Typography - Exercises

05/04/2019 - 26/04/2019 (Week 1 - Week 4) 

Ahmad Syaqiel Mohd Ashri (0338345)

Typography
Exercises

---

Lecture Notes

Lecture 1: Briefing
04/04/2019 (Week 1)

I was absent from the first week but through my classmates, I was told that it was a mere briefing of what the course is about and how the class will proceed through the semester. The class was also taught on how to make a wordpress for their e-portfolios which should be updated regularly.

Lecture 2: Introduction to Typography
12/04/2019 (Week 2)

Within the 2nd week of typography class, we were introduced to what exactly is typography. Through this lecture I understood that typography comes in many forms such as boring school textbooks or large eye-catching posters. As a designer when looking at these forms we must understand and typography and why it is good through the principles we will be learning in class and not through face value of our own personal aesthetics. Typography has been around for many years, nearly 500 years as Mr. Vinod had said. Within this lecture there were three terms that are important to understand typography. These terms are font, typeface and typefamily. Font refers to the making of a type, this is due to the origin of where font came from which is the word "Foundry". A foundry is a place that would cast led or metal into shapes, so in turn font refers to the process of creating a type. Typeface refers to the indivual type or weight within a typefamily, for example Helvetica Bold would be a typeface. Lastly a typefamily is a grouping of a type due to their shared characteristics.

Lecture 3: Basics of Typography
19/04/2019 (Week 3)

For week 3 of class, Mr. Vinod went over the basics of typography. Specifically the many terms that we should know when referring to a letter form. An example would be the term median. Which is an imaginary line that determines the x-height of letter forms. Other than terms we should get to know, Mr Vinod also taught us how to describe typefaces. We were also shown 10 typefaces that represent the past 500 years of typography design. From these typefaces we were told to study them, to understand them.

Lecture 4: Development and Timeline of Typography
26/04/2019 (Week 4)

Within the 4th week of typography class, we went through the development of typography and simplified timeline of where it came from and how it came to be. Within the beginning writing meant scratching into clay with sticks or chiseling out stone. The English letter form that we know today started from these carvings. They were crude and at the time there was only such thing as uppercase letter forms. Uppercase letter forms remained for 2000 years till lowercase letter forms began to be introduced to the world. This started at the turn of the 3rd century to the 10th century where the lowercase letter form began to develop. It started with the cursive hand being used to write with speed, the uppercase letter form slowly transformed into the lowercase letter form that we know today.

What we also learned was of typefaces and the people they were based upon. Such as Nicholas Jenson on whom the Jenson font is based upon. Others to note are Claude Garamond and Christophe Plantin who also have a font based upon them.

---

Instructions

 

---

Exercises

Week 1 - 3: Lettering

The first exercise given was to create 10 typefaces for our names to express a one personality of ours. For me, I would attempt to express the trait laid-back. My thought process for this exercise was to first write down what laid-back would visually be. To me, I felt that the text would be leaning or swaying to express it not being rigid and that it was "going with the flow". I felt that the text would also not be too bold and heavy when it comes to being laid-back. Below are the 10 sketches I had come up with after thinking what laid-back should look like. 

Fig 1.1: First half of typefaces express laid-back visually (Above)

Fig 1.2: Second half of typefaces to express laid-back visually (Above) 

After coming up with 10 ideas, we were to digitize our best one. The best one for me was idea number 5 as it felt most like the personality I had chosen to express. The process to digitize was to simply scan our page and bring it into illustrator. Having experience with illustrator before I found digitizing the typeface quite easy. Below is the digitized version of the type.

Fig 2: Digitized version of laid-back idea 5(Above)

Fig 3: Rough ideas for laid-back animation(Above) 

Fig 4: First animated laid-back idea (Above) 

After digitizing our typeface, we were to animate it using Illustrator and Photoshop to express the personality we had chosen. I continued to attempt to express laid back. Before starting, I drew out rough ideas on what I thought would be good ideas. After that, I played around in Illustrator till I found something that would seem fitting. Though after some feedback, I went back further attempts. This can be seen above. After playing around some more, it resulted in what can be seen below.

Fig 5: Final animated laid-back name (Above) 

Week 3 - 4: Type Expression

Another exercise was started, for this exercise we were tasked with type expression using 10 typefaces that Mr. Vinod had allowed us to use. These typefaces were; Gill Sans, Itc Garamon, New Baskerville, Janson, Serifa, Adobe Casion, Bembo, Futura and Univers. For the task of type expression we also had to choose 6 out of 7 words the class had chosen. These words were freeze, faint, loop, hungry, angry, bounce and levitate. My process of choosing the words started with my roughly sketching how I would express all the words. After that I eliminated the word that I felt was the least strong, this word was hungry. As I could only sketch out one idea and couldn't think of other ways. A picture of my sketches can be seen below.

Fig 6: Planning of type expression (Above) 

After deciding the words, we were to digitize it, which was simply enough as all we had to do was use the typefaces. After digitizing them, I brought my first round of ideas to Mr. Vinod for feedback. In which he told me to change some of my ideas and improve them a little in which I did. All the digitized versions and what would become the final can be seen below.

Fig 7: Angry iterations (Above) 

Fig 8: Bounce iterations (Above) 

Fig 9: Faint iterations (Above) 

Fig 10: Final type expression (Above) 

Fig 11: Final type expression pdf (Above)

After digitizing all 6 words we had chosen, we were to pick one of the 6 and animate them. At first I had chosen angry but after testing it using only 4 frames, I disliked it and instead went for loop. There were two iterations of loop, with the second being the final iteration of it. The first version of the animated loop didn't work out because I had disliked how the letter P appeared as it came out the loop. With this in mind, Mr Vinod had suggested an idea on how to fix it which resulted in the final animation that can be seen below as well as the first iteration.

Fig 12: First iteration of loop Animation (Above) 

Fig 13: Final iteration of loop animation (Above) 

---

Feedback
Week 1:

Absent

Week 2:

Through looking at all my ideas to express the personality I had chosen, Mr Vinod quickly chose a design after a quick glance. He told me the design that looked best, worked well to show laid-back due it not being rigid in its form through its angle and how the letters were "leaning" on each other. He told me to be careful with this style to express laid-back for depending on how I stylize it, it could end expressing a sense of spookiness instead.

Mr Vinod has also told me that I should update the formatting of my blog to match the example given and to complete it within the week before next class.

Week 3: 

I had asked Mr Vinod to look at my 1st attempt at animating my text to express laid back. He had said that it doesn't express what I'm attempting and that I should try something more subtle.

Week 4:

After looking at my 6 digitized version of the words I had chosen, this was the feedback he had given for each word. For the word bounce he had told me there was no need for the font to be oblique for it made the movement of the word redundant. As for angry, he had told me that if I was trying to express shouting from the letter A, the rest of the letters should not be the same weight and there should be more movement to make them look scared. For faint, he told me to go back and thing again for my current idea was not expression the word at all. Levitate, loop and freeze were all good to Mr Vinod, there was only a minor problem with the word freeze. Mr Vinod had asked if it was possible to reduce the length of the strands hanging off the F. As for my animation of the word loop, he said that instead of having the P come out, I should try only looping the O's as they radiate then gradiate.

---

Reflect
Experience

Week 1; I was absent. Week 2; Creating a typeface to represent a personality trait of mine, I found that working on it made me really reflect on what kind of person I am. It was also quite enjoyable for it allowed us to be creative within our designs. Week 3; Learning to animate text in Illustrator/Photoshop was a good skill to learn but also very difficult. Week 4; Trying to come up with a type expression was very difficult for certain words such as freeze, animating them was harder due to translating them into motion felt like I had to twist my original ideas.

Observation

Week 1; absent. Week 2; When drawing some of my ideas out, I desired some of my ideas to be even in size and straight but I ended up distorting them through their angles or their size. Week 3; I found a lot of my attempts to have mistakes within them when animated. Week 4; I found myself struggling with animating what I saw in my head.

Findings

Week 1; absent. Week 2; Creating typefaces when you want them to be a straight or identical in size especially within each letter is difficult without grid paper. Week 3; When it comes to animating numerous frames, I should be careful and take my time instead of rushing. Week 4; When it comes to animating multiple ideas, one should do test frames before putting a lot of time into a failed idea.

---

Further Reading

A Typographic Workbook by Kate Clair
05/04/2019 - 12/04/2019 (Week 1-Week 2)

Fig 14: A Typographic Workbook (Above)

The book I had chosen to read, reveals numerous topics based around typography, ranging from its history to techniques used within typography. It is as the book says a primer for typography, which I felt would be perfect for the start of this class.

Through first read of this book I discovered how the use of typography changed throughout time. In the beginning typography was simply used to spread information, therefore there was no big bold fonts with crazy colors. Though around the 1800s typography began to change to the typography that we see today. This was due to typography being used for advertising purposes to grab the attention of readers, especially with the boom of the industrial revolution.

It's interesting to me to see how typography has evolved, for I was born in a time where typography was already involving this unique typefaces with large colors or arranged in a specific way to express a message. I never thought to how typography before was simply plain text and only recently it changed within the past 200 years.

Designing Brand Identity By Alina Wheeler
19/04/2019 (Week 3)

Fig 15: Designing Brand Identity (Above)

The book by Alina Wheeler, covers numerous topics when it comes to creating an identity for a brand. One of these topics is typography. Within the book it also gives examples of brands and what they do for brand identity.

To paraphrase the section, Alina Wheeler states that typography is there to help the brand within its statement and overall positing. Typefaces used by companies are required to be open to cover a range of expression that the company may need but still stick to their overall message/theme. As a quote by Jeremy Dooley, Founder of Insigne Design says within the book, "the right typefaces embody, promote, and complement a great brand, whether it is a city, a sports team, or a soft drink."

After reading this book, it is interesting to see how typography is used within the branding world and how much thought is put into the idea of typefaces to represent a brand.

Typography Manual by Chris Do
26/04/2019 (Week 4)

Fig 16: Typography Manual by Chris Do

The brand design strategy consultancy, Blind has a article posted stating 10 rules for typography. This article called the Typography Manual written by Chris Do. Chris Do, gives very simple basic rules but they are truly helpful when it comes to typography.

A rule that stuck with me after reading, is the rule of sticking to one font. Meaning that one should stick to one typeface until they have mastered the use of that typeface. This doesn't mean you can't use more than one typeface but to do that, it requires a great understanding of typefaces. Chris Do states that if you are going to use more than one typeface, they should never be the same classification. Meaning they should not both be sans serif typefaces due to contrast.