Type Specimen Book

For my typography class at San Diego State University, I was assigned Franklin Gothic and Glam Rock. At first they felt like total opposites, Franklin Gothic is this very clean, utilitarian font, and Glam Rock is all about excess and theatricality. So I started researching the genre, looking at the visuals, the attitude, the aesthetic, and tried to figure out how to make the font feel like that world.

The idea I landed on was tracing the letterforms with lipstick. The way it drags and smears gave the font this quality that felt genuinely glamorous and a little messy in the best way. It kept the bones of Franklin Gothic but made it feel like it belonged on a poster for a David Bowie show.

From there I built it out into a full typeface system and applied it across a music venue brand, designing posters, packaging, and other materials that all lived in the same visual world. Everything wrapped up in a type specimen book that documented the whole process from the first lipstick trace to the finished brand.