Advanced Typography// Task 1// Exercises 1 & 2

April 01, 2022

Advanced Typography// Task 1// Exercises 1 & 2

1/4 - 5/5/22 Week 1- Week 6

Chan Siew Ni #0352518
Bachelors of Design in Creative Media
Task 1 Exercises

LECTURES

Week 1: Today, Mr Vinod gave a a brief about this module. He ask us to watch lecture 1 pre-recorded video during the class time.

Week 1-Lecture 1:Typographic Systems
All Design is based on structural system. There are 8 Major variations with an infinite number of permutations

Axial
Radial
Dilatational
Random
Grid
Modular
Transition
Bilateral

Reader can clearly read the text besides that the typographical organization, it also depends on hierarchy, order of reading, legibility and contrast. These factors can also determine the outcome.

Axial System : all elements are organized to the left or right (either side), single axis

Figure 1: Axial System Example

Radial System : all elements are extended from a point

Figure 1.1: Radial System Example

Dilatational system : all elements expand from a central point in a circular fashion (ring or rings)

Figure 1.2: Dilatational System Example

Random system : elements appear to have no specific pattern even thought is random but
still has its chaos

Figure 1.3: Random System Example

Grid System : a system of vertical and horizontal divisions (Example: books)

Figure 1.4: Grid System Example

Transitional system : an informal system of layered banding, flow

Figure 1.5: Transitional System Example

Modular system: non-objective elements that are constructed in a standardized unit

Unit can be placed randomly (you can shift these unit order in a page)

Figure 1.6: Modular System Example

Bilateral System: all text is arranged symmetrically in a single axis

Figure 1.7: Bilateral System Example

Conclusion: Designers could break free from grid system

These systems allows designers to use more fluid means to create typographic messages

Typographic not just playing reading role but also visual role

Week 2-Lecture 2: Typographic Composition

Typographic Composition

Some common principles about composition: emphasis, isolation, repetition, symmetry and asymmetry, alignment, perspective.

However, they seem more relevant to imagery than complex unit of information that consist different elements

Figure1.8: Rules of Third

The Rule of Thirds:

· A photographic guide to composition

· it basically suggested that a frame (space) can be divided into 3 columns and 3 rows.

· The intersecting lines are used as guide to place the points of interest, within the given space.

Notes: no one will use this if there are other more favorable options

From the 8 systems (lecture 1) the most pragmatic and the most used system is the Grid System (or ‘Raster Systeme’)

A group of younger designers began to question and challenge this notion of order. Thus, was born the post-modernist era in Typographical systems where chaos, randomness and asymmetry were explored. Legibility and readability were relegated to the back seat however the bests examples seem to combine the two seamlessly.

Other system

Figure 1.9: Environment Grid

Environmental Grid:

This system is based on the exploration of an existing structure or numerous structures combined.
An extraction of crucial lines both curved and straight are formed.

Figure 1.10: Form and Movement

Form and Movement: (Created by Mr Vinod)

This system is based on the exploration of an existing Grid Systems.
Mr Vinod developed this system to get students to explore the multitude of options the grid offer to dispel the seriousness surrounding the application of the grid system

Week 3-Lecture 3: Context& Creativity

The Importance of handwriting in the study of type/typography

The first mechanically produced letterforms were designed to directly imitate handwriting. Handwriting would become the basis or standard for form

Figure 1.11: Cuneiform c. 3000 B.C.E.

Cuneiform:

The earliest system of actual writing
Evolved from pictograms.
Cuneiform was written from left to right.

Figure 1.12: Hieroglyphics 2613–2160 B.C.E.

The Egyptian writing system:
Fused with the art of relief carving.

The system was a mixture of both rebus and phonetic characters—the first link to a future alphabetic system.

Hieroglyphic images have the potential to be used in three different ways:

As ideograms, to represent the things they actually depict.
As determinatives to show that the signs preceding are meant as phonograms and to indicate the general idea of the word.
As phonograms to represent sounds that "spell out" individual words.

Figure 1.13: Early Greek 5th C. B.C.E.

Early Greek / 5th C. B.C.E.
Built on the Egyptian logo-consonantal system, the Phoenicians developed a phonetic alphabet consisting of 22 letters.
Early Greek was comprised of only capital letters, written between two guidelines to organize them into horizontal rows.
The words may have been in rows but the direction of reading was not yet fixed.
One row would read left to right and then switch from right to left.
These early Greek letters were drawn freehand, not constructed with compasses and rule.

Figure 1.14: Roman inscriptional letters

Roman inscriptional letters
Written with a flat brush, held at an angle like a broad nib pen,
Then carved into the stone with mallet and chisel
By the 4th century Roman letters were becoming more rounded, the curved form allowed for less strokes and could be written faster.

Figure 1.15: English Half Uncials, 8th C.

English Half Uncials, 8th C.
In England the uncial evolved into a more slanted and condensed form.

Emperor Charlemagne 8 C. CE
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the end of a central advanced culture resulted in general illiteracy and a breakdown of handwriting into diverse regional styles.

Figure 1.16: Carolingian Minuscule

Carolingian Minuscule
capitals at the start of a sentence, spaces between words and punctuation. A new script emerged, the Carolingian minuscule.
The Carolingian minuscule, was used for all legal and literary works to unify communication between the various regions of the expanding European empire.
The Carolingian minuscule was as important a development as the standard Roman capital
This style would become the pattern for the Humanistic writing of the fifteenth century; this latter, in turn was the basis of our lower-case roman type

Figure 1.17: Black Letter 12-15 C. CE

Black Letter 12-15 C. CE
Gothic was the culminating artistic expression of the middle age, occurring roughly from 1200—1500.
The term Gothic originated with the Italians who used it to refer to rude or barbaric cultures north of the Italian Alps.
Blackletter is characterized by tight spacing and condensed lettering. Evenly spaced verticals dominated the letterform.
Condensing line spacing and letter spacing reduced the amounts of costly materials in book production.

The Italian Renaissance
Humanist scholars in Italy were slowly reviving the culture of antiquity.
The renaissance embrace of ancient Greek and Roman culture spurred a creative wave through Italian art, architecture, literature and letter form design.
The renaissance analysis of form that was being applied to art and architecture was directed toward letterform — resulting in a more perfect or rationalized letter.

Creativity and originality are properties that are most often intertwined.

It is important for young designers to look inward and examine their histories, civilization, culture and communities to bring these past developments into the future and develop on them instead of blindly appropriating cultures and developments that have no context, relatability or relevance.

Creativity and inspiration should begin by observing our surroundings and exploration of our collective histories.

Week 5- Lecture 4: Designing Type

The reason we design another typeface:

Type design creates a social responsibility that someone must continue to improve its legibility. Besides that, type design is also a form of artistic expression.

Process of Type design

Research a) Before we create a type, we should first understand type history, type anatomy and type conventions. Then, we should also learn about terminologies, side bearing, metrics, hinting and so on. b) Then, we should determine the type’s purpose or what it would be used for. c) We should also examine existing font that are presently being used for inspiration/ ideas/ references/ context/ usage pattern etc.
Sketching a) Traditional tool- brushes/pens, ink and paper b) Digital tool- Wacom etc.
Digitization a) Software that are used in the digitization of typefaces: Fontlab, Glyphs App, Adobe Illustration(craft the letterform then introduce it to specialized font making app) b) Counter form and readability are also should be paying attention
Testing a) An important component in the design thinking process b) Part of the process of refining and correcting aspects of the typeface c) Prototyping is also part of the testing process and it also brings some important feedback from users
Deploy a) There are always teething problems that did not come to fore during the testing phrase, thus the revision process still continued.

Typeface construction Roman Capital: Grid consists of a square; Inside it a circle (just touches the lines of the square in 4 places); rectangle can also be used in the square, rectangle=three quarters the size of square and positioned the center of the square

Figure 1.18: Type construction using grid

Using Grid- Facilitate the construction of a letterforms

Construction and consideration: The extrusion of curved(and protruding)forms past the baseline and cap line is an important visual correction.

Intrinsic: Designer has an inexplicable need driven by interest to design a typeface. Seek out a form that comes close to fulfill the desire. Identify a gap/problem and endeavors to solve it through designing the typeface

Extrinsic: designer has been commissioned/ student-designer has task to complete that involves designing a typeface

Week 5 - Lecture 5: Perception and Organization

Perception: what you see/ what you are manipulated into seeing and understanding.

Perception in Typography: deals with the visual navigation and interpretation of the reader via contrast, form and organization of the content

Content: textual, visual, graphical, or the form of color

Contrast(method):

Contrast of Size
Contrast of Weight
Contrast of form
Contrast of structure
Contrast of texture
Contrast of color
Contrast of direction

Figure 1.19: Contrast of size

Contrast// Size: Provide a point to which reader’s attention is drawn.The most common use of size is in making a title/heading noticeably bigger than body text

Figure 1.20: Contrast of weight

Contrast// Weight: Describe how bold text can stand out in the middle of lighter type of the same style

Figure 1.21: Contrast of form

Contrast// Form: Distinction between a capital letter/ lowercase/ roman letter/ italic variant

Figure 1.22: Contrast of structure

Contrast// Structure: the different letterforms of different kind of typefaces

Figure 1.23: Contrast of texture

Contrast// Texture: the way the line of type looks as a whole up close and from a distance. This depends on how the letterform and ow they arranged

Figure 1.24: Contrast of direction

Contrast// Direction: Opposition between vertical and horizontal and the angle between.

Figure 1.25: Contrast of color

Contrast// Color: Use of colors is suggested that a second color is often less emphatic in values than plain black on white. Which element needs to be emphasized and to pay attention to the tonal values of the colors that are used is important too.

Form: the overall look and feel of the element that makes up the typographic composition. The part that plays a role in visual impact and first impression.

Two functions of Typography: To represent a concept , To do so in a visual form.

Organization//Gestalt: Gestalt means the way a thing has been “placed”/ “put together”. Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts.

Gestalt(Law):

Law of Similarity
Law of Proximity
Law of Closure
Law of Continuation
Law of Symmetry
Law of Simplicity

Figure 1.26: Law of Similarity

Law of Similarity: elements that are similar to each other tend to be perceived as a unified group. Similar can refer to any number of features, including color/ orientation/size/ indeed motion.

Figure 1.27: Law of Proximity

Law of Proximity: elements that are close together tend to be perceived as a unified group.

Figure 1.28: Law of Closure

Law of Closure: the mind’s tendency to see complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete/ partially hidden by other objects.

Figure 1.29: Law of Continuation

Law of Continuation: humans tend to perceive each of two or more objects are different, singular, and uninterrupted objects even when they intersect.

Figure 1.30: Law of Symmetry

Law of Symmetry: elements that are symmetrical to each other tend to be perceived as a unified group. Similar to the law of similarity but this rule suggests that objects that are symmetrical with each other will be more likely to be grouped together than objects not symmetrical with each other.

Figure 1.31: Law of Simplicity

Law of Simplicity: the eye will instinctively choose to interpret the simplest possible form. This means that when presented with an image containing multiple shapes, the mind may choose to separate them/ group them.

INSTRUCTIONS

EXERCISES

Task 1: Typographic System
Task: Use the 8 major structural system that we learned in the first lecture and explore it with the given content.

Requirement: 200x200mm , In addition in black, we are allowed to use one other color , Graphic elements (Line, dots, etc.)can be use but limitedly.

8 Typographic System

In these 8 systems , I added the same color(dark red) to create some contrast between black, white and red. I also tried to use different fonts do that there is some different each one.

First Attempt

1)Axial System
Font: ITC Garamond Std

Figure 2: Axial System

2)Radial System
Font: Futura

Figure 2.1: Radial System

3)Dilatational System
Font: Futura

Figure 2.2: Dilatational System

4)Random System
Font: Futura

Figure 2.3: Random System

5)Grid System
Font: Adobe Caslon Pro

Figure 2.4: Grid System

6)Transitional System
Font: ITC New Baskerville Std

Figure 2.5: Transitional System

7)Modular System
Font: Bembo

Figure 2.6: Modular System

8)Bilateral System

Font: Futura

Figure 2.7: Bilateral System

Figure 2.8: All 8 Systems Screen Grab

2nd Attempt (Amended)

Based on the feedback, I did some amended on systems that Mr Vinod ask me to change.

Figure2.9: Axial 2nd attempt

Figure 2.10: Dilatational System 2nd attempt

Figure 2.11: Random System 2nd attempt

Figure 2.12: Grid System 2nd attempt

Figure 2.13: Modular System 2nd attempt

FINAL OUTCOME

Figure 3: Axial System(JPG)

Figure 3.1: Radial System(JPG)

Figure 3.2: Dilatational System(JPG)

Figure 3.3: Random System(JPG)

Figure 3.4: Grid System(JPG)

Figure 3.5: Transitional System(JPG)

Figure 3.6: Modular System(JPG)

Figure 3.7: Bilateral System(JPG)

FINAL TYPOGRAPHIC SYSTEM PDF with Grid & Guides

FINAL TYPOGRAPHIC SYSTEM PDF

Task 1 Exercise 2

Type & Play Part 1

Task: Finding type - We have to make a selection of image between man-made objects (chair, glass, etc.) or structures (buildings), and nature (Human, landscape, leaf, plant, bush, clouds, hill, river, etc). Then, we have to will analyze, dissect and identify potential letterforms within the dissected image. The forms would be explored and ultimately digitized.

Figure 4: chosen image

Figure 4.1: Work progress on refining letters

Figure 4.2: differences between traced and after refining

Figure 4.3: work progress on refining and looking for suitable reference

First Attempt

Figure 4.4: Screen grab of my first attempt on task 1 exercise 2a

Second Attempt

Based on the feedback, I went to find suitable reference typeface on internet and also from Ai. Then, I found a typeface called 'Candara' is quite similar to mine. After that, I start doing refinement again by looking at the reference.

Figure 4.5: work progress on refining

And in this process, I found that my letter 'p' is not consistent with my other letters so I decided to remove it. Then, I refined the letters so that they are same typeface.

Figure 4.6: 4 letters (c,y,x,k) and reference(below)

Figure 4.7: Letterform 'c' (21/4/22)

Figure 4.8: Letterform 'y' (21/4/22)

Figure 4.9: Letterform 'x' (21/4/22)

Figure 4.10: Letterform 'k' (21/4/22)

Figure 4.11: Letter on wavy background 1 (21/4/22)

Figure 4.12: Letter on wavy background 2 (21/4/22)

Figure 4.13 : second attempt of task 1 exercise 2a, week 4(21/4/22 )

Final Submission of Task 1 Type & Play Part 1

Figure 4.14: Process from traced to refined

Figure 4.15: Differences between traced and final outcome

Figure 4.16: final type and play part 1 type design jpg, 2/5/22

Figure 4.17: letter 'c' jpg , 2/5/22

Figure 4.18: letter 'y' jpg , 2/5/22

Figure 4.19: letter 'x' jpg, 2/5/22

Figure 4.20: letter 'k' jpg, 2/5/22

Figure 4.21: Type showcase jpg, 2/5/22

Final Submission of Task 1 Type & Play Part 1 (PDF)

Task 1 Exercise 2

Type & Play Part 2

Task: We have to choose a picture/image and work with a word/sentences that is matches/fits our chosen image. The objective is to enhance/support the interplay between the letter/word/sentence and the selected visual. The text must be woven into a symbiotic relationship with the image.

Figure 5-5.2: Original Image sources from Pinterest

Figure 5.3: Attempt 1 "Alone" , 27/4/22

Figure 5.4: Attempt 1&2 "Hopes", 27/4/22

For this two image, I try to make the text as a shadow that reflect at the floor. I tried to use envelop distort to make the first image so that it feels like placing on the floor.

Figure 5..5: Attempt 1 "Set me free", 27/4/22

For this image, I tried to make the words looks like placing on the glass and I also added some effects to make the word wrap text with bulge so it looks a bit curve and more realistic. Then, I also added some gaussian blur effects on the text.

Week 6

Based on the feedback form Mr Vinod, he asked me to focus on the image with text "Alone". Then, I started to work on it. I make the text bigger as the person sitting on the floor. Then, I erase the overlapping part between letter 'o' and the person.

Figure 5.6: work progress on placing the text, 3/5/22

Figure 5.7: 2nd attempt "Alone", 3/5/22

Other than that, I also added some shadow of the letters on the ground so it looks more realistic.

Final Submission of Task 1 Type & Play Part 2

Figure 5.8: Final submission "Alone", 5/5/22

Final Submission of Task 1 Type & Play Part 2 (PDF)

Hour Spent in each task
Task 1 Exercise 1: 10 Hours
Task 1 Exercise 2 Part 1: 22 Hours
Task 1 Exercise 2 Part 2 : 12 Hours

FEEDBACK

Week 2(8/4/22):
General Feedback: We should choose solid color instead of pastel color.
Specific Feedback: Mr Vinod said that axial can be more diagonal so that my text have enough space without exceed the margin. Radial is ok can go with it. Graphic element(circle)in dilatational is unnecessary. Random is a bit too many blank space but can go with it. Graphic element in Grid system is too strong and pulling the entire layout to left upper part. He is not sure that modular is in the standardized unit before looking at the grid and guide. And transitional and bilateral is good and can go with it.

Week 3 (15/4/22):

General Feedback: We must find our reference that closest to what we try to design. Then, after completing refining our letters, we shall proceed to next task and start finding pictures that is suitable.

Specific Feedback: The letter is ok but I need to have reference so that I will clearly know that which stroke has to be thicker or thinner. I have to find a typeface that represent to the direction what I want. And I can choose either from 10 typeface that Mr Vinod have gave or other than these. If we don't have a references, we will have some inaccurate assumption and It may not features correctly.

Week 4 (22/4/22):
General Feedback: We have to make sure our typeface stroke were in the same width so it looks consistent.

Specific Feedback: the letter 'y' and 'x' has different width and it looks weird. The tail of letter 'c' is slightly too long. Overall is okay already but I just need to develop more proportionately of the letters and no need to refer to the reference anymore.

Week 5 (29/4/22):
General Feedback: Make sure when we put in our words into the picture, we have to also create the texture on the words so that it looks more realistic.

Specific feedback: Mr Vinod said that the word are not working well and matching well in this picture and he also suggest me to put my words larger as the people sitting. As the word closer to the sunlight it will become lighter color.

REFLECTIONS

Experiences

I think this task is quite fun because we are able to learn variant types of type of typographic system in task 1 exercise 1. And on task 1 exercise 2 part 1, I learn that how to find a suitable reference and do some construction on the letterforms that I found on the non-living thing.

Observations

I observed that typographic system can determine the visual impact and people would like to look at a visual hierarchy text composition .I observe my surroundings to find somewhere to take photo. In this process, it trained my observations skill to look at the very detail part of the certain objects. I observed that word can stand an important roles in a picture to convey and express the meaning or information to the reader.

Findings
I found that there's so much of typographic system that other than grid system which was a system that we mostly seen. These systems should be widely use in our daily life to create more interesting and nice composition. I found that the process of doing constructing letterforms is quite interesting because when seeing the difference between the original traced out letterforms and the final letterforms is huge.

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Chan Siew Ni//0352518

Advanced Typography// Task 1// Exercises 1 & 2

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