Vernacular Typography

Vernacular means the day to day things, the everyday. It’s like dialect it comes naturally. E.g. hand painted signs, signatures, graffiti and all type/lettering that surrounds us in the everyday environment.  

A good example of an artist which puts vernacular typography into practice is So-Me. So-me is a Persian-French artists; his style took dominance over the late 80s and early 90s. Creating graphic designs, websites and animations for a range of clients; also being the art director for the Ed Banger Record, where he created some of his most iconic pieces. 

His style is very energetic, colour clashing, quirky, has a minimal palette of colours and has its unique, hand drawn vernacular typography. His work taking into consideration quick ideas, semiotics, history, referencing, balance text, voice, tone of voice etc. With his mixture of handwritten type and inputs of small graphic imagery they all complement each other and balance out the image as a whole. All dramatic yet legible and it is clear to recognize his graphic style.

It is clear to say that his is influenced from posters in the 60’s, the pop movement and graffiti culture. He’s also looked at fine art portrait artists; taking things and changed things around. He does a lot of referencing in his work, looks at forms of classic communications and takes it to a new modern approach.

Through his works you can also see relations to commercial logos, movies and games; I guess how this is adding to his personal likes, dislikes and influences to his work. (he uses the Disney typeface for another word) But also at the same time as doing this he is stimulating further thought for the viewer making them reflect on consumerism.

So-me’s style was so popular he was commissioned by Nike to print his style on a trainer and commissioned by Kanye West to create his music video.  His style is still very influential today: looking at current advertisements like virgin media’s u can see some of the key relations and styles which So-Me uses.

It is clear to say that so-me’s unique style is very strong and no matter what platform or media he puts it on it screams his unique approach to visual design. From trainers, to music videos his visuals are powerful and exaggerate so-me’s bold technique.
I recommend all designer to look into some more of So-me: his imagery is truly graphic, from his approach, to imagination, bold and consistent style!

Below are some of the musice videos so-me has produced!

JUSTIC – D.A.N.C.E

 KANYE WEST – good life

Vernacular typography I feel can relate to the commercial brands which use particular typography, as the style has become so iconic that people instantly recognise it even if it is used for a different word. Shows how consumerism works through particular typeface recognition. Therefore the script/type has become an everyday and like a dialect to that brand itself.