Typography - Project 1
TYPOGRAPHY - PROJECT 1
15/05/20 - 22/05/20 / Week 5 - Week 6
Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423
Typography / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University
Project 1 / Text Formatting & Expression
LECTURES
Week 5: Firstly we had a recap of our previous weeks lecture. Firstly we learned a new term. A pilcrow, a symbol used to indicate paragraph space.
Week 6: Letters and the care that go into designing them is immense in typography. There is a lot of meticulous detail, illusion of symmetry, subtlety and nuance that goes into the designing text. It must have its own uniqueness without overdoing it, don't add too much character. Simplicity and consistency between the letters and the flow of your text matters.
For instance a small nuance is that curved strokes (like in the letter s) must rise below the x height or sink below the baseline, and sometimes both. It is to look optically the same, when they are the same height due to there being less "real estate" touching the baseline or x height it gives the illusion of being smaller when in reality they are the same. Due to this you have to increase the size by just a little bit. A good way to analyse your letters is to look into them in very close detail to understand them. One extremely important thing is also contrast in between your letters when needed these include:
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- Leading should be 2.5 - 3 points higher than the point size of the text.
- Paragraph spacing should typically be the same as the leading size.
- Cross alignment is when the text line is aligned to the next column
A simple analogy for the new terms was like a sandwich. The leading is the jelly, the line of type is the bread and the line spacing is the jelly + bread.
Indentation was often used to save space in text in printing of newspapers in the past. You MUST use justified when using indentations or else you will having ragging left and right. It can often look ugly though and isn't used much.
Highlighting in text:
- use italics
- make text bold
- change type family
- change colour (CMYK only)
When you change the type family, reduce the sans serif font by 0.5pt to keep the x height consistent within the text.
There are different types of headlines. A, B, and C.
- A Head - Larger than the body text. A clear break in the topics of the text
- B Head - Subordinate to A, can begin a new supporting argument, shouldn't interrupt the text like A
- C Head - doesn't interrupt reading, followed by a double space or "m space".
For instance a small nuance is that curved strokes (like in the letter s) must rise below the x height or sink below the baseline, and sometimes both. It is to look optically the same, when they are the same height due to there being less "real estate" touching the baseline or x height it gives the illusion of being smaller when in reality they are the same. Due to this you have to increase the size by just a little bit. A good way to analyse your letters is to look into them in very close detail to understand them. One extremely important thing is also contrast in between your letters when needed these include:
- Light/Bold
- Condense/Extended
- Organic/Machined
- Roman/Italic
- Small/Large
- Positive/Negative
- Serif/Sans Serif
- Ornate/Simple
- Red/Blue
INSTRUCTIONS
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TASKS:
Project 1
We have been briefed about our first project in Typography, we are going to have to make an editorial piece of writing using one of the three dummy texts given to us. After reading through the 3 of them, I found the "A Designers Code of Ethics" to be the most interesting. I also noticed it had a lot of text in comparison to the other pieces of text. I was honestly struggling quite a bit to think of an idea for this but I came up with a few. But it was only after doing a bit of research and reading. The text talks about what it is to be a designer and the responsibilities that come along with it. One point I particularly liked was how your actions as a designer will not effect only you, but other designers will feel the ripple effect from it. Also to never throw another designer under the bus to push your own agenda. I thought it was in general interesting.
For my editorial I did some reserach and found one I really liked in particular, I didn't want to copy anything in particular but I was just feeling inspired by these pieces in particular.
Figure 1: Inspirations for the Editorial
Figure 1.01: Ideation 1
Figure 1.02: Ideation 2
B Eftjhofst Dpef pg Fuijdt // What is this?
Since we're talking about the "code" of ethics, I decided to do some research on them to include it subtly. I decided to use a cipher. A cipher is basically just a secret or disguised way of communicating. I decided to use a cipher in which all the letters of the alphabet are moved up one. So instead of the letter A you would use the letter B. So on and so forth. So B Eftjhofst Dpef pg Fuijdt isn't just some random string of words, but "A Designers Code of Ethics" ciphered.
I decided to go with 3 rows and 3 columns with a margin of 10mm on each side.
Figure 1.03: Margins and Columns
Figure: 1.04: Doing cross alignment and tracking.
I made the first paragraph start with a bold first sentence and also be the one on the top right if you were to look at it properly. you would read starting top to bottom. So I made the vertical paragraphs cascade down top to bottom. Once you read the horizon paragraphs, you'd read the one on the left as that's how we typically read and lastly the final paragraph is on the right side with a bolded final statement. I did a black and white design as the final, I kept the white design on the bottom just as comparison.
Figure 1.05: First version of Project 1
After the feedback I made the new changes to the editorial design. I realised that even though I understood how to read it, to a stranger it would look confusing and hard to understand.
Figure 1.06: Second Version
For the second version I did 3 variations. For one I kept all of the text horizontal, for the second one I made one page vertical and one page horizontal and the final one I made all the text vertical. The first version of the three was chosen for me to continue with, after following the feedback I made a third one. For this I made sure to follow the margins and columns better and not have them there for show.
Figure 1.07: Third Version
The title would be too confusing for the reader and I would have to decipher it for the reader. Mr Vinod suggested overlaying the deciphered text on top of the current text, but I thought a more simplistic approach would be enough.
Figure 1.08: Final version
FEEDBACK
Week 6: First version of the editorial, the feedback was this it was an interesting layout. However the reading rhythm would be compromised due to the different orientations of all the text and it was confusing for the reader. Try changing the headline to horizontal along with the body text.
Second version of the editorial, the first design was chosen to move forward with, however the line length was extremely inconsistent. It also looks very close together with the title so large. The margins and columns are not being followed as well. I have to shrink the title for this.
Third version is better but the title would be too confusing for the readers to understand as it's only the cipher. Just change the title so it would be more easily understood by the audience.
Third version is better but the title would be too confusing for the readers to understand as it's only the cipher. Just change the title so it would be more easily understood by the audience.
REFLECTIONS:
Week 6: I won't lie at all, this was extremely difficult. My respect for any magazine editor or editorial piece editor has skyrocketed. It was so difficult to even think of a proper idea for this especially because I started a little later as I was resting until Monday of this week. The experience was challenging for sure, it felt as though when I looked away from the document my efforts of cross aligning had left and I was back at square one when I noticed a new mistake. One observation I made was that I make very careless mistakes, I actually had this comment during my school except it wasn't typography but it was in mathematics. I would make small careless mistakes that cost me marks, for some reason even though I'm very detail orientated, a wall of text makes me miss mistakes much easier. I hope to improve upon this weakness. One finding I made it is that editorials are usually very appealing to look at, they are almost they're own work of art. Often times I'd see text upside down just to sell the design their going for, it's more to design but also allowing the readers to read it without too much difficulty.
FURTHER READING
Butterick's Practical Typography - Mixing Fonts:
Figure 1.09: Butterick's Practical Typography 2nd Edition
I was curious as to mixing fonts in typography, it seems like such a taboo thing to do, but I understood it a bit wrong before I read this. I had thought mixing fonts was bad no matter what. However in American newspapers there is font mixing actually, but it between different serif fonts. The author describes being able to mix fonts like mixing patterned clothes, some may look good and be good at it! While some may end up looking awful because they don't know what they're doing. For instance you don't need to mix fonts, you can use bold, italics and underlined text. It can be enough to get the point across. However if you want to mix, know this. One font is always good on a document, two is possible, three is pushing it and four is near to none. When font mixing it should be organised well to give a form of uniformity, like a specific font for body text and another for the headlines. I have a better understanding on mixing fonts now, considering I thought we just weren't allowed to do it at all.
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