Typography - Exercises
05/04/19 - 26/04/19 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Sia Man Sheng
0333877
LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 1: Introduction to Module
05/04/19 - week 1
We did not have a formal lecture this week but there is a briefing including what are we going to face in this module, the marks given for each assignments, different tasks and their expected learning outcome. Mr. Vinod did clearly showing and guiding us on setting up an e-blog by using wordpress.com step by step until we are all mange to handle it on our own. After that, he did show us an example of senior's work, so that we could have an image on what are we going to work on.
Lecture 2: Introduction to Typography
12/04/19 - week 2
Typography is a style and appearance of printed matter or a technique of arranging type in order to make it more readable and appealing. It is known as calligraphy at the initial stage and transform to lettering after that. Finally, this technique and style is known as Typography in this era.
Furthermore, Paul Rant reveals that there is no hard and fast rule in design fields, same goes to Steve Job, who believes that the awareness of realizing design is impactful towards regular people.
Terminology in Typography
- Font - comes from the word "Faundry", which is a place to cast metal, it also refer to the process of casting font
- Typeface - refer to a individual type or weight in a type family. For example, Georgia Regular, Georgia Bold, Georgia Italic.
- Type Family - a area of variated typeface that are designed base on one basic style. For Example, Georgia, Helvetica, Baskerville.
Advices from the Lecturer: Ideas always come from exploration and reading, the smart technique to learn in the future is to understand and analyse story behind one's design instead of seeing or feeling it.
Lecture 3: Basic/ Describing Letterforms
19/ 04/ 19 - week 3
This week we were exposed to the basis of lettering including each components of a letter(stem, bowl, ascender, beak, barb, crotch, etc.) and height to consider while designing letters to make it readable and eligible.
- Cap height: The height of a capital letter.
- Median: The Line that define the x height.
- Baseline: Visual base of the letterform.
Mr. Vinod did emphasized on differentiate em dash, en dash and hyphen as well as noticing us not to use Swash in every single word like what wedding card did. It is meant to use in the first letter or the last letter to fit the text to the line. Besides, we were able to identify uppercase, lowercase and small capital together with their uses and background and able to differentiate Roman, Italic and Oblique.
At the end of the class, Mr. Vinod did highlight that success only can be achieve if a designer work on full typeface and know the appropriate way to apply it. A full font of a typeface contains much more than 26 letters, but there is also punctuation and miscellaneous fonts.
Lecture 4: Development/ Timeline of Typography
26/ 04/ 19 - Week 4
The Development of Typography
- Phoenician - Combination of simple straight lines and circles forming uppercase.
- Boustrophedon - Greek read text from left to right and left to right, hence they modified the orientation of the letterforms into that particular order.
- Roman - Change in weight from vertical to horizontal and broadening of the stroke at start and finish.
- Square Capital - Invented tools to standardize letterform within a square box, serifs were added to the finish of main stroke.
- Rustic Capital - is a compressed version of square capital, people tends to write quicker and reducing sheets as writing twice amount of letterform on a page.
- Roman Cursive - letterform were simplified for speed and lowercase were started to develop here.
- Uncials - combination of uppercase and lowercase which look like a small size of uppercase letterforms.
- Charlemagne - a monk who first using uppercase, lowercase, miniscale, capitalization and punctuation and set the standard for calligraphy.
- Blackletter - a condensed strongly more vertically letterform. Rounder more open hand called "rofunda" gained popularity.
- Gutenberg - Application of casting which cut out each letter using negative space and cast them into metal.
INSTRUCTION
Document 2.1 MIB Booklet
Week 1: Draw Out Your Name
05/04/19
Figure 2.1.1 Lettering of "Gordon" based on 10 personalities
We are requested to draw out the letters of our name with 10 different design base on one personality that best describe us. But what I did is draw out 10 designs base on 10 personalities first to find out which personality has the strongest impact after I visualize them. Mr. Vinod chose "Puzzled" as my focus personality to proceed to the next step.
Figure 2.1.2 Puzzled design has been chosen
Week 2: Digitize the Name
12/04/19
Figure 2.2.1 Final Design to express "Puzzled"
We are given a task to digitize the lettering that we drew out manually. There are many things to beware of in this step:
Figure 2.2.2 noticed the joined part
- Noticing the very detail part of joining different lines.
Figure 2.2.3 trying on 0.5pt stoke
Figure 2.2.4 Trying on 1pt stroke
- Trying on different line stroke to make it looks visually comfortable in order to be able to notice my name.
Figure 2.2.5 Using guide lines in adjusting position of letters
- Making sure lines are aligned.
19/ 04/ 19
Figure 2.3.1 Design intention: Puzzled.
Figure 2.3.2 31 Artboards and 42 Frames in total to make this animation.
I designed the maze forming from my name to symbolize that I always get confuse myself but every time was able to find a solution so the font looks clean at the end.
Figure 2.3.3 25 artboards and 61 frames in total to make this animation.
After taking Mr. Vinod’s advice to make it more interesting by not showing my name directly in the initial stage but showing through the forming of the maze.
Week 4: Type Expression
26/ 04/ 19
We were given "Bounce" "Faint" "Angry" "Loop" Levitate" "Hungry" to express their identity without distort them but only rotate, scale and playing with given ten typefaces.
Figure 2.4.1 First try on type expression.
As Mr.Vinod mentioned that the "bounce" should try to combine different typefaces and "Hungry" could adjust the composition itself while changing the font of "H" to make it more look like a mouth and making the words inside readable by arranged it in sequence.
Figure 2.4.2 Second try on type expression.
I have selected "Levitate" to digitize it but the first try is moving too rapidly making it does not fit the identity of levitate. Levitate should be slow and smooth.
Figure 2.4.3 "Levitate" type Expression
Figure 2.4.4 It moves too rapid which does not fit its identity.
After considerate the motion of levitate in order to show its identity:
Figure 2.4.5 "Levitate" Type Expression
FEEDBACK
Week 1
We do not have any comment on the first week as we have no progression.
Week 2
Not understanding the brief clearly, lacking of clear direction and objective in this exercise, not deep in understanding of the personalities. Mr. Vinod said that I drew very well, objective of this exercise is to express the personality through the text itself without adding extra element, Besides, making all words lying on one word is not dependable, because overall feeling is unstable. Also for Competitive, should have the concept of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in it. In a nutshell, He chose the most impressive design: puzzled.
Week 3
General Feedback:
Generally, Mr. Vinod suggests us to enhance the expression that are need to be presented and look at the detail of the design. He did advise us to be open minded and always get prepared to receive feedback that may lead to disappointment, to get lesson from it and continuing refine on the work repeat and repeat again. It is because we could get defeated if we do not accept the critique from other but easily getting frustrated.
Individual Feedback:
Mr. Vinoz wants me to make my lettering more interesting by not showing the name initially but to design the maze is forming my name at the end, so that readers could attract by it due to the curiosity on knowing what it is developing.
Week 4
General Feedback:
Do not delete others' text, change typeface and delete redword in the feedback sheet.
Individual Feedback:
Suggested to make the word "hungry" look more like a mouth by enlarging and changing the typeface of "H" into compressed form and move it upwards, just to reveal part of it but not the whole "H". "Bounce" could try on combine different font to make the bouncing effect. The word "Faint" is too general like everyone did, "Levitate", "Loop" and "Angry" is ok.
Selected Levitate as for type expression:
Mr. Vinod suggested to make the word floating in the air for a while, do not make it move too rapidly as levitate is need to be smooth.
REFLECTION
Experiences:
Initially I think I will be able to go through this module easily, yes I could if I make myself lazy, but there is so many things that is new to me, and so many things to catch up. Firstly, a new world open up to me, learning and realizing typefaces from a different perspective. Every lesson are new to me, guiding me to realize something that was neglected in daily routines like the every single part of a letterform and even they have their story behind them. Experiencing to force myself to become more proactive because what we learnt from lecture is never enough, I still need to study a lot more with books and senior works.
Observations:
I noticed that there is not always looking design as a whole, details play an important role as well. I realized this when getting feedback from Mr. Vinod and he did magnify into every single detail part to look at the technique to handle joined lines. After that, I did that too when I am processing artwork. Another thing is that always have to be proactive, If I miss out certain part of the lecture, I need to catch up myself as fast as possible, otherwise the whole class is going further and further making me to keep on chasing after them everyone.
Findings:
As looking at the details of the artwork, I started to realized I could get more familiar with my artwork and know how should I fix it when Mr.Vinod point out the mistakes or even look at others artwork details I could noticed the technique they have used and learning from them. I found myself become more and more discipline in daily routines but also getting more and more tired as the times move on. One thing that I realized is I could not focus in class instead a space that is only me, there is so many distraction and while working with other making me more nervous since we can look at each other’s' works and comparing with each other.
FURTHER READING
Figure 5.1 Typeface: Classic Typography for Contemporary Design by Tamye Riggs
Typeface: Classic Typography for Contemporary Design by Tamye Riggs
Week 1- Week 2
05/04/19 - 12/04/19
Besides, I did get to know some of the historical background of the fonts and how vary a font could be. With the examples and incredibly amount of quality reference presented in detail, I get exposed to a new world, I realize that typeface could interact with our routine lives in many ways: a printed book, a computer screen, a kiosk design, a box of cereal or even the toilet signboard. Probably I cannot have any presentable design yet, but this book does guide me on the right way, I believe it could be always helping me in the future.
Figure 5.2 Typography (Basic Design) by Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris
Typography (Basics Design) by Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harri
Week 3- week 4
19/04/19 - 26/04/19
This book is a guiding book for beginners who just step into the design field, it is mainly based on visual with clear, useful and minimized paragraph. There is a lot of well research example and even some are really interesting such as handmade sculptural typography which making the letterforms using dolls, hair band with hairs on it, hay and even onion ring.
It has well-presented not only for type but also for printing techniques and processes which including suggested ways in using different paper and finishing techniques, presented through visual example - easily to understand and have a strong impression to it.
It does help me to realize what typography can do: typography can produce neutral effect or strong negative impact, symbolize something, help us to find our way, become confusing or extract and enhance the personality. This book did explore the history, theory and practice of typography, the most important things is they are well explained and interesting examples which can be easily understand.
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