TYPOGRAPHY-EXERCISE
27/03/18 - 17/04/18 (Week 1 - Week 3)
Alicia Lee Hui Min (0331719)
Typography
Exercise
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LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 1 : Briefing and Introduction to Typography
27/03/18 (Week1)
For the first week we were given both a briefing and a lecture. Mr Vinod gave us a brief on what to expect from this module and also a quick look of our future assignments.Then he explained the format and things that we need to include in our e-portfolio which had to be done using blogger.He also told us about a feedback sheet that would need to fill every week.Next he started to show us a blog sample by our seniors so that we would have a clearer picture of what to do.Through that he showed us the first exercise we would do next week and told us that we could try to practice it at home first.
Then he gave us a lecture on introduction to typography.Typography is an essential way of communication especially now as its the 21st century.Typography is the manifestation of both calligraphy and lettering in expressive or unexpressive form.
Font : Referring to the process of creating a typeface
Typeface : Individual weight in a type family
Lecture 2 : History of Typography
10/04/18 (Week 3)
Early letterform development : Phoenician to Roman
Initially writing meant scratching into wet clay with sharpened stick / carving into stone with chisel. The forms of uppercase letterforms can be seen to have evolved out of these tools and materials. At their core, uppercase forms are simple combination of straight lines and pieces of circles.
- The greeks changed the direction of writing. Phoenicians, like other semitic people , wrote from right to left. The Greek developed a style of writing called 'boustrophedon'.
- Etruscan (and the Roman) carves working in marble painted letterforms before inscribing them.
Capitals
Rustic capitals allowed for twice as many words on a sheet of parchment and took far less time to write.
- Both square and rustic capitals were typically reserved for documents of some intended performance. People started writing so fast it became the running hand.
- Charlemagne , the first unifier of Europe since the Romans.
- Blackletter to Gutenberg's type with the dissolution of Charlemagne's empire came regional variations upon Alcuins script.
1475 Oldstyle
Based upon the lowercase.
1500 Italic
Able to condensed the words to fit more words in a page.
1550 Script
Not entirely appropriate for long text.
1750 Transitional
Thick to thin was exaggerated.
1900 Square Serif
These typefaces eliminated serifs altogether, it wasn't widely used till 20th century.
1990 San Serif
A recent development, this style enlarges the notion.
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INSTRUCTIONS
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Calligraphy (Week 1 - Week 3)
Before starting our chosen hand, we were required to draw horizontal and vertical strokes and also circles so that we would be familiar with the pen.
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| Fig 1.1: Round hand reference |
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| Fig 1.2: Round hand 2nd reference |
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| Fig 1.3: Practice sheet |
After completing this practice, we started lettering. I chose the round hand because I liked how round it was and also that it was the easier hand compared to the others. Despite it looking easier than the others I still found it hard to replicate the hand. I tried my very best to replicate all the letters though it wasn't an exact replica of it but I did what I could.
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| Fig 1.4: Final piece |
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| Fig 2.1: Practice Sheet |
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| Fig 2.2: Practice sheet part two |
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| Fig 2.3: Final piece ( a - l ) |
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| Fig 2.4: Final piece ( m - y ) |
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Fig 2.5: Final
Lettering ( Week 4 )
The next exercise we were required to create a lettering for our name that also reflected our personality. I decided to add some flourishes to each of my lettering as it gives a happy vibe which reflects my positive personality.
But Mr. Shamsui advised me to try to make the flares glow if I had the time so I decided to give it a go. In the end I preferred the other one.
I used a total of five artboards for my animation. It was simple but it reflected my personality well , sometimes less is more.After this I transferred them as jpegs into photoshop and made them into a gif.
For this exercise, we were required to express the meaning of these six words which are stress, drunk, quick, dark, loud and dead by only using certain typefaces. We were not allowed to distort the letters but we were allowed to add some elements to enhance the meaning without overpowering the typeface.
Initially I wanted to make the word drunk to look like a wine glass whereby it is constantly dribbled and filled again and again as that's what causes a person to be drunk. But in the end I decided to change my idea after looking at the outcome of my idea as I realised that it wasn't strong enough.
The second idea was based on the vision of a drunk person as in how they see their surroundings when they're drunk. I did a glitch effect and also used different colours in order to show double vision.
After Mr Vinod looked at my journal, he told me that he preferred the first idea and that I should change it a bit where the drink goes down only but has a longer time at the end so that it'll pause there.This is the final after following his advice and tweaking it a bit.
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FEEDBACK
Week 2 :
I was told by Mr Vinod that I need to keep my consistency and also that I should hold the calligraphy pen at angle when doing calligraphy. I was also told to write the letter " o " in two parts and not in one stroke so that it would look more smooth.
Week 3 :
Mr Vinod commented that my letters were consistent and also advised me to leave the right amount of space between each letter for the current exercise. I was also told by Mr Shamsui that I should place the further reading section at the bottom of the blog.
Week 4 :
After viewing my final piece for the exercise, Mr Vinod commented that the words were not consistent in terms of spacing and also that I should have ended each letter on the line and not going over. He also said that I can attempt to redo the exercise and submit it next week.
Week 5 :
Week 5 :
For general feedback, Mr Vinod told us the format we should follow when doing our blog and he also said that hierarchy of information is important in typography. He also said that we need to make the sections in our blog clear whereby he is able to tell that its another section. For specific feedback, Mr Vinod told me that I needed to work on the words loud, quick and stress as it didn’t properly convey the meaning of the word.After working on the words for quite a while , he gave it a go so I can start animating my chosen word. He suggested to use either stress or drunk to animate.
REFLECTION
Experience :
In week 2, I struggled a lot with the horizontal lines and also the circles. I chose to redo the exercise many times and I also redid my chosen hand as I wasn't satisfied with it. By the end of redoing the exercise I ended up using half of the stack of graph paper that I bought.In week 3, I struggled with choosing the right composition for my quote.In week 4, I found it quite fun when we were animating our names and also I was happy cause I finally know how to make gifs.In week 5, I found it really hard to express the meaning of the word through a typeface especially the word quick and stress.
Observation :
Week 2; I realised that i couldn't keep up the consistency and also that that I had a hard time making thin and thick lines when writing the alphabets.Week 3; I realised that I had a hard time finding the right amount of space between each letter and word.Week 4; I realised that in order to make an animation smooth we needed many artboards for a smooth transition.Week 5; I realised that many of us designed the word 'quick' quite similarly.
Findings :
Week 2; I realised that I had to write the letters slowly cause when I tried to speed up the letters ended up looking messy. Also, I should hold my pen at an angle when writing so that it looks better and more like my chosen hand.Week 3; I realised that through trial and error I was able to find the right amount of space needed between each letter and word and also that I had to have a fix measurement between each letter or word like the amount of small boxes.Week 4; I realised that it takes a lot of trial and error to find the perfect animation and also one that suits my character.Week 5; it is good to look at other people's work to get inspiration instead of constantly looking at my own typeface.
FUTHER READING
Draw Your Own Fonts by Tony Seddon
03/04/18 (Week 2)
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| Back cover of the book |
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| Front cover of the book |
This book provides basic knowledge on fonts and also how to develop your own font.This book also shares some experiences that the author faces as a graphic designer dealing with fonts. The author also writes about digitising fonts , drawing with vectors , bitmap versus vector and more.It also contains many different kinds of fonts that one can take inspiration from.
What I've learned from this book is that hand lettering takes a lot of practice. The author advices the readers to start by replicating an existing typeface and slowly raise the bar.I've also learned that you can create your own fonts by referring or tampering with an existing font.Creating your own font also requires an understanding on letterforms and also a lot of thought process when building the basic structure of the font.I find this useful as we are currently practicing to replicate a hand that we have have chosen thus it is useful to get some tips on how to improve and also I think this would be useful in the future if I do try to make my own font.
Lettering & Type by Bruce Willen
10/04/18 ( Week 3)
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| Back cover of the book |
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| Front cover of the book |
This book provides all kinds of information from lettering to the history of it and also how to properly create your own lettering. One thing that I manage to take away from this book was script lettering. Script lettering translates the sinus italic forms of cursive writing into a more formal system. Most people think of scripts as old , elegant and formal calligraphy but actually they have a broad range of approaches . Script lettering is more methodically and purposefully executed. Although many scripts give the appearance of a fluid line of spontaneously written text, the the characters are often built from many strokes or processes.Script lettering has also developed rapidly over time and has become what we today call brush lettering but there are still script lettering that are still used today.
Design:Type
17/04/18 (Week4)
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| Front cover of the book |
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| Back cover of the book |
This book contains all kinds of type from designers all around the world and from all walks of life.What took my interest was a article called less is so much more by Tony Seddon. He talks about how He makes things simple but at the same time talking about how it isn't that easy as the layout needs to speak more while keeping it simple. It is one of the hardest thing for a designer who works with text and images and at the same time without sacrificing clarity.In his opinion, the quality of the layout is of utmost importance. Though choosing a typeface is important too and is currently and issue many designer face as they give in to their feelings instead of what is more readable to the viewer. The great designer Massimo Vignelli,who has always championed the Modernist tradition for simplicity, is famous for his theory that you only need twelve good typefaces.He advises to use a smaller range of typefaces and use different/contrasting typeface families in editorial designs in order to attract the attention of readers.There is nothing wrong with using a bunch of typefaces but in certain situations , less is more.
Letterwork : Creative Letterforms in Graphic Design
24/04/18 (Week 5)
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| Back cover of the book |
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| Front cover of the book |
This book contains a section that is called conveying the message where it provides examples of different fonts used for different occasions. It emphasises on the importance of a typeface as it aids in conveying a message. The best way to choose or create the best typeface for that certain situation is to identify the characteristic that needs to be conveyed. I've also learned that the different types of brushes or tools that one uses can carry a different meaning or emotion to it. Not only that but also colours , they can affect the meaning of the typeface.In conclusion, we have to put a lot of thought into making a typeface as it affects the message being conveyed.
The Complete Typographer Second Edition by Will Hill
01/05/18 (Week 7)
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| Front Cover of the Book |
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| Back Cover of the Book |
Position
Different types of information may be identified visually by their position on the page. For example page numbers, timeline, caption and more.
Scale
Content may be differentiated through the scale of type, by the increase of the point size.As larger size text are easily visible and grab the reader's attention more than the smaller text.Therefore the more important text should have a bigger point size.
Weight
Different weight for typeface such as bold, ultra bold, medium. Using different weights could constitute a more 'colourful' variation.But at the same time care should be observed when introducing these weights.
Italicization
Italic forms may be used to create emphasis or differentiation within continuous text.Their use can denote the stresses in speech, and indicate the introduction of words from other languages or idioms.
Case
Capital forms may be used within continuous text for visual differentiation or, sparingly, for emphasis.
Mixing typefaces
Using different typefaces could also constitute a colourful variation but care must be taken when choosing the typeface as it could come out visually displeasing if the wrong ones are used.
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