Typography Project 2

Typography - Project 2

09.10.2019 -30.10.2019 (Week 7 - Week 10)
Wong Kai Yi (0340236)
Typography
Project 2

1. LECTURE

Lecture 5: Basic Typography Part 3

09.10.2019 (Week 7)

Fig 7.1 Typography cheat sheet 1

Fig 7.2 Typography cheat sheet 2

Fig 7.3 Typography cheat sheet 3

Baseline: The imaginary line the visual base of the letterforms.
Median: The imaginary line defining the x-height of letterforms.
X-Height: The lower case height which is used as a guidance for the unextended lowercase letters.
Cap Height: It is a measurement of a capital letters from its baseline.
Ascender Line: The imaginary line which marks the height of all ascenders in a font.
Ascender: In lower case letters, the vertical stroke which extends vertically to x-height refers to this term.
Descender: Parts of lowercase of letters which extends to its baseline.

Apex / Vertex– When the two strokes meet then the upper joining part of a letterform is called Apex.
Arm – A stroke that doesn’t connect to another stroke at one end or both ends.
Barb – The half serif finish on some curved stroke.
Beak – A decorative stroke which is put at the end of the arm of letter somewhat similar with serif but not pronounced.
Bilateral Serif – Serif which extends from the main stroke.
Bracket – Curved or wedge-like connection between the serif and the stem of some fonts.
Bowl – The rounded form that describes a counter (open or closed).
Cross Bar – The horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stems together.
Cross Stroke – The horizontal stroke across the lowercase of a letter form like “t” or “f”.
Crotch – It is the inside angle where the two strokes meet.
Cursive – Handwriting with joined up letters and can be said similar to italic font.
Ear – It’s a small stroke which gets extends to the bowl of lowercase of some letters like “r” or “g”.
Em/en – Em is now the distance equal to the size of the typeface. En is half the size of an em. Most often used for em/en dashes (–, -).
Eye – It is an enclosed space in the lower case of the letter like “e”.
Finial – It is a tapered or curved end of letters like “a” or “e” at the bottom or some letters have at the top of double storey like “a”.
Flag – The part of the stem that rests on baseline.
Head Serif – It is a half serif from the top starting point of letterform.
Hook – Curved stroke in the lower case of “f”.
Ink Trap – Some areas are opened so that ink can spread without leaving any dark spots.
Italic – Slanted towards right unlike roman typefaces which are upright.
Joint / Juncture – It is a part where the stroke joins the stem.
Leg – Short stroke off the stem of the letterform, either at the bottom of the stroke (L) or inclined downward (K, R).
Ligature – The character formed by the combination of two or more letterforms.
Link / Neck – Its a connecting link between two bowls that is top and bottom in lowercase like “g”
Loop / Lob – A projecting stroke which is partially or fully enclosed.
Midline – It’s a invisible line which rests on the lower case of the letter.
Oblique / Slanted – Slanted typefaces unlike italic which are drawn and crafted separately.
Overshoot – A round or pointed letter which extends higher or lower from the flat letter to make it look optically containing same size.
Pica – It’s a unit of measurement corresponding to 12 points or pixel.
Point – Its a unit of measurement corresponding to 1/12 of a pica or 1 pixel.
Point Size – Its a size of body of each character in a font.
Roman – It is a standard type style or regular weight of an upright typeface.
Serif – Small stroke at the beginning and end of the main strokes of the letter.
Shoulder – The curved stroke that is not part of a bowl. (h, n)
Small Caps – Capitals having similar height to lower case are designed for abbreviation and emphasis in texts.
Spacing – Horizontal space between each side of character.
Spine – The curved stem of the S.
Spur – In typography, it is a small part of protruding of a main stroke.
Spurless – Without a spur it is a transition of curves into straight stems.
Stem – The significant vertical or oblique stroke.
Stress – The orientation of the letterform, indicated by the thin stroke in the round forms.
Swash – The flourish that extends the stroke of the letterform.
Stroke – Any line that defines the basic letterform.
Tail – The descending stroke of the letter like “Q”.
Taper – Thinner and refined end of a stroke.
Terminal – The end of a stroke that doesn’t come under serif.
Vertex – A point where two strokes meet at the bottom of the character in a font.
Weight – The heaviness of font apart from size can represents its weight or we can say through the terms thin or bold.

Basic: The font

Roman
Boldface
Light
Condensed
Extended
Demi
Book

Fig 7.4 Roman, light, boldface, demi, italic and oblique, condensed, extended, book

Uppercase letters
Lowercase letters
Small capitals

Fig 7.5 Uppercase letters, Small capitals, Lowercase letters

Uppercase numerals
Lowercase numerals

Fig 7.6 Uppercase and lowercase numerals

Italic

Fig 7.7 Italic

Oblique

Fig 7.8 Oblique

Punctuation, miscellaneous characters

Fig 7.9 Punctuation

Fig 7.10 Miscellaneous characters

Ornaments

Fig 7.11 Ornaments

16.10.2019 (Week 8)

Lecture 6: Understanding Typography

Symmetry is not applicable for many letterforms

The complexity of each individual letterform is neatly demonstrated by examining the lowercase ‘a’ of two seemingly similar sans-serif typefaces—Helvetica and Univers. A comparison of how the stems of the letterforms finish and how the bowls meet the stems quickly reveals the palpable difference in character between the two.

Fig 7.12 Helvetica and Univers letter "a"

The x-height generally describes the size of the lowercase letterforms. Curved strokes, such as in ‘s’,‘c’,‘d’,‘n’,‘r’, , 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.

Fig 7.13 "razors" to show that the curved strokes rise above the median / sink below the baseline

Contrast is also evident in typography.

Fig 7.14 Contrast in different typefaces

2. INSTRUCTIONS

09.10.2019 (Week 7)

Project 2:

Dissect a font (one of the 9 type families)
Use what you learnt to design your own font (d,g,i,s,n)
Digitize the font in Adobe Illustrator and Font Lab 5.0

Among the 9 type families given:

Adobe Caslon Pro
Bembo Std
Futura Std
Gill Sans Std
ITC Garamond Std
ITC New Baskerville Std
Janson Text LT Std
Serifa Std
Univers LT Std

I chose Gill Sans Std to be dissected with Adobe Illustrator.

Fig 7.15 dissection of "g"

Fig 7.16 dissection of "d"

Fig 7.17 dissection of some letters

I tried out my font which have curves at the edge of the stems of the letters. They looked weird and imbalanced. I then referred to Gill Sans Std original font and realized that the width of the stem is too thin. I also thought that the shape of the curve for "d" and "a" is not balanced so I plan to ask Mr Vinod about it.

Fig 7.18 my font 1.0

I continued to work on this font. I tried to increase the width of the stem. It looked much better compared to Fig 7.7.

Fig 7.19 progress

16.10.2019 (Week 8)

I completed this and showed Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul to get feedback.

Fig 7.20 my font 2.0

16.10.2019 (Week 9)

After getting feedback, I continued to fix some of the letters and work on the remaining letters and symbols. Below is the process.

Fig 7.21 process 2

Below is the final font in Adobe Illustrator:

Fig 7.22 my font 3.0

After getting feedback from Mr Shamsul, I altered the letter "t".

Here is the altered "t":

Top (new) and bottom (old).

Fig 7.23 new "t" (top), original "t" (bottom)

Then, I put them into Fontlab Studio 5. The text was "god is in the kerning". I did kerning and showed it to Mr Vinod. He helped me with the letter "g" and "i" because the kerning wasn't really well. He also told me to change the tail of "e".

Fig 7.24 kerned letters 1.0

Top (old) and bottom (new).

Fig 7.25 old "e" (top), new "e" (bottom)

Mr Vinod approved of the letter "e" and so I changed it in Fontlab. The kerning was kept the same.

Fig 7.26 kerned letters 2.0

After that, I generated the font and named it "Kai" which represents my name. Then, I did an A4 layout in Adobe Illustrator.

Final font (Kai):

Fig 7.27 deghiklnorst.,! for final font "Kai"

Below is the layout 1.0 in JPEG:

Fig 7.28 A4 layout (JPEG)

After getting feedback on Week 10, instructions was that the layout was in portrait. Hence, I changed the design.

FINAL:

Fig 7.29 A4 portrait layout (JPEG)

Fig 7.30 A4 portrait layout (PDF)

FONT INFORMATION:

Fig 7.31 Font information

3. FEEDBACK

09.10.2019 (Week 7)

General feedback:

For comments given through Facebook comments / this feedback sheet, they should be documented in the e-portfolio.

For project 1, PDF file is to be put in the blog for final submission only. Explain briefly in your caption what the idea means (JPEG/PDF).

For project 2, the designed font should have integrity and not be overly playful. We can introduce a small style into the font which will be used in every letter. We can Facebook message Mr Vinod/ Mr Shamsul if we have developed more fonts and need suggestions/feedback to proceed. We should complete the digitization of minimum three letters by next week.

Specific feedback:

For the blog, my layout should be streamlined by adjusting the size of the images. For the final work, I should put the captions explaining the idea behind the work.

For project 2 (the sketches/ ideas), the sketch with a curved angle was chosen to proceed. Mr Vinod suggested the angle to be decreased so that the font will look more stable.

16.10.2019 (Week 8)

General feedback:

Continuously update feedback.

Specific feedback:

For letter "d", I should change the part beside the stem to be straight as I put ovals and it looked curved. For "g", the ear should change shape to curved one side. For "n", I should fix the shoulder.

23.10.2019 (Week 9)

General feedback:
When marking attendance, click "mark attendance". Use "god is in the kerning." for the text. When generating the font, use true type / open type. Then, open an A4 size illustrator file and type the text in. Make your own composition but the point size of all the text must be the same.

Specific feedback:
For my letters, Mr Shamsul said that the "t" needed to be altered a little. Other letters are good to go.
Upon showing my font in Fontlab Studio 5 to Mr Vinod, he said that the kerning was excellent and good. He suggested me to change the tail of the letter "e". Other than that, he helped me with kerning the letters "g" and "i".

4. REFLECTION

09.10.2019 (Week 7) - 16.10.2019 (Week 8)

It is important to look at others' work to get inspiration and have a clearer understanding of how typefaces work. Take time to dissect and observe different typefaces because it helps to develop your own typeface.Time management is also very important so that I do not have to burn the midnight oil.

23.10.2019 (Week 9) - 30.10.2019 (Week 10)

Once the basic shapes used to construct the font is done, the progress is much faster. As the saying goes, "the devil is in the details," it is crucial to make sure that the basic shapes are done well. Otherwise, we will suffer when constructing the font.

As a designer, patience and consistency is important.

5. FURTHER READING

09.10.2019 (Week 7) - 16.10.2019 (Week 8)

Title: Typography Workbook by Timothy Samara

Fig 7.32 Typography workbook front cover

Fig 7.33 Typography workbook back cover

From this book, I learnt that colour also plays an important role for clarifying verbal information within complex systems, such as extensive product literature. A single colour interacting with other colours of different value, temperature, hue and saturation contributes to how the colours appear when they come in contact. For example, the "stop" sign usually uses red and white colour so that the message is very clearly conveyed by the design set in a very loud, vibrant colour.

Colour coding in Systems:
Within a complex system such as corporate identity or a series of brochures, colour can help to distinguish different kinds of information.

Uses of colour coding:

expands color vocabulary within a brand
creates a rich and evolutionary experience that helps clarify the brand in the minds of its audience
creates flexibility for the designer

For example:
If a company's identity relies on a specific deep blue, a secondary palette of lighter blues,a violet, and a green-blue might be used to expand the system's colour vocabulary and for coding the company's literature. A secondary palette may include very different colours - in this hypothetical example, perhaps a vibrant golden orange or a deep fuchsia - as accents that can be used to add contrast or distinguish certain types of information.

23.10.2019 (Week 9) - 30.10.2019 (Week 10)

Title: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Fig 7.34 Steal Like an Artist front cover

Fig 7.35 Steal Like an Artist back cover

Although this book might not be about typography, but it is truly inspiring to read. It talks about how ideas generate, which are actually caused by influence around us. To create something truly original is actually mashup of one's influences. It is not plagiarism because you take a bit from here and there to make it your own identity. It allowed me to realize that as a designer, I have to get more influence by reading more books, researching more on other people's work to get inspired.

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Wong Kai Yi (0340236)