Adobo magazine held its first adobo Main Course, its first in a series of talks, seminars and workshops. Held at the Insular Life auditorium, it drew a SRO crowd of advertisers, art directors, graphic designers, writers, students and a handful of other industry practitioners—not once but twice.
On June 5, JWT Manila’s ECD Dave Ferrer spoke about how typefaces affect the way we perceive ads and how we should choose fonts. Jowee Alviar and Mon Punzalan of Team Manila charmed the audience with their obsession with Filipino symbols and graphics.
Popular demand brought the Main Course back on June 26. This time, it featured Joel Limchoc, co-executive creative director of BBDO Guerrero, who offered his own take on how art-based creatives should approach fonts. Jowee Alviar reprised Team Manila’s presentation.
Of course, the piece de resistance for both nights was “Helvetica”, the acclaimed documentary on the modern world’s most widely used typeface. Featuring interviews of the world’s most legendary—and surprisingly, still breathing—type designers, the movie was both enlightening and inspiring. It was fun to watch the audience laugh and kibitz through the screening, in the same the regular moviegoer would react to…say, “Ironman”. More than a few remarked that after viewing the film, they could finally put real faces and voices to names like Zapf and Hoefl.
Why the interest in typefaces? Perhaps it’s because no ever talks about it. Strangely enough, it’s so integral to the work we produce. With the exception of radio spots, every ad involves text that must be read and absorbed to create just the right effect. What that effect is depends on how legible the typeface is, how it’s set and what personality it conveys. As one of the legendary type designers said in the documentary, a typeface is a brand in itself.
Aside from the ad agencies and graphics design studios, a surprising number of advertisers attended both screenings. Among them were Figaro Coffee, Unilab, Century Properties, Chow King and PhilHealth.
Based on the feedback and the way people eagerly lapped up the talks and the film, it’s safe to say that the people who attended adobo’s first Main Course will never look at fonts the same way ever again.
