Dictionary Today

January 2010 / Typography / Conceptual

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Concept-stage designs for a dictionary. I was asked to consider a dictionary design project and given a very broad remit. I suggested that paper dictionaries were superceded in almost all practical aspects by digital dictionaries, but that it was often fun to flick through a dictionary. So I created a dictionary for browsing, with lots of intricate typographic detail.

Definitions are set in one of three type sizes, linked to the frequency with which people look up that word on the Oxford English Dictionary online. Definitions are also set in a typeface or lettering styles contemporary with the time of the word's origin, which required the creation of one custom typeface based on the earliest forms of the Roman alphabet.

To allow all this variation, a typographic grid based on the Fibonacci sequence was used to allow many different sized elements to fit together. I prepared two different conceptual mockups, one using the freeform grid and giving it lots of space, and one using a more traditional grid.

Each dictionary section is to begin with an opening page which uses a different paper stock to the rest of the dictionary, illustrated with an illuminated letter by a contemporary illustrator. The heavier paper stock allows the reader to find the start of a section quickly by feel.

Full development is documented at dictionarytoday.dlow.org
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