In keeping with the angular style I’d employed for the coat of arms I decided to use a grid system for the characters and stick to straight lines, I also decided the characters would have narrow counter areas in keeping with the defensive theme.
I’ve still got some work to do on the punctuation marks and additional characters but I’m at a point where I can continue with the design of the coat of arms, thanks for reading and be sure to check back for more updates soon.