25 SEPT 2023 - 23 OCT 2023 / Week 1 - Week 5
YANG ZHI CHING / 0365154
Typography / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Task 1 : Type Expression and Formatting : Exercise 1 & 2
LECTURES
Week 1 | Lecture 1 · Introduction and Development
What is Typography? ·
Typography is a fundamental skill in design. It is defined as the art and
technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and
appealing. We can genarally see typography in posters, animation
(as movie title/gif), website design,
application design, signage design, logo type, etc.
The evolution of typography: Caligraphy > Lettering > Typography
Font: individual font or weight within typeface
Typeface: entire family of fonts or weight that share similar
characteristics/style
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Fig 1.1 Example of font
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Fig 1.2 Example of typeface
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Development and Timeline ·
Early letterform development: Phoenician to Roman
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Fig 1.3 Phoenician to Roman
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Fig 1.4 Evolution from Phoenician letter
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| Direction of writing |
Phoenicians: wrote from right to left.
Greeks: "Boustrophedon" (how the ox ploughs), which is
read alternately from right to left and left to right.
Etruscan (then Roma): painted letterforms before inscribing,
which influenced their strokes qualities.
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Fig 1.5 Direction of "Boustrophedon"
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| Hand script from 3rd to 10th century C.E. |
found in Roman monuments. These letterforms have serifs added to the
finish of the main strokes.
Rustic Capitals ·
compress version of square capitals. Allowed twice as many words on
parchment and took less time to write. Faster and easier to do, but they
slightly harder to read as their compress nature.
Cursive Hand ·
simplified for speed, the beginning of lowercase letterforms.
simply as small letter. The broad forms of uncials are more readable at
small sizes at Rustic Capital.
formal beginning of lowercase letterforms, replete with ascenders and
descenders.
Charlemagne ·
the first unifier of Europe since the Romans, entrusted Alcuin of
York, Abbot of ST Martin of Tours to standardize all ecclesiastical
texts. The monks rewrote the texts using both majuscules (uppercase),
minuscule, capitalization and punctuation which set the standard for
calligraphy for a century.
Blackletter to Gutenberg's type ·
With the dissolution of Charlemagne's empire came regional
variations upon Alcuin's script. Textura is a condensed and strongly vertical letterform, popular in
northern Europe. Rotunda is a rounder and more open-handed letterform, popular in
southern Europe.
Text type classification ·
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fig 1.6 text type classification
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Week 2 | Lecture 2 · Text
Kerning and Tracking ·
Kerning: automatic adjustment of spae between letters.
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fig2.1 Kerning and letterspacing
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*Mr.Vinod mentioned that we should use Adobe Indesign when dealing large
amount of text.(pamphlets, brochures, books, poster...)
| Shortcut of 'kerning' in Adobe IndesignReduce Space: [alt + <]
Increse Space: [alt + >]
Tracking: the addition and removal of space in a word or sentences.
- Normal Tracking
- Tight Tracking
- Loose Tracking
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fig 2.2 Normal tracking, tight tracking and loose tracking
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Formatting Text ·
Flush Left | most clearly expressed the
asymmetrical experience of handwrting.
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fig 2.3 Flush Left
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Centered | imposes symmetry upon the text, assigning equal value and weight to ends of
lines.
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fig 2.4 Centered
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Flush Right | useful in captions
but weak readability in paragraph.
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fig 2.5 Flush Right
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Juustify | lots of designer
do not like it ( but I actually quite often use it too >.< ) Imposes
symmetrical shape on the text, like centering. Needs to be careful attention
to line breaks and hyphenation of producing 'rivers' of white space runing
vertically.
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fig 2.6 Justify
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Texture ·
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fig 2.7 Anatomy of a typeface
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fig 2.8 Different typeface, different grey values
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Compositional requirement: Ideal text to have a middle gray
value.
Fig 2.8 shows how different typefaces have different grey values, some
lighter, some darker. The best choice would be to choose the middle grey
value.
Leading and Line Length ·
Typesize: should be large enough to be read at arms length.
Leading: tight leading makes vertical eye movement and reader might loose their
place. Loose leading might distract the reader's attention
Line Length: A good rule of thumb is to keep line length between 55-65
characters.
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fig 2.9 Example in tight leading
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fig 2.10 Example in loose leading
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Type Specimen Book ·
A type specimen book shows samples of typefaces in various different sizes.
Its to provide an accurate reference for type, type size, type leading, type
line length, etc.
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fig 2.11 Sample
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Week 3 | Lecture 3 · Text - Part 2
Indicating Paragraphs ·
Pilcrow (¶) |
a holdover from medieval manuscripts seldom use today.
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fig 3.1 Line space vs leading
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Paragraph Spacing | Cross-alignment is achieved when the leading and paragraph spacing is the
same size.
Indentation | Typically the same size
of the line spacing or the point size of the text.
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fig 3.2 Standard Indention
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Widows & Orphans ·
Widows may be acceptable at times, but orphans are
unacceptable.
Widow | A short line of type left alone at the end of a column of text.
Orphan | A short line of type left alone at the start of new column.
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fig 3.3 Widow and Orphan
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Highlighting Text ·
Different ways to emphasise a certain body of text is by making
it: italics, bold,
bold + changing the typeface, or
changing the colour. Other ways of highlighting the text is by
placing a field of color at
the back of the text or ‘adding a quatation marks’.
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fig 3.4 Text in Bold, Changing the color
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fig 3.5 Text in placing a field of color
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fig 3.6 Text with Quatation Marks
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Headline within Text ·
There are many kinds of subdivision within text of a chapters.
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fig 3.7 Headlines within Text
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Cross Alignment ·
Cross aligning headlines and captions with text type reinforces the
architectural sense of the page—the structure—while articulating the
complimentary vertical rhythms.
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fig 3.8 Cross Alignment
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fig 3.9 Cross Alignment
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Week 4 | Lecture 4 · Basic
Describing Letterforms ·
Baseline: The imaginary line the visual base of the letter
forms
Median: The imaginary line defining the x-height of
letterforms.
X-height: The height in any typeface of the lowercase 'X'.
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fig 4.1 Basic in Letterform
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fig 4.2 letterforms
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2. The Font
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fig 4.12 Type of Typefaces
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4. Comparing Typefaces
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fig 4.13 Comparing Typefaces
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fig 4.14 Comparing Typefaces
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Week 5 | Lecture 5 · Letters
Understanding Letterforms ·
The uppercase letter forms suggest symmetry, but actually not. It is
two different stroke weights of the Baskerville stroke form. Each
Bracket connecting the serif to the stem has a unique arc.
The uppercase letterforms may appear symmertrical, but the width of the
left slope is thinner than the tight stroke. It shows internally
harmonious and individually expressive.
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fig 5.2 Univers
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A comparison of how the stems of the letterforms finish and how to
bowls meet the stems quickly reveals the palpable difference in
character between the two. (Helvetica and Univers)
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fig 5.3 Helvetica and Univers
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Maintaining x-height ·
The curved strokes, such as in 's', must rise above the median (or sink
below the baseline) in order to appear to be the same size as the vertical
and horizontal strokes they adjoin.
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fig 5.4 median (above) and baseline (below)
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Form / Counterform ·
Counterform (or counter)—the space describes, and often contained, by
the strokes of the form. When letters are joined to form words, the
counterform includes the spaces between them. How well are the counters
handled determines how well the words hang together—how easily we can
read what’s been set.
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fig 5.5 Form / Counterform
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Contrast ·
The simple contrasts produces numerous variations:
small+organic / large+machined / small+dark / large + light...
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fig 5.6 Helvetica Bold vs Baskerville
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fig 5.7 Contrast
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Week 6 | Lecture 6 · Typography in Different Medium
In the past, typography was viewed as living only when it reached
paper. Once a publication was edited, typeset and printed, it was
done.Nothing change after that. Good typography and readability were
the result of skilled typesetters and designers. Today, typography
exists not only paper but on multitude of screens.
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fig 6.1 Typography Design
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fig 6.2 Screen Design in Website
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Good typefaces for print: Caslon, Garamond, Baskerville. Because of their characteristics which are elegant and intellectual
but also highly readable when set at small font size.
Print Type and Screen Type ·
Type for Print | They are versatile, easy-to-digest classic typeface, which has a
neutrality and versatility that makes type setting with it a
breeze.
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fig 6.3 Readable Printing in Actual Size
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Type for Screen | Intended for use on the web are optimized and often modifiled to
enchance readability and performance on screen in a variety of digital
environment.
Hyperactive Link/ hyperlink | It is a word, phrase, or image that you van click on to jump to a new
document or a new section within the current document.
Font Size for screen| 16-pixel text on the creen is about the same size as text printed
in a book or magazine. They are typically set at about 10pts because
we read book pretty close as often only a few inches away. If you
were read them at arm's length, you'd want at least 12pts, which is
about the same size as 16pixels on most screens.
System Fonts for Screen/ Web Safe Fonts | Open Sans, Lato, Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Times, Courier
New, Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Palatino, Garamond.
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fig 6.4 Screen vs Print
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fig 6.5 Pixel Differential Between Devices
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Static vs Motion ·
Static | Static typography has minimal characteristics in expressing words.
Traditional characteristics such as bold and italic offer only a fraction
of the expressive potential of dynamic properties.
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fig 6.6 Billboard showing static typography
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Motion | Film title credits present typographic information over time, often
bringing it to life through animation. Motion graphics, particularl;y the
brand identities of film and television production companies, increasingly
contain animated type.
INSTRUCTION
Task 1 : Exercise 1 - Type Expression ·
Sketches |
For our first task, we had to choose 4 out of 7 words given and create
the type expression by using Adobe Illustrator. The idea-sketches only
based on the 10 typefaces given, which are Univers LT Std, ITC Garamond
Std, Bodoni Std, Futura Std, Gill Sans Std, Adobe Caslon Pro, Bembo Std,
ITC New Baskerville Std, Janson Text LT Std, Serifa Std.
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fig 7.1 Sketches, Week 2
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I had sketched out the words Slide, Cry, Dizzy, Gun, Electric and Freeze. I
found that I tend to turn the fonts into images when i was imaging the
designs. After the sketches, i had tried to do out the digitization by Adobe
Illustrator.
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fig 7.2 First Try for Digitization, Week 2
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Digitization |
I had showed my works (fig3.3) at the classes in Week 3, below are some of
my explanations of the various versions.
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fig 7.3 Digitization version 1.0, Week 3
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Slide: My first thought when i saw this word was the
straight slife in the park, I made three versions of this idea, two
of which ( 4-2, 5-2 )turned the 'L' into a slide and had the other
letters slide down on it. The third version ( 1-1 ) is to make the
curve of the topic, imagine a slide under the ltters.
Gun: The first version ( 2-1 ) was to arrange the
letters into the shape of a gun, 'G' for the handle, 'U' for the
trigger, 'N' for the gun barrel. Second version ( 5-1 ) indicates
that a bullet is fired from the letter 'G'.
Dizzy: My idea was to create a dizzying feeling to the
word. ( 1-2. 3-1, 3-2 ) was the two vesions of it.
Cry: To show a crying face, turn the 'C' upside down to
make it look like a depressed mouth.
Electric: Let the font be represented by an emoji of
electricity.
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| fig 7.4 Adjustment Work in Progress, Week 3 |
The four fonts finally selected were Slide (1-1), Dizzy (either 1-2
or 3-2 and need to adjust), Cry (2-2), Gun (5-1).
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| fig 7.4a Outlines, Week 3 |
Final Type Expression
.jpg)
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fig 7.5 Final Type Expression, Week 3
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Type Expression Animation |
Mr.Vinod demonstrated the steps to create a basic animation by using
Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
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fig 7.6 First attempt at animating 'Gun', Week 3
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I choose the words 'Gun' as I think a gun reminds me of the action
of firing a bullet, and it has a dynamic feel to this action. 9 frames
was used here, I had tried more frames but that made my bullets not fly
fast enough, so I reduced the frames.
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fig 7.7 Animation timeline, Week 3
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After receiving the feedback from Mr.Vinod, he said he like my animation
of the debris that fell after the letters being shot. Thus I try to make
it smoothier by adding 3 frames.
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fig 7.8 Animation timeline after adding 3 frames, Week 4
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Final Type Expression Animation
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fig 7.9 Final Type Expression Animation, Week 4
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Task 1: Exercise 2 - Type Formatting ·
For Exercise 2, we used ten given typefaces to typeset our name as a practice of using kerning and tracking. First I typed the typefaces text as a reference and do my name in various typefaces.
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fig 8.1 Typefaces given, Week 5
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| fig 8.2 Tex Formatting after kerning and tracking, Week 5 |
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The second exercise is that we use the articles and titles given by Mr.Vinod to format them. We only can use black and white pictures, any colors is not allowed.
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fig 8.3 Layout Progress, Week 5
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When I was doing the formatting in class, I was pointed out by Mr.Vinod that I was not using Indesign's grid system correctly. Mr.Vinod demonstrated for me and said that we should find ways to make the grid system support our design, instead of letting the grid system limits us or we ignore it. And mentioned that I can go on with my 3rd layout.
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fig 8.4 Wrong Layout in Grid System , Week 5
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fig 8.5, The 3rd Layout, Week 5
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After the guide by Mr.Vinod, I had adjusted my 3rd version layout by adjusting the margin and column, it makes my layout more supported by the grid system. Also, Mr.Vinod suggested that the photo and text lacked relevance, so I chose pictures with unclear intentions for decoration, because I had looked for pictures related to the article but most of them contained large text, which would make my layout look dazzling and boring with too many words. .
fig 8.6, Work after Adjustment, Week 5
The following is the final version after adjustment, with the details of text:
HEAD
Font: Univers LT Std 73 Black Extended
Type Size: 31pt
Leading: 32.5pt
Paragraph spacing: 11pt
BODY
Font: ITC New Baskerville Std Roman
Type Size: 10pt
Leading: 11 pt
Paragraph spacing: 11pt
Characters per-line: 47
Alignment: Allign Left
Margins: 20 mm top, 10 mm left + 20 mm right + 20 mm bottom
Columns: 5
Gutter: 5mm
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fig 8.7 Final Task without visible Grid, Week 5
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fig 8.7 Final Task with visible Grid, Week 5
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fig 8.7 Final Task inPDF, Week 5
FEEDBACK
Week 2 - Exercise 1
General Feedback:
Mr.Vinod had found that a lot of students came up with similar ideas, as
everyone wants to be unique so everyone’s thinking path will be similar.
Thus, this is always a challenge in design class. Mr.Vinod had given a
method to us, “The more you explore your ideas, the more special you are”.
Besides, Mr.Vinod mentioned that some students will use form of illustration
to express the font. That’s not encouraged as it will distract the character
of fonts.
Specific Feedback:
I had shown my words on both sketches and digitization which is Slide, Cry, Gun, Electric and Dizzy. Mr.Vinod gave me feedback on each word.
Slide: Similar idea with my classmate, I should do more exploring for the word to make it unique.
Cry: The ‘C’ at the bottom may shuffle the order of the alphabet. But I had made the ‘C’ catch the reader's attention by enlarging the ‘C’, so Mr.Vinod said it can work.
Gun: Letters of G, U, N forming the shape of a gun, Mr.Vinod said it can work.
Electric: An ‘Electric’ emoji formed by the letters, but it kind of distorts the fonts so Mr.Vinod suggested me to adjust it.
Dizzy: Mr.Vinod said he likes my ‘dizzy’, so I think I will move on for this word.
Week 3 - Exercise 1
General Feedback:
Mr.Vinod had checked our e-portfolio randomly, he found that lots of us have no progression of our Type Expression works, he can say there is not our works if we don’t have progression there. Some students put a wrong label link of e-portfolio in excel form.
Specific Feedback:
Mr.Vinod had given some feedback to our digitization work. He suggested me to do the ‘Dizzy’ with less distortion. He said that my second version of ‘Gun’ is good. And the ‘Electric’ has a nice shape but kind of distorts it. My ‘Dizzy’ makes him dizzy and I should do it with a wider grey to complete the circumference of the entire box.
Week 4 - Exercise 1
General Feedback:
Mr.Vinod asked us to give feedback of the first 3 classes to him anonymously. Someone asked him about meeting creative blocks, Mr.Vinod said we just need a good night's sleep. And lots of us will face the stress that we need to manage our time. And mentioned that lots of students feel the long lectures were boring but it is a process of learning.
Specific Feedback:
We had shown our final works of GIF animation. Mr.Vinod said he liked the fragments of my ‘GUN’ after the bullet shooting.
Week 5 - Exercise 2
General Feedback:
Mr.Vinod reminded to pay attention to line length. He told us to half close our eyes and find out the tightness and looseness of the text. And the space between two textboxes is usually about 5-10mm. And the size of the leading must be equal to the font. Other than that, notice the contrast of heading and paragraph. Do not use 2 different fonts, it’s a bit awkward.
Specific Feedback:
Mr.Vinod mentioned my grid system didn't support my layout, so needed to adjust the grid system according to my layout. And it seems like the right text box is longer than the left one. My image was not related to the paragraph.
REFLECTION
| Experience |
Having the introduction of this module and we had create our e-portfolio.I
found myself quite nervous as everything is unfamiliar for me and also the
language would be a challenge for me. I need some time to adapt a new
educational environment. Starting from the second week, we gradually entered
our first task, which is type expression design. We are limited to using 10
typefaces, and our designed words cannot be excessively distorted and cannot
be presented in the form of illustrations. When I started sketching, I
thought it was not difficult to have ideas, but coming up with unique and
creative ideas was the hard part. During the digitalization stage, it took
me a long time to become familiar with Adobe Illustrator. Almost every step
was completed while watching tutorials, because I had almost no contact with
this soflware before. At the stage of making GIF, the difficulties I
encounted were basically operational issues, which required a lot of time to
adjust and produce, but overall I was enjoy with it.
| Observation |
In the process of doing the task, I observed that several key points that
make the design visually impressive are the both font's design and its
meaning can reflect the same personality, easy to read and recognize, and
contrast.
| Findings |
I realized this module is not as easy as I thought, I thought it must be the
most challenging module in this semester. But also kind of excited that it
will be great beginning for being a good designer, as Mr.Vinod said,
typography is the base of design, "you can't run before you can walk". The
are many complex principles and rules in typography. We need to spend a lot
of time to improve our abilities and aesthetics in this project. The way to
learn is watch more, and practice more.
FURTHER READING
The Vignelli Canon (2010)
by Massimo Vignelli
Design involves everywhere in our lives, whether it is an object or a
personal product. In my understanding, design is a series of visual art
processes, which is the best expression of human wisdom and emotion.
Everyone needs to design their life.
The book 'The Vignelli Canon' mentions that although design is mainly
unstable inspiration, it cannot be done casually. Design is very
serious, and its standards are very high. There is no best, only better.
At first, i thought that design was probably used to make profits. As
there are many luxury goods in life that do not look exquisite, but are
exprensive and give people the impression that they are brand trap.
After reading the book, I discovered that many things cannot be defined
arbitrarily. Brands and companies that only make money from people are
gradually being abandoned. Brands that are able to survive through
constant elimination, even if they don't have the latest designs, they
have a lugh design libary.
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