Exercises
Eunice Lo Set Tze (0334512)
Typography
Exercises
Lecture Notes
Week 1 : Briefing
5/4/2019
5/4/2019
We did not have a lecture but Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul came in to class to brief us on our module ( e.g. the Assessment Hurdle about the outcomes on failing our assessment and also the Assessment Plan which is the continuous assessment & the final assessment ), He also briefly explained what we will learn weekly. Not only that, Mr Shamsul taught us how to use Wordpress.com as our e-portfolio for the entire degree year and taught us what to add as a content for our module's blog.
He also gave instructions on what to do for our Lettering exercise and we have to hand in the sketches by next week. He showed us our senior's works so that we will have a rough idea on what to do.
12/4/2019
What is typography?
- an assembly of words to form a clear message
- it is learned from practice, observation, seniors and readings
- those days, it was written manually but now, we use technologies to create them
Visual analysis is when we evaluate and putting it into words. We dissect the wordings and visualize it. Typography employs terminologies, conventions and unwritten rules where it depends on its disposition or influences on its style.
Paul Rand
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| "Typography is an art, and good Typography is art. Therein lies the problem for both teacher and student” |
Steve Jobs
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| "If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do [ today ]" |
Terminologies of typography
- Font
[ refers to the individual font/weight within the typeface ]
e.g. Georgia Regular, Georgia Italic and Georgia Bold
- Typeface
[ refers to the entire family of fonts that shares the same characteristics ]
e.g. Georgia, Arial, Times New Roman, Didot and Futura
- Type family
[ refers to the many weights within an individual typeface ]
Week 3 : Basic / Describing Letterforms
Week 3 : Basic / Describing Letterforms
19/4/2019
Baseline : The imaginary line the visual base of letterforms
Median : Defining the x-height of letterforms
X-height : The height in any typeface of the lowercase X
Basic structure?
Stroke : The main diagonal portion of a letterform
Apex/ Vertex : The point created for joining two diagonal lines
Arm : Short strokes off the stem of the letterform, either horizontal or inclined
Ascender : The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform that projects the above median
Barb
Beak : The half sent finish on some horizontal arms
Bowl : The rounded form between the serif and the stem
Descender : The portion of the stem that projects the baseline
Em/ en : Originally referred to the width of the uppercase M, and em is now the distance equal to the size of the typeface. En is the half size of em, mostly describe as em/en spaces and em/en dashes
Ligature : Character formed by the combination of two or more letterforms
Spine : Mid-section of the S
Stress : The orientation of the letterform, indicated by thin strokes in round forms
Swash : The flourish that extends the stroke of the letterforms
- The full font of a typeface contains much more than 26 letters, to numerals and a few punctuation marks.
- Uppercase, Capital letters including accented vowels, the C cedilla
- Lowercase, small letters
Baseline : The imaginary line the visual base of letterforms
Median : Defining the x-height of letterforms
X-height : The height in any typeface of the lowercase X
Basic structure?
Stroke : The main diagonal portion of a letterform
Apex/ Vertex : The point created for joining two diagonal lines
Arm : Short strokes off the stem of the letterform, either horizontal or inclined
Ascender : The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform that projects the above median
Barb
Beak : The half sent finish on some horizontal arms
Bowl : The rounded form between the serif and the stem
Descender : The portion of the stem that projects the baseline
Em/ en : Originally referred to the width of the uppercase M, and em is now the distance equal to the size of the typeface. En is the half size of em, mostly describe as em/en spaces and em/en dashes
Ligature : Character formed by the combination of two or more letterforms
Spine : Mid-section of the S
Stress : The orientation of the letterform, indicated by thin strokes in round forms
Swash : The flourish that extends the stroke of the letterforms
- The full font of a typeface contains much more than 26 letters, to numerals and a few punctuation marks.
- Uppercase, Capital letters including accented vowels, the C cedilla
- Lowercase, small letters
Originally people use Lowercase numerals (below)
Ornaments
- used as flourishes in invitations or certificates
- usually provides as a font in a larger typeface family
Types of typefaces
Week 4 : Development / Timeline
25/4/2019
Early letterform development : Phoenician to Roman
- initially, writing were meant scratching into wet clay with a sharpened stick/ carving into stone with a chisel
After that, the Greeks changed the direction of writing. Phoenicians writes from right tyo left like the others. The Greeks developed a style writing called 'boustrophedon'
The development of letterforms
Hand script from 3rd-10th century
Square capitals
- the written version can be found in Roman monuments
- have serifs added to it
- stroke width were achieved by reed pen that's held 60 degree
Rustic capitals
- typically written in cursive hand in which forms were simplified for speed
- can be referred as lowercase letters
Uncials
- incorporates some aspects of the Roman cursive hand
- broad forms of uncials are more readable at smaller sizes than rustic capitals
Charlemagne
- first unifier of Europe since the Romans issued an edict to standardize all ecclesiastical texts
- rewritten by the monks using both majuscules, miniscule, capitalization and punctuation
Text type classification
1450 Blackletter
- earliest printing type
-based on hand-copying styles
E.g: Cloister Black, Goudy Text
1475 Oldstyle
- based on lowercase forms used by Italian humanist scholars for book copying
- uppercase forms are found inscribed on Roman ruins
E,g: Bembo, Caslon, Dante, Garamond, Janson, Jenson, Palatino
1500 Italic
- first Italic were condensed and close-set, allowing more words per page
- cast to complement Roman forms
1550 Script
-attempt to replicate engraved calligraphic forms
- now ranges from the formal and traditional to casual and contemporary
E.g: Kuenstler Script, Mistral, Snell Roundhand
1750 Transitional
- refinement of oldstyle forms
- thick to thin relationships were exaggerated and brackets were lightened
E.g: Baskerville, Bulmer, Century, Time Roman
1775 Modern
- further rationalization of oldstyle letterforms
- Serifs are unbracketed and the contrast between thick and thing strokes were extreme
E.g: Bell, Bodoni, Caledonia, Didot, Walbaum
1825 Square Serif/ Slab serif
- heavy bracketed serif, little variation between thick and thin strokes
- evolved, brackets were dropped
E.g: Clarendon, Memphis, Rockwell, Serifa
Instructions
Exercise
Lettering ( Week 1 - 2)
During the first week, we were told to think of a personality of us and use that as an inspiration in creating the lettering that represents us. So, I chose the personality carefree because I'm the type of person who is happy-go-lucky and couldn't care less about the negative parts of life.
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| Drafted on my lecture notes' notebook |
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| 2nd draft |
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| Final sketches |
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2nd part of the final sketches
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After that, I animated the lettering I made.
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| My first try, it wasn't good as it only had 7 frames, need more cloud movement |
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| 2nd try, my name is moving, which is fine but it looks a bit too choppy |
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| Final one, it looks less choppy and more natural for me and I like it actually |
Type Expression ( Week 3- Week 4 )
Firstly, Mr Vinod told us to list out a few words in class for our next exercise which is type expression. Then we started deducting the words and we now left with the word 'Hungry' 'Angry' 'Loop' 'Levitate' 'Freeze' 'Faint' and 'Bounce'. So, he told us to choose 6 words out of the 7 words.
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| These are my selections and Mr Vinod told me to refine 'Angry' and re-do 'Bounce' 'Freeze' and 'Levitate' |
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| These is after refining and editing. So, I decided to stick with 'Angry'as Mr Vinod seems to be very interested in 'Angry' |
The next class, Mr Vinod told us to animate the chosen type expression.
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| I started out with this and i think that it's a bit too slow for a volcano and it's not shaking vibrantly |
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| I tried out this one and I think that it is still too slow as if you are angry, you'll explode fast |
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| This is my third try and it seems okay to me as it is much faster than before. |
Feedback
Week 2
Mr. Vinod find my lettering with the cloud is interesting and stands out more for my personality along with Mr. Shamsul's help and told me to use it.
Week 3
Mr. Vinod said it was a little bit jumpy and adviced me to make 50 frames if I were to make a perfect animated lettering. He also told me to make various circular shapes, like some smaller and some bigger so that it'll look like the cloud is moving. He also told me to look at cloud videos and explore how the cloud moves.
Week 4
Mr. Vinod told me to refine the word 'Angry' using a different font. He told me to re-do the word 'Levitate' as the way i express it is more towards float while levitate is supposed to be hovered, 'Bounce' as it is not natural enough and 'Freeze' as mine doesn't really make sense. Mr Shamsul said my 'Angry' is expressive because I pictured a volcano. The next round, Mr Vinod told me to refine 'Angry' again as the explosion doesn't look natural and told me to make the letters in different sizes. He told me to stick with 'Angry'.
Mr. Vinod find my lettering with the cloud is interesting and stands out more for my personality along with Mr. Shamsul's help and told me to use it.
Week 3
Mr. Vinod said it was a little bit jumpy and adviced me to make 50 frames if I were to make a perfect animated lettering. He also told me to make various circular shapes, like some smaller and some bigger so that it'll look like the cloud is moving. He also told me to look at cloud videos and explore how the cloud moves.
Week 4
Mr. Vinod told me to refine the word 'Angry' using a different font. He told me to re-do the word 'Levitate' as the way i express it is more towards float while levitate is supposed to be hovered, 'Bounce' as it is not natural enough and 'Freeze' as mine doesn't really make sense. Mr Shamsul said my 'Angry' is expressive because I pictured a volcano. The next round, Mr Vinod told me to refine 'Angry' again as the explosion doesn't look natural and told me to make the letters in different sizes. He told me to stick with 'Angry'.
Reflection
Experience
Week 1
Class was a bit messy and not well planned. I was also sleepy and hungry at that time so my mood was kind of dragged down.
Week 2
Week 2
Downside of the class is we had to change our usage of the blog from Wordpress to Blogger and I had put effort in updating so many things.
Week 3
I was a bit frustrated because I don't know how to feel about my lettering, it's like I'm having a love hate relationship towards my lettering.
Week 4
I'm actually happy that Mr Vinod likes the way I express 'Angry' using a volcano because during that time I was actually having trouble describing the word 'Angry' as my ideas were limited.
Week 3
I was a bit frustrated because I don't know how to feel about my lettering, it's like I'm having a love hate relationship towards my lettering.
Week 4
I'm actually happy that Mr Vinod likes the way I express 'Angry' using a volcano because during that time I was actually having trouble describing the word 'Angry' as my ideas were limited.
Observation
During week 2, I realized that I shouldn't limit myself to just 10-11 designs but I should expand more so that I have more variations to choose from. Week 3, I realized that I should keep my feelings (e.g. tiredness, laziness) aside and focus on my cloud lettering name, because of my feelings, I become very unsure and low in confidence with what I'm doing. Week 4, I realized that I shouldn't stupidly delete the ai format of my type expressions and kept it or else I have to re-do it when it need some amends.
During week 2, I realized that I shouldn't limit myself to just 10-11 designs but I should expand more so that I have more variations to choose from. Week 3, I realized that I should keep my feelings (e.g. tiredness, laziness) aside and focus on my cloud lettering name, because of my feelings, I become very unsure and low in confidence with what I'm doing. Week 4, I realized that I shouldn't stupidly delete the ai format of my type expressions and kept it or else I have to re-do it when it need some amends.
Findings
Week 2, I should think about more ideas on my lettering instead of sticking to only one design and simply do the rest. Week 3, I should come myself down in order to do my work smoothly or else I won't bring any good to myself. Week 4, I should check first befpre deleting my stuff.
Further Reading
5/4/2019 ( Week 1 )
This is from a book called "The Typographic Experiment : Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design " by Teal Triggs. This book is filled with many examples of typographic works by studios, tutors and students' works. The photo above talks about this tutor named Saki Mafundikwa from Zimbabwe and his projects with his student on creating a typeface inspired by nature or the environment. His aim is to introduces the letterforms and possibilities of designing fonts professionally. His students are encouraged to go beyond the use of Roman alphabet to develop their ideas while understanding the context of writing and history.
12/4/2019 ( Week 2 )
This book is basically more towards about artist designing using the 'New Typographic' way. I chose this page because of the way this project talks about. For the photo on the left, titled 'Collecting Flowers' is about this artist using pieces of litter as its foundation. It is interesting where they used each crushed tins or offcut of wood are treated delicately to reflect the title.
The one on the right, titled 'Random Cube' is about 2005 Random System Festival transferring. So they renamed it to Random Cube to reflect its new location. They reduced the budget for the poster which caused them to end up producing a single coloured printing on different coloured stocks. It was hand-drawn with drips of 'wet' paint.
19/4/2019 ( Week 3 )
This subtopic of the book titled 'Designing Typographic Logotypes'. It is about how logotype is an emblem to create recognizable and expressive graphic identity for a person, product or an organization. The six basic ways in setting one type that can contrast with one another are : scale (size), weight (thick or thin strokes), case (uppercase or lowercase), structure, direction and tone or colour. The logotype created must be visually unified to get the viewer's attention so it won't get confused with other things. Repetition are used sometimes. Two devices that promote unity : fitting (works best when words are set in leading caps, like odd shapes that opens up between the capital letters or ascenders) and overlap (placing words so that they partly cover one another)
26/4/2019 ( Week 4 )
It's from the same book from Week 3, for this subtopic, it's titled 'Art Nouveau'. It is about how Art Nouveau being highly fashionable international style not only in architecture, apparel, product design but also in graphics too which began about a decade before the end of 19th century. It's the first self-consciously Modern design movement but it's elegantly flowing plant-like lines expressed a romantic desire to escape mechanization. Lithographic posters, features young beautiful woman in exotic setting. People like Henri van de Velde, Otto Eckmann and O.Weisert created new typefaces in this style.
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