Typography - Project 1

8/10/18 -  25/10/18 (Week 7 to Week 9)

Jasmine Teoh Lee Suan

Typography 

Project 1 

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LECTURE NOTES 

Lecture 7: Typography - Types of Fonts

8/10/18 (Week 7) 

Common Categories: Serif & Sans Serif

Fonts can be divided into:

• Serif
• Sans Serif
• Display
• Script 
• Text 
• Mono-spaced 
• Dingbats

1. Serif: 

- Most common text 

- Can be used as headlines 

- Serif = Little feet or arms that hang off the end of letter strokes - Subcategories of serif fonts

• Oldstyle 
• Modern 
• Square Serif

2. Sans Serif:
- Fonts without serif
- Overall stroke weight
- Creates contrast for letters
- Evoke a more modern look
- Can be harder to read compared to serif


3. Display
- Decorative fonts
- Used as attention getting headline fonts
- Rarely used as body copy fonts


4. Script
- Designed to mimic handwriting, therefore letters are designed to touch each other 
- Traditional type used for formal invitations
- NEVER be used in all capitals


5. Text
- based on hand drawn by monks for religious books
old word feel
not to be used in all caps


6. Mono-spaced
- Most fonts are proportionally spaced, smaller characters take up less space than bigger ones
in contrast mono space which are typewriter style fonts take up same amount of space regardless of actual letter
- side bearings (term for serifs)


7. Dingbats
- Small pieces of art to enhance design
- Zaph wingbats or dingbats are common


Font Styles
- font comes from foundry; process of making a font
- typeface - individual weight like Arial bold
- type family - many weights in one family


Special Styles
- Today we can do many things with a computer when we Typeset (formatting text)
- Last time there was a computer for fonts called typesetters
- Designers create the artwork, have a pica's (?) ruler
- Typesetter will type information and print out a negative
- Cut and pasters will receive it and paste the artwork
- Photographer will photograph the Final Artwork (F.A)

Small Capitals and All Capitals
- Small Caps are good for subheads or for the first line of the paragraph
- Text in all caps should be used on short headlines or subheads.
- All caps should not be used for long sentences and for emphasis

Special-Purpose Style:
- Formatting styles for making footnotes etc
- Superscript, Subscript, Baseline, Negative and & positive skew. Strike through, Double- Strike through


Text Scaling
- create a pseudo condense or pseudo extended typeface


Outline and shadow
- shadow should not exceed circumference of letter too much


* Kan's books - download


Lecture 8: Text / Tracking 
8/10/18 (Week 7)

Kerning and Letterspacing 
- Kerning 0 automatic adjusting of space between letters
- Letterspacing - adding space
- Tracking - add and remove space

Normal tracking, loose tracking and tight tracking

** In AI or InDesign **
Alt + left arrow for kerning
Alt + right arrow letterspacing

Uppercase letters - drawn to be stand on their own
Lowercase - requires counterform between letters to maintain line of reading

Figure 1.1 Types of Tracking

Flush Left:
- mimics the asymmetrical experience of handwriting
- creates even gray value
- each point starts at the same point but ends at the last word on the line ends

Centered:
- cannot be used for large amounts of text
- imposes symmetry upon text, equal value and weight to both ends of any line
transforms field of text into shapes

Flush right
- opposite of flush right
- useful when text and image might be ambiguous

Justified
- Symmetrical shape on text
- achieved by expanding or reducing spaces between words and letters
- result of openness of lines can produce 'rivers' need to be careful esp the last line

Designers set type depending upon factors personal preference prevailing culture need to express play important roles

Clear appropriate presentation of the authors message

Type that calls attention to itself before the read can get to the actual word is interfering the reading
designer must make good calls
 Understand how typefaces feel as text

Textures
- type with generous x height or stroke weight produces darker mass
- sensitivity to these differences in colour is fundamental for creating successful layouts

Leading and Line Length
- goal in setting type is to allow easy prolonged reading
- should occupy the page as much as photograph does

1. Type Size
- Text type should be large enough be read easily at arms length
- 8pt - 12pt

2. Leading
- Spacing between each line of text
- 10/13 10/14
- not good if leading space is larger than x-height
- ** half close your eyes to see

3. Line length
- distance of line
- maximum number of characters in a line should be not more than 55 - 60

Type Specimen Sheet
 - should create a field that can occupy page or screen
- ideal text as having middle gray value
- keep in mind nothing replaces looking closely at an actual print out of your work
- print it out to gauge readability

Figure 1.2 Type Specimen Sheet

Lecture 8: People to Note

Neville Grody

Paul Sahre

Edfella

Zunna nalico

Allen flecture

Reza abidin

Stefan Stagmeister

Wolfstar weingar

Joseph mular Rockman

Schiole

Wenders

El Lizitzki

An sam soo

David carson

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INSTRUCTIONS
 
Assignment Brief:

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PROJECT 1
Week 7 (8/10/18) to Week 9 (25/10/18)

Exercise: Kerning

We did an exercise about kerning and tried to make the ends of the paragraph not so jagged.

Figure 1.3 Kerning Left Align

Figure 1.4 Kerning Centre Align

Figure 1.5 Kerning Right Align

Figure 1.5 Kerning Justified

Project 1: Book Design

For starters, we added the original text into the pages, and chose the grids, font, font size, line spacing that we used. I chose univers lt for the original text in the article, and decided to put the words aligning left at first. We were also told to choose and express a few sentences at the other side of the book.

This is my first attempt of creating a book.

Figure 2.1 First Attempt

Honestly, I really had no idea what to do when we started this project and I guessed I should have asked more clearly about it before actually starting on it and going in too many directions.

After feedback was given, I decided to tone my type expressions down and lessen the graphics a little as it was too much and too messy.

These are my attempts after the first feedback.

Figure 2.2 Second Attempt

Figure 2.3 Third Attempt

Figure 2.4 Fourth Attempt

Figure 2.5 Fifth Attempt

Figure 2.6 Sixth Attempt

I still had a lot of expressions and graphics in my design, so I had to tone it down even more. But even so, I added too many elements that weren't necessary and my layout was inconsistent and imbalanced.

Figure 2.7 Seventh Attempt

I got feedback again and again, and changed my designs a lot, and I finally realized the importance of this project was to incorporate the usage of grids and layouts into a book design, so that it would look balanced and readable to the users. My final outcome looks very simple compared to my previous attempts, but I like it somehow.


Final Attempt:

Figure 2.8 Final Attempt Thumbnails

Figure 2.9 First Things First Page 1

Figure 2.10 First Things First Page 2 & 3

Figure 2.11 First Things First Page 4 & 5

Figure 2.12 First Things First Page 6 & 7

Figure 2.13 First Things First Page 8

Here's the PDF file of my book design:




I printed out the book as well, and here's the outcome.

Figure 2.15 Printed Version of Book

Figure 2.16 Printed Version of Book

Figure 2.17 Printed Version of Book

Figure 2.18 Printed Version of Book

Figure 2.19 Printed Version of Book

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FEEDBACK

Week 8:
InDesign Feedback:
Mr Vinod said to choose a sentence that had less stuff and express only a few words from the sentence, that I didn't need to express everything. Mr Shamsul said that this isn't the same as the type expression exercise and that I shouldn't make it overly expressive, and to think about the whole layout instead, and look at how others did their books, also to reference typography posters on pinterest. Mr Vinod said not to include unnecessary elements into the design and that the book wasn't about the number 1 but the importance of things.

Week 9:

Book Feedback: Mr Shamsul advised me on the book project and told me that the whole book should have a similar theme and layout, which finally made me understand the project clearly.

Week 10:

I showed Mr Vinod my book design and he said that the triangles weren't necessary, and my weight of both sides of the book should be similar. I edited it and showed it to Mr Shamsul, who said that it looked much better now and that I could finally print it. I also asked him about my poster and asked for confirmation if the traffic jam issue right outside campus could be done and he said any issue that affects us in the campus could be worked on. 
 

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REFLECTION

Experiences: 

Week 7: I felt very very confused on what to do, I don't know what the purpose of the typography book was for, so I created it without much direction. I felt like I was stuck in a big black hole with no way to escape at this point.

Week 8: I felt troubled because I didn't know much about layouts in a book, so I decided to research about it but I wasn't sure if I'm doing the right thing, but what is the right thing anyway? I started doubting myself and became very unsure of the whole project.

Week 9: I felt happy that my designs were approved finally after many times of feedback. I think I started to understand a bit of what the project wanted from us after getting feedback a few times but I'm still not 100% sure if I've achieved the learning outcome, which I think I need to understand better  in the future.


Observations:

Week 7: I observed that InDesign is like a book publishing software that works almost like Illustrator. It has a lot of similar tools as AI, and a few extra tools that help in publishing and book layouts.

Week 8: I observed the different types of layouts and books found online and there was a style that I could understand about it. I also observed that some books were really weird in my point of view and I didn't know how to read them, as in which direction should I start from or why the book has such big words and then a really small paragraph on one page.

Week 9: I observed that my final book design looked way easier to read and more comfortable to the eye compared to the first attempt. The design was really super simple in my perspective, and not every word was expressed, only the words that had more importance were emphasized on.

Findings:

Week 7: I find that I need to think about my own designs and not just rely on the lecturers opinions. This is because I feel like I need to get approval from the lecturers before I can proceed to the next step, and I realize that this only happens in typography class, whereas in other classes I would know what I want to do and just get feedback and ways to improve my ideas from the lecturers.

Week 8: I found out that I should have read the MIB before starting the project as it has good guidelines and learning outcomes. The MIB gives me reassurance on what I need to present and have in the blog or in my designs, but sometimes I can't understand exactly what is needed.

Week 9: I found out that the consistency of a layout is really important in in book design. Imagine if one page was really simple, then you flip to the next page and it becomes really messy with lots of elements (ok I admit I did something like that in my first few attempts) but yeah, it just doesn't sit right when a reader is reading the book, to me anyways.

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FURTHER READING
1. Understanding Typography Concepts @ 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated
8/10/18 - 15/10/18 (Week 7)

As I was a little clueless on how to work on my Book Design, I decided to look for a typography e-book online about InDesign or publishing in general to give me some ideas and inspiration. I found this short book and read the whole thing. It was very useful, and precise without too much information for a beginner. I understood that both Serif and Sans Serif are important and have their own uses. Serif looks better when viewed on print, while sans serif is read easier on the web.

Figure 3.1 Serif and Sans Serif

Figure 3.2 Font Sizing and Leading

Figure 3.3 Kerning and Tracking

Although this has already been taught in the lectures before, I got to read more about kerning and tracking, and also review and revise on what I've learned in class. It also helped me understand more on why people use kerning in typography and publishing.


Here's the whole version of the e-book for everyone to read: