From “Into the West” as sung by Annie Lennox
Lay
down
Your
sweet and weary head
Night is f
a
l
l
i
n
g
You’ve come to journey's end
S l e e p
before
And
They are cal
dream
now
of the ones who came
li n g
From across the
d i s t a n t shore
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon
you will see
y
a
w
All of your fears will pass a
Safe in my arms
You're only s l e e p i n g
Analysis
“Into the West” by Annie Lennox is a lullaby
and a song of peace after a long journey. To
best portray the sentiment and meaning of the
song I utilized a variety of techniques with the
text.
Encompassing the entire page, the text I chose
from “Into the West” fills the white space and
draws attention to certain words like ‘falling’
and ‘away’ White describes white spaces as
“defined by the positive shapes” (12). The text
does not simply fill the left side or the right.
With ample line spacing the whole page is full.
The song is not meek; the voice of Annie
Lennox fills the lyrics just as I wanted the text
to fill the page and the white space.
A guideline suggested by White I clearly and
purposely broke: “Keep your typography
simple….Consistency is perceived as quality”
(15). In order to emphasize anything, I had to
be inconsistent to draw the eye to it and force
the reader to stop and think about why I made
the decisions I did.
One of the few areas I was consistent was my
‘non-importance’ font. That font, stylus BT,
was used on text I did not wish to emphasize
with a unique font. Also, doing as White
suggests, “consider the audience,” I knew this
piece was most likely going to be viewed on a
screen, so I chose a sans serif font (15). By
having a ‘non-importance’ font, it makes the
emphasized text with different fonts stand out
so much more to the reader.
The various fonts I used to emphasize
particular words have very specific reasons to
their use.
For example, the text box giving credit to the
song and artist is in Ringbearer font, which is
the same text used in the Lord of the Rings
logo from the recent film adaptations, where
the song originates.
Another font I utilized includes Times New
Yorker to express ‘weary’. The font looks tired,
not perfect, and not exactly clear: all
characteristics of weary.
From “Into the West” as sung by Annie Lennox
For the words ‘why’ and ‘what’, I used Ashley
font to express a handwritten quality of a small
child. In our culture we expect children to ask
millions of questions. In the song I wanted the
questions to seem unusual and unique. Since
“a good solid bold can enhance legibility,” I
had to make why and what bold when I used
Ashley, because on its own, it does put enough
ink on the word to be legible (White 46).
Similar to Times New Yorker, Rub This! was used
for the word ‘journey’. The text in Rub This!
looks as if it has gone a journey; it is worn and
tired.
The only time I utilized all caps was in the
word ‘safe’ using embossing tape 1.
Not only drawing emphasis from the unusual
font, but also all caps, ‘safe’ is incredibly
prevalent. I believe the song as a whole
passes on a meaning of safety more than
anything else.
Placement and spacing were key to conveying
the messages in my text. To emulate falling,
the word falling is falling down the page just
as the word away is ascending away from the
line of text.
Placing the word ‘before’ not directly after the
word came, but on the next line on the left
side forces the eye to go not only down, but
also forces the eye to return to the left side.
As sung by Annie Lennox, the word ‘sleep’ is
long and drawn out so I used excessive
character spacing both for the word ‘sleep’ and
‘sleeping’. Not only in the song is sleep drawn
out, but the actual act of sleeping is usually for
a goodly length of time.
Lastly, I employed the use of font size to
create emphasis and effects for words. The
word ‘calling’ uses ascending font sizes for the
letters as to emulate the act of calling
someone.
For the word ‘distant’ I had the middle ‘t’ be
the smallest font size and the letter
surrounding it build to the outside as to make
the ‘t’ be a distance away.