(Provision) Type Style Finder
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Typefaces that can be considered organic span a number of classifications,
although oldstyle serifs are often seen as the most organic overall. Their
rhythmic alternation between thin and thick, the curving flow of their
junctures, their oblique axes, and the plantlike extensions of their lower-
case branches, ascenders, and descenders make them feel inherently
natural. Some sans serifs, especially more recently developed, humanistic
faces, show modulation in their stroke weights and references to such
oldstyle forms, imparting a healthy vigor to a class that is often thought
of as mechanical. Toward the more decorative extreme, typefaces with
illustrative references to plants, cellular forms, amoebas, or exaggerated,
sloping curves on wide bodies, offer a more pictorial representation of
organic form. Script forms, though often delicate and somewhat romantic,
may sometimes convey a sense of the natural, evoking plant tendrils or
curling vines.
As the diametric opposite of “artificial,” design, type, and color that are
organic capture everything that is natural and alive. This sense of the
natural encompasses everything from forms that are outright biological
or vegetal in reference to more subtle formal relationships that evoke
movement, rhythm, and growth.
Spa Collateral
top, and detail, bottom
STIM Visual Communication
Timothy Samara
New York City USA
Organic
Concepts
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