Advanced Typography - Tasks

ADVANCED TYPOGRAPHY - TASKS

26/08/20 - 23/09/20 / Week 1 - Week 5

Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423

Advanced Typography / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University

Tasks: Typographic Systems & Finding (Part 1 & 2)

 LECTURES 

Lecture 1: This weeks online lecture, we learned about the different types of typographical organisation. 

Axial, Radial, Dilatation, Random, Grid, Modular, Transitional, Bilateral.

Typographical organization is complex due to the dependence on communication. Additional criteria: hierarchy, order of reading. legibility and contrast. It also provides solid framework for learners to be guided while their intuition develops. There are however some conflict that this framework takes away from the developing designers intuition. Though the the framework can support the designers new forming intuition. 

• Axial - all elements are organised to the left or right or a single axis
• Radial - All elements are extended from a point of focus. All the text is pointing towards the focus.
• Dilatation - All elements expand from a central point in a circular fashion. Hierarchy can be used with different rings/circles.
• Random - Appear to have no specific pattern or relationship. 
• Grid - Vertical and horizontal divisions. 
• Transitional - Informal system of layered banding (banding is segregating info within certain bands) 
• Modular - A series of non objective elements that are constructed in as standardised units.
• Bilateral - All text is arranged symmetrically on a single axis. Tedious, used on formal letters like invitations.

Layouts can be a combination of multiple systems. Larger amount of text can use grid (rigid) systems. There are also non-objective elements. Non objective elements have no function, just aesthetic appeal or flow. Use it sparingly, avoid using it. 

Designers tend to focus on grid systems, these systems are one of many possibilities. These organisational systems allow distinctiveness from grid system. Allows designers to break free from rigid horizontal and vertical grid systems. Allows designers to be more fluid and flexible when making 

typographical messages. However the systems do have their limitations as they can impede the readability. It needs to be used appropriately.

Lecture 2: This week we learned about composition in terms of design, specifically typography of course. Typography is the creation of letters and arrangement of large amounts of text in a given space

this lecture is about the latter.  Principles such as emphasis and symmetry are easily translatable in terms of typography however principles such  as perspective and repetition are not, though that doesn't mean they are unusable but more niche and difficult to use. 

Figure 1: Symmetry in Typography

Figure 1.01: Repetition in Typography

Rule of Thirds is a photography guide to composition. It is 3 columns and 3 rows that intersect, the intersecting lines are used as the points of interest. Realistically, this is not typically used in typography as there are better options. 

 Typographical systems have a lot of planning and thinking behind them, along with intuition and gut feeling of the artist themself. People who the new systems were rebelling against the clean-cut layouts at the time. Causing the emergence of interesting systems such as dilatational and radial. There is a method to their madness, of course, they need to balance the excitement in their typography. 

There is also environmental grids, this was an exploration of an existing structure or numerous structures combined. It creates a very unique and exciting mixture of text and visuals. The designs often end up being very interesting as it was developed from the key features of an environment.

Form and movement is a system done by Mr. Vinod himself, it was an exploration of the grid system developed to get students to explore. It is about the placement of a form on a page over a spread of many pages to create movement. The movement from one page to another matter. However, we must reduce the decorativeness and non-objective elements used as too much it causes too much complexity in the form and movement of the designs.

Lecture 3: Context and Creativity, Handwriting is important because the first mechanically produced letterforms were made to imitate handwriting. Handwriting would become the basis or standard for what mechanical type would try to mimic. The shape and lines were influenced by the materials such as plant stems, brushes, or feathers to name a few along with the material it was written on, clay, papyrus animal skin, etc. We were then told about the history of writing from all over the world.

Cuneiform, the earliest form of actual writing it evolved from pictograms, written left to right C.3000BCE. 

Hieroglyphics 2613 - 2160 BCE

• Can be used in 3 different ways
• As ideograms, represent what they depict
• Determinatives, to show the signs are meant to indicate the general idea of the word.
• Phonograms, to represent sounds and "spell out" words.

Early Greek 5th C. BCE

• Built on Egyptian logo consonantal systems
• Phonetic alphabet consisting of 22 letters
• The system was adopted by the Greeks who added the necessary vowels
• Only capital letters
• Written between two guidelines, organised into horizontal rows.
• Reading in "boustrophedon" one row would be left to right then switch from right to left
• Early greek letters were freehanded, no serifs.

Roman Uncials

• By the 4th century, Roman letters were more rounded, curved form allowed for less strokes and could be written faster

English Half Uncials, 8th C. 

• More slanted and condensed. 
• While English and Irish uncials evolved, writing on the European continent devolved considerably and needed reform. Coming as the Carolingian Handwriting Reform.

After the fall of the Roman empire, resulting in general illiteracy and handwritings broke down into diverse regional styles. A court school was established during Charlemagne's patronage, book production increased and languages were standardised. Pronunciation, spelling, capitals at the beginning of a sentence, spaces between words, and punctuation. 

• Black Letter 12-15C. CE
• Gothic originated from the Italians who used it to refer to barbaric cultures north of the Italian Alps.
• Characterised by the tight spacing and condensed lettering. Condensing the line space and letter spacing reduced the costs for book production. 

Italian Renaissance

• Admired the Carolingian script, Humanist scholars named the newly rediscovered letterforms Antica.
• The renaissance analysis on art and architecture was applied towards the letterform.

Movable Type

• Printing on woodblock was practiced in China, Korean and Japan
• China attempted so use movable type but failed, as there were too many characters the material used was too brittle
• Koreans established a foundry to cast moveable type in bronze, allowing for dismantling and resetting of text, along with the creation of their new script Hangul.
• This was all done several decades before the earliest printing in Europe.

Why do we talk about Greek influence on Rome but not Egyptian or Near Eastern influence on Greece?

This was a really interesting topic brought up by Mr Vinod, I had no prior knowledge about this topic and felt rather disappointed that things like this still occur in the world, though not about typography. In the 19th century, with the rise of the modern British Empire. It became out of style to credit Africans with anything of value. Therefore Greece and Rome were elevated over much older and impactful civilisations especially Ancient Egypt, but also including Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, China, and more. Thankfully, later day typographers would pay homage to these developments, resulting in books and recreation of the handwritten styles into mechanical forms for printing.

Week 4:

Why design type? Social responsibility, one must continue to improve its legibility. Type design is a form of artistic expression, just like any other artist.

Adrian Frutiger was a graphic designer who designed typefaces and is responsible for the advancement of typography into digital typography

His typeface Frutiger is a sans serif created to be a legible and distinctive typeface that is easy to see from close up and functional. He needed the letters to be recognizable even in poor light or when the reader is moving quickly past the signs. Frutiger has been branched out to other languages as well such as Arabic. He even designed a new Devanagari font for modern typesetting and printing processes.

Matthew Carter, Royal Designer for Industry. Many of his fonts were created to address technical challenges. Verdana being an example, the font was supposed to be extremely legible even at a very small size due to early computers. Cambria and Calibri are familiar to this. Verdana was designed through pixels rather than a pen. He also designed a typeface known as Bell Centennial, which had ink traps. Solving the issue of letters becoming blurry due to printing and ink running. As the gaps in the typeface would be filled up by extra ink while causing no change in legibility.

Edward Johnston created a font now known as "Johnston Sans", for the London Underground. It required bold simplicity, modernity infused with tradition. He applied the characteristics of Roman capitals but had an elegance that was fitting towards the modern age. Gill Sans looks rather similar. The creator Gill Sans used Johnstons typeface as a heavy reference. Mr. Vinod said we could Google his history to understand why there's so much controversy revolving around Eric Gill. After doing so, I am going to feel reluctant to use Gill Sans from now on...

Type Design Steps:

• Research - Understand history, anatomy, and conventions. Understand how it is going to be used, understand the present fonts for references and ideas. 
• Sketching - Some sketch using traditional methods, while others use digital tools. Both have their positives and negatives. 
• Digitisation - There is professional software such as FontLab and Glyphs. While others use Adobe Illustrator and introduce it into other font apps. Attention to detail is crucial here, form, and counter form matter heavily. 
• Testing - Part of the process of designing and correcting aspects of it. Readability and legibility become an important consideration. It is not as crucial if it is a display typeface.
• Deployment - Even after deployment, problems may arise. The testing is important to reduce the issues after deployment.

Typeface Construction:

Roman Capitals - Constructed on a gridded square with a circle that just touches the lines of the square in four places. 

Constructions and considerations, visual correction is an example of this. It is the extrusion of curved and protruding forms past the baseline and cap line. This also applies to vertical alignment. Also known as overshoots. Visual correction is also needed for the distance between letters. Known as fitting the type. 

Most typefaces come due to a need or demand. However, they could also be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic being the designer's need and interest to design a typeface or identification of a problem and desire to solve it. While extrinsic would be a designer commissioned or student-designer with a task to complete. Like me! 

 

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INSTRUCTIONS      

Task 1: Typographical Systems

For our very first exercise, we have to make 16 layouts using the typographical systems we learned. 2 of each, resulting in 16 total. We had to use dummy text given to us by Mr Vinod:

All Ripped Up: Punk Influences on Design
or
The ABCs of Bauhaus Design Theory
or
Russian Constructivism and Graphic Design

Open Public Lectures:
November 24, 2020
Lew Pik Svonn, 9AM-10AM
Ezrena Mohd., 10AM-11AM
Suzy Sulaiman, 11AM-12PM

November 25, 2020
Muthu Neduraman, 9AM-10AM
Fahmi Reza, 10AM-11AM
Fahmi Fadzil, 11AM-12PM

Lecture Theatre 12

Figure 1.02: Axial System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.03: Radial System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.04: Dilatational System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.05: Random System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.06: Grid System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.07: Transitional System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.08: Modular System (02/09/20)

Figure 1.09: Bilateral System (02/09/20)

After meeting with sir, I made a few changes to the Random and Modular system. I also learned what modular systems were properly and with better understanding, as I had made mistakes in the original layout due to lack of understanding. 

Figure 1.1: Random System Edited  (05/09/20)

Figure 1.10: Modular System Edited  (05/09/20) 

 

Figure 1.11: PDF Final Version

Task 2: Type & Play // Part 1

For this assignment, we had to look at natural structures and extract letters from what we can see. I took a few pictures of random objects and decided on two objects which I found the most interesting being: 

Figure 1.12: Leaves (05/09/20)

Figure 1.13: My palm (05/09/20)

After choosing these two photos, I did the pen lining on both. Only one of which ended up being usable, since the palm lines did not connect properly and made it difficult to find any proper letter structures. 

Figure 1.14: Pen tool over the lines (05/09/20)

Figure 1.15: Pen tool over the structure (05/09/20)

I chose the plants as it looked the most interesting and extracted five letter from the structures within the image. 

Figure 1.16: Letter A (06/09/20)

Figure 1.17: Letter D  (06/09/20)

Figure 1.18: Letter F  (06/09/20)

Figure 1.19: Letter J (06/09/20)

Figure 1.2: Letter V  (06/09/20)

After extracting the letters, I laid them out next to eat other and tried to understand what I could emphasise when turning them into something more appealing and less crude. 

Figure 1.21: Original Version "F A V J D" (07/09/20)

After choosing the letters, I looked through some fonts and chose a reference font that I would like to use when designing the new letters. I ended up choosing Futura Std Heavy: 

Figure 1.22: Futura Std Heavy (07/09/20)

After choosing the reference, I combined them both to a certain degree while keeping the jagged edges and inconsistencies within the original letter forms. I did however keep a relatively consistence thickness across, with small inconsistencies to try and mimic the crude letters. 

Figure 1.23: First Version (07/09/20)

For the second variation I smoothed out the jagged edges and replaced them with a more smooth edge to mimic a plants leaf in a way with a more organic line.

Figure 1.24: Second Version (07/09/20)

 

For the third variations I changed the "J" completely to make it a little more consistent with the reference font.

Figure 1.25: Third Version (07/09/20)

For this final version, I changed quite a bit. For bottom of the "A" I flipped the curve to make it look a little more stable and balanced. For the "V" I made the curve follow the letter "A". For the letter "J" I added a curve towards the end of the curve to keep the consistency between the letters. For the letter "D" I made the dip inside smaller to reduce how obvious it is. 

Figure 1.26: Fourth Version (07/09/20)

After hearing some feedback from Mr Vinod, I will be redoing the letter forms except I will make the changes more gradual to keep the general characteristics intact as I refine them. I will be using the same original letters as my base. Except I tried to analyse the stroke widths and nuances a little more and try to convey them better when refining.

Figure 1.27: Original Text (09/09/20)

For my first version of the refinement, what I did was take the stroke width of the letter A and use it as a reference for my letters for some base level consistency. 

Figure 1.28: Version 1 (09/09/20)

Next, I did some simple changes to the V and J, by increasing the length of the letter V stroke to make it equal and rotating the J to the right a little bit.

Figure 1.29: Version 2 (09/09/20)

 

For the third version, I just did a really small change to the letter D, by increasing the height of the top to touch the cap height.

Figure 1.3: Version 3 (09/09/20)

For the fourth version, I smoothed down the jagged edges of all the letters for a more appealing look for the letters. 

Final 1.31: Version 4 (09/09/20)

For my final version, I just increased the overall consistency across the letters to make them look more cohesive as a group. I also used the Futura Std Heavy as my reference but very lightly as I didn't want to end up mimicking the font again.

Figure 1.32: Version 5 (09/09/20)

After some quick feedback from Mr Vinod, I made the changes he asked. Make the bottom of the F more stable and add ink traps to the apex and vertex of A and V, I also added it to A and D for consistency across my letters. 

Figure 1.33: Version 6 (09/09/20)

After showing this to sir, I was just told to make the ink traps of the letters a little bit smoother as they look rather jagged here.

Figure 1.34: Final Version (16/09/20)

Figure 1.35: Type & Play 1 PDF (16/09/20)

Task 3: Type & Play // Part 2

For this exercise, we have to make a piece of work that involves both images and typography. I look up a few examples for reference and these were what I found that really caught my attention:

Figure 1.36: Reference Image (11/09/20)

Figure 1.37: Reference Image (11/09/20)

I found the grace of the dancers intertwined with the typography was really nice to me and I really liked the aesthetic of these pieces. So I decided to do one inspired by these. Here is the original reference image, the picture is taken by Rachel Neville Photography:

Figure 1.38: Dancer, photo taken by Rachel Neville (12/09/20)

Figure 1.39: Sketch 1 (12/09/20)

Figure 1.4: Sketch 2 (12/09/20)

Figure 1.41: Type & Image (12/09/20)

For this piece, I tried making it very soft and elegant, I used serif fonts with a lighter colour and heavier drop shadow to draw your attention towards it first and then the word "rhythm" is incorporated and emphasised on the dancer. I also added a purple overlay to bring a softer feel to the whole piece of work.

After my feedback session, I changed the design of the text from more blocky and static to a flowy design that is more gracefully placed around the dancer.

Figure 1.42: Type & Image // Final (16/09/20)

Figure 1.43: Type & Image // Final PDF (16/09/20)

FEEDBACK

Task 1 // Typographical Systems // Week 2: All of them are well done, I don't have to make any major changes to 5 of the systems. The random system is not random enough. The modular system was not following the proper modular rules either, though it was a good layout. 

Task 2 // Type & Play // Week 3: The fonts are significantly different from my original extracted letter-forms. This makes the transition between them look very sudden and not smooth at all. Losing its original characteristics due to me following the reference so closely. Try redoing them, except this time start by making smaller changes such as making all the stroke widths consistent with the letter A stroke width.

After making the amendments, I was told the letters look much better but I have some minor changes to make. Particularly the F, it looks unbalanced due to the small tapered end. I was also told to add some ink traps to the apex and vertex of the A and V. 

Task 3 // Type & Play 1 & 2 // Week 4: I was told that the text, though it was integrated relatively okay wasn't really working. Unlike my reference images, this felt a lot stiffer. Especially in comparison to the first image I used as a reference, you can really feel the movement through the text, and for that reason, I said that I will redo the design from square one. I was also told the ink traps in Type & Play 1 was a little too sudden, make the curves smoother. 

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REFLECTIONS:

Week 1: Back to typography! Except, it is now advanced. I learned a lot right off the bat, especially about the typographical systems. This first week's experience was definitely hectic, had to get out of the more relaxed mood, and jump straight into it with the 16 layouts we needed to do. It was a nice introduction back into typography, though it was difficult. I had a sense of familiarity now and didn't feel as lost as I did when beginning Typography in my first semester. One thing I observed is that no matter how fancy or confusing the typographical system is, the way you layer the information so the reader can understand is what matters most. A finding I made is that most of these layouts are used very rarely, typically used for posters as it would be difficult to read too much information in some of these layouts. Such as radial and dilatational.     

Week 2: Something a little more familiar this time, we have to make a few letterforms using organic structures we find. I thought it was a little crazy for a single week's worth of a task but I managed to make do (I hope as of writing this the night before class). But I really found this so interesting, trying to keep a characteristic from a crude letter form to a more developed state was really hard to be honest but I enjoyed myself while doing this. I had struggled a lot with typography last semester, but this semester I really am enjoying myself in this subject. One observation I made was that most fonts used nowadays are usually quite similar, just small differences within the line weights and spacing. One finding I made was that there really are a lot of interesting patterns within this world that hold so much for a designer and what really limits us is ourselves. 

Week 3: For this week, we had to try and incorporate both an image and typography seamlessly, and to be honest it was a bit harder than expected. It felt it would be simple however finding the balance between the two and a composition that really suits the image is tough. One observation I made was that a lot of typographical posters really play with depth and your perception. It makes you really feel immersed. One finding I made was that this type of typography is used often in posters, most likely to draw interest from the audience.

Week 4: Class on a public holiday isn't exactly what we would all prefer but that's what it takes to stay on track it seems. I was told my design didn't really have a sense of flow or "rhythm" as the word implies and I realised that even though it worked fine together, the word was not being expressed. We were also briefly told about Project 1. One observation I made was through research about Bauhaus, was the constant usage of simplistic shapes nearly always being squares, triangles and circles. One finding I made was that Bauhaus was almost politically motivated, Germany at the time had the "German typeface" and the Bauhaus design went completely against what they were being told. I found that really interesting to read about.

FURTHER READING

Vignelli Canon on Design // Page 72 - 73

Figure 1.44: Vignelli Canon on Design

Contrasting Type Sizes: 

In this section, the difference in type sizes were discussed. The contrasts and different ways we can use size to emphasise and draw attention to text. However, we must always be aware to not overdo it when it comes to typography. The book also states that we should typically stick to only one or two type sizes in the same printed page. Keep it to a minimum, and use type weights to express rather than size. The author also describes increasing the size and weight of type to make the message louder, but considers it "intellectual vulgarity" something to avoid. White space is the silence, and "In a world where everybody screams, silence is noticeable."    

Typographic Systems // Non-Objective Elements

Figure 1.45: Typographic Systems

Non-Objective Elements:

Non-objective elements are all very useful to a designer, they can very easily change how a message is read, but keep the message exactly the same. A very powerful tool, too powerful when used too frequently. A designer needs to find their balance when using such strong objects, as they can easily use too many and overwhelm the audience with the elements. Blurring and hiding the message, failing at the main goal of typography which is always readability first. Caution must be taken when using them, for the message can be too easily lost with such powerful elements in a designer's arsenal.