TYPOGRAPHY / TASK 1: EXERCISES

April 01, 2022

TYPOGRAPHY / TASK 1: EXERCISES

28/3/2022- 25/4/2022 / Week 1 - Week 5

Ravvetaran Thillai / 0346025
Typography / Bachelor of Mass Communications (Honors) (Advertising & Brand Management)
Task 1: Exercises 1

LECTURES:

Week 1 / Introduction & Briefing

Mr. Vinod, our friendly lecturer, introduced himself to us during the first week of class. Mr. Vinod informed us on the module information and what to expect by the end. He also gave excellent YouTube tutorial videos to help us put up our E-portfolios in Blogger, but since I already had my blog set up two semesters ago, I didn't need to do that, and pre-recorded lectures to learn more about typography.

Week 2

Today in week 2 of class, Mr. Vinod shared with us his background in his career. He also showed us previous works from before he became a lecturer. After that he continued giving us feedback on our sketches that we were asked to draw in previous class. He then started giving feedback on each student. He also taught us on how to digitalized the sketches in Adobe Illustrator.

Figure 1.0 Screenshot of the lecturer giving me feedback 4/4/2022

Figure 1.1 Screenshot of the lecturer teaching how to digitalized the typographical words 4/4/2022

Week 3

He asked us to put our digitalized work on Facebook at the start of the class, and then the feedback session began. He then told us how to improve the work we had done.

Figure 2.0 Screenshot of the lecturer giving feedback on my digitalized work 11/4/2022

After the feedback session was over, he gave us a little quiz to see how well we knew the lecture videos we had watched. Finally, he showed how to make a GIF, which is what we have show him in week 4. We had to use Photoshop and Illustrator to make the gif, and he showed them how to do it.

Week 4

Mr. Vinod checked our e-portfolio blog during this week just to make sure everyone is doing it right and he also gave feedback to all of us, which helped us adjust our portfolio to make it better. After that, he went on giving comments to whoever finished task 3, text formatting, and also, for those who had not finished, he asked everyone to start during the class.

Lecture : Typo 0 Introduction

What is Typography ?

Typography is the act of creating letters. Typography can be found in all around us, from websites to toilet signs.

Font - Individual font or weight within the typefaces.
Typeface - Refers to the entire families that share similar characteristics.

Figure 3.0 Example of fonts, 2 April 2022

Figure 3.1 Example of typefaces, 2 April 202

Lecture : Typo 1 Development & Timeline

In this week's pre-recorded lecture, we'll learned about the history and evolution of typography. There was a transition from Phoenician to Roman letters in the first millennium BCE. Based on the tool that was utilized, this letterform is influenced by what the letter is making.. Next, the Greeks began to shift the direction of writing, known as 'boustrophedon,' from right to left and back again.

Figure 4.0 Boustrophedon style, 2 April 2022

The Romans and Etruscans painted their letterforms first to conserve marble. This resulted in varied stroke quality for the letterforms depending on the instrument used. We also learned about early-century handwriting with square and rustic caps. Serifs were added to major strokes in square capitals by writing at an angle of roughly 60 degrees from the perpendicular. Hold the pen or brush at a 30-degree angle to the perpendicular for faster and easier rustic capitals. This hand script is easier to write but harder to read since it is condensed.

Figure 4.1 Square Capitals, 2 April 2022

Figure 4.2 Rustic Capitals, 2 April 2022

Lecture : Typo 2 Basic

Typographers and design students both benefit greatly from familiarity with typographic terminology and the ability to define letterforms in order to correctly identify typefaces.

Baseline -The imaginary line of visual base
Median - The imaginary line defining the x-height of letterforms
X-height -The height of the lowercase "x" in a typeface
Stroke - The line that defines a basic letterform
Apex/Vertex - The point created from the intersection of two diagonal stem (Apex ↑, Vertex ↓).
Stem - Any vertical line in a letter.
Arm - Short Strokes off the Stem of the letterform, either horizontal (eg. E, F, L) or diagonal (eg. K, Y).
Ascender - Stem of a lowercase letterform above the Median.
Barb - Half-serif end of a curved Stroke.
Bowl - Rounded form that describes a counter (open or closed)
Bracket - Transition between the serif and the stem
Cross Stroke - horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stems together
Crotch - interior space where two strokes meet
Descender - portion of the stem of a lowercase that projects below the baseline

Figure 5.0 Example of ligature, 6th April 2022

Link - Stoke connects the bowl and the loop of lowercase G
Loop - Bowl is created in the descender of the "g"
Shoulder - Cstroke that is not part of a bowl
Spur - The extension the articulates the junction of the curved and rectilinear stroke

Font & Typefaces

Uppercase - Capital letters + certain accented vowels, c cedilla & n tilde, and a/e & o/e ligatures.
Lowercase - Lowercase letters that include the same character set as Uppercase.
Small Capitals - Uppercase letterforms drawn to the x-height, the same size as lowercase but in the form of uppercase
Uppercase Numerals (Lining figures) - Same height as uppercase letters, with same kerning width.
Lowercase Numerals (Old style figures) -Height is with ascender and descender, most commonly found in Serif typefaces.

Figure 5.1 Differences between Old style figures & Lining figures, 6th April 2022

Lecture : Typo 3 Text P1

Kerning : When two letters are separated by a kerning, the spacing between them is known as "kerning."

Tracking : refers to the distance between each letter in a group. Tagging makes the entire word or sentence have an evenly distributed spacing (not recommended on a whole paragraph).

Figure 6.0 Differences between tight tracking and loose tracking,

13th April 2022

Text Formatting

1. Flush left: Closely mirrors the asymmetrical experience of handwriting. Each line starts at the same point but ends whenever the last word on the line ends. (Ragged right)

2. Centered: Symmetry upon the text, assigning equal value.

3. Flush right: Emphasis on the end of a line as opposed to its start.

4. Justified: Impose a symmetrical shape on the text, may result openness of lines which produce white space running vertically known as 'rivers'

Lecture : Typo 4 Text P2

Widow which would be a short line of type left alone and at the end of a section of text can be fix by rebreaking row endings all through the paragraph.

Figure 7.0 Example of Widow in a text paragraph 20/04/2022

For orphan, short line of type left alone at the start of a new column might need to be careful. We can make adjustment like moving columns in layouts or reducing the line length.

Figure 7.1 Example of Orphan in a text paragraph 20/04/2022

Instructions

HTML LINK :

Task 1 : Exercise 1 - Type Expressions

For task 1- exercise 1, we were told to draw some ideas based on the top six words from the Facebook group that we previously asked to choose based on a poll. However, we were only required to skectch four words. "cough" was one of the compulsory words we had to choose. Some of the selected words will be composed and expressed typographically. I chose the words "squeeze," "explode," "pop," and the compulsory "cough."

Figure 8.0 Cough Sketches 3/04/2022

Figure 8.1 Pop Sketches 3/04/2022

Figure 8.2 Squeeze Sketches 3/04/2022

Figure 8.3 Explode Sketches 3/04/2022

Task 1 : Exercise 2- Digitalization

It was required for me to digitalize my ideas and sketches that I had previously created, and that was the assignment. It was a little difficult for me to draw digitally from the drawing that I had previously created. I digitalized the sketch that was chosen. After attempting to digitalize my hand-drawn sketches in Adobe Illustrator, I discovered that some of them simply don't work when rendered digitally.

Figure 9.0 Progression: My Typography attempts 7/04/2022

Figure 9.1 Progression : My Typography attempts 8/04/2022

Final Submission:

Figure 9.2 Final Submission in PDF 8/04/2022

Figure 9.3 Final Submission in JPEG 8/04/2022

Task 1 : Exercise 3- Animating

We were instructed to make a looping GIF by using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

Figure 10.0 Frame Artboards on Adobe Illustrator 11/04/2022

Figure 10.1 Timeline Panels on Adobe Photoshop11/04/2022

Figure 10.2 Final Submission in GIF 11/04/2022

Final Submission:

Task 1 : Exercise 4- Text Formatting

For exercise 4, we were asked to use our names to learn how to do the kerning with the 10 typefaces that were given. We were given the freedom to use the kerning. So the attached images show my name in text formatting with and without kerning.

Figure 11.0 Text Formatting with my name 14/04/2022

Once I was done with the attempts at text formatting my name, the next task was to text format the text that was given by the lecturer. In this task, we had to make sure the alignments were aligned properly and choose one font out of the 10 typefaces given. Not only that, we were supposed to use lead to make sure each paragraph had the same space in between the paragraphs.

Fig. 11.1 Using baseline grid to achieve cross alignment (15/4/2022)

Figure 11.2 Attempts of layout 15/04/2022

Figure 11.3 Layout that I liked 14/04/2022

Figure 11.4 Feedbacks that were given by the lecturer 18/04/2022

Feedback was given on my layouts, and I made some adjustments according to the feedback that I received. I also got some useful tips from the lecturer that made me realize my mistakes as well.

Figure 11.5 Revised version 24/04/2022

Final Submission:

Font : Univers LT Std
Typeface : 55 Roman
Font size : 40 pt, 9 pt

Leading: 11 pt

Paragraph Spacing : 11pt

Average characters per line : 53 - 60

Alignment : Justify
Margins : 12.7mm (top, left, right, bottom)
Gutter (for columns) : 2p

Columns : 5mm

Feedback

Week 2 on Task 1

We are also asked to answer this questions whether we're on track.

1. Are the explorations sufficient?
2. Does the expression match the meaning of the word?
3. On a scale of 1–5, how strong is the idea?
4. How can the work be improved?

General Feedback:

Avoid visual elements and keep illustrations to a minimum.

Specific Feedback:

Suggested the word "POP." He asked if he could use a thin or dotted line to make the O look like a bubble about to burst. But overall it's good and many ideas can be explored more.

Week 3 on Task 2

General Feedback:

Overall he said everything is good and nicely positioned.

Specific Feedback:

Suggested maybe for the word cough, repositioned the letters O, U, G, H and can work on it, but he also added it still looks good with the typography that I came up with. He also added that he loved the bubble popping out of the word "POP."

Week 4 on Task 4

General Feedback:

Overall, it's good and for the final submission, I have to make sure there are two files for it, which are PDF and JPEG in my blog.

Specific Feedback:

The headline had a clear hierarchy and suggested that I don't need to stack into two lines, whereas I can just put in one line. He also added that he sees lots of hyphenations, which causes him to have bad eyesight. Next, he commented on the body text because it's not consistent and asked me to make sure it is so that it looks like it's from the same paragraph. For now, it looks like it's from two different texts.

Week 4 on Task 4

General Feedback: Everything is good and everything in order in the blog.

Specific Feedback: Advised on telling me not put the second column, because it looks like it's a new starting paragraph.

Reflections

Experience:

The typography class was incredibly interesting to me because I always had a hard time choosing the typefaces because I couldn't comprehend which one to chose for which design and everything. Not only that, Mr. Vinod is really friendly and the modules are constructed properly. It was quite daunting with the deadline and activities that we had to achieve, but nonetheless very interesting. Through these 4 weeks, I got a lot of information about text and fonts, as well as how to convey them in designs.

Observations:

I used to be a master of time management and a meticulous organiser when it came to my work. However, this semester, I was completely overwhelmed by the number of assignments I had to complete for all of the subjects, which caused me to become extremely nervous. Despite the fact that it was extremely overwhelming, I managed to get through it and complete all of the tasks that had been assigned to me over the previous four weeks, including the blogs where I had made it a habit to update my e-portfolio. In addition, I discovered a load of new tools in Adobe InDesign, which I intend to explore further.

Findings:

I realized that keeping track of my progress allows me to reflect on my actions and better understand and analyze what I do. On top of that, I'm gaining a better understanding of typography as a result of additional reading and research resources. All of this necessitates imagination and attention to detail.

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Ravvetaran Thillai 0346025