Advanced Typography - Project 2(Final)

 ADVANCED TYPOGRAPHY - PROJECT 2(FINAL)

28/10/20 - 25/11/20 / Week 10 - Week 14

Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423

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

Design, Exploration & Application

 LECTURES 

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INSTRUCTIONS      

Final Project:

For our final project, we have to:

Develop a font that is intended to solve a larger problem or meant to be part of a solution in the area of your interest be it graphic design, animation, new media or entertainment design, or any other related area not necessarily reflecting your specialisation.

or

Explore the use of a typeface in your area of interest, understand its existing relationship, identify areas that could be improved upon, explore possible solutions or combinations that may add
value to the existing typeface.

After a few weeks of thinking, I had a few ideas that I raised with sir and mostly ended in dead ends. I wanted to mostly focus on branding since it is personally a more interesting idea for me. Below is my proposal slides:

Figure 1: Proposal Slides 28/10/20

I ended up choosing the second idea, making a typeface based on Dhivehi text from the past. Mr. Vinod suggested I should do a multi-script typeface, being in both English and Thaana. This would obviously be a lot more work, but I found this to be an interesting challenge and decided to do the multiscript typeface. 

I had a rather immediate struggle, being I cannot actually write in Dhivehi properly since I grew up in Malaysia. I never had proper classes in writing. So with the help of the internet, my friend Yumnu and many, many, many, pages of writing the Thaana alphabets I had understood it to a point where I felt confident trying to make a font.

I began with some research. I wanted to look into what I could use as ideas for my typeface. I had originally wanted to complete a typeface based on the Thaana scripts of the past. However, it is quite hard to extract the general idea and texturing of it. While keeping the quirks, being the heavily extended tails of letters. I had an old memory pop into mind about some photos my dad had shown me in the past. He used to work on the ship for a very long time, and I remember him telling me about how he used to have to hand paint the names of the ship on the side of the boat. I thought it would be interesting to have a multi-script typeface inspired by them. I asked him for a few photos shown below: 

Figure 1.01: M.V Barbary, Late 1984.

Figure 1.02: Jetty Graffiti, Late 1986.

Figure 1.03: Omadhoo Fortune, 1990. 

My dad had done the "Omadhoo Fortune" and "Barbary" by hand. He told me he took Technical Drawing during his schooling years and that's why he had understood the basics of typography and such. The second photo is of my dad's friend standing on a jetty covered by tons and tons of graffiti. I am really glad I got all of these images, a lot of history and cool inspiration. Using these as a reference, I made my first sets of fonts by translating these into digital fonts and into Thaana as well.

Figure 1.04: Font Designs 28/10/20

The first font in the line up is based on the graffiti image, specifically the word "PINKI" just around the middle of the image near his arm. I tried capturing the level of contrast it had in both English and Thaana letters. I really like how the Thaana letters came out personally, the level of contrast adds a really interesting element.

The second font is based on "Omadhoo Fortune", I really like how this font just looks in general. It's very wide and simple in its design. I believe it was made to look like this as it is very easy to read, I also really like how the Thaana version ended up look, especially the "fili" being the little characters we add above or below the letter itself.

The third font is based on "Barbary", this one reminded me of a number plate very specifically. I like how it looked in English with how thick it looks reminding me of a lot of condensed typefaces. The letters in Thaana looked rather nice too but I definitely preferred the second one, especially the "fili". 

After showing the fonts to sir, he was fond of my idea is based on my dad's font from the past as it adds a lot more character and history behind all of my fonts. He was fine with me choosing any of the fonts, I personally really liked Omadhoo Fortune in particular especially the Thaana letters. After choosing the letter I began the construction in Illustrator.

Figure 1.05: Omadhoo Fortune 28/10/20

After finalising the design, I moved onto applying this to all of the Roman and Thaana alphabets. I began constructing all the letters slowly using the letters I had already made to keep them consistent. Here are all the letters of Thaana in the most common typeface: 

Figure 1.06: Thaana Akuru (Thaana Letters) 28/10/20

Here is the outlines of the letters, there are a lot of tiny shapes because if I'm being honest, I used them to fix tiny bumps and such a lot. These are the first variations of my designs, I need to add some texture and wear and tear as well. I was told to try and extend the Thaana letters, but due to all of them having such different lengths, it would make it very odd if the general width was the same as the Roman letters. 

Figure 1.07: Omadhoo Fortune, Thaana, Outlined. 3/11/20

Figure 1.08: Omadhoo Fortune, Thaana, Filled. 3/11/20

Figure 1.09: Omadhoo Fortune, Thaana, Fili. 3/11/20

Figure 1.1: My name, "Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad" Omadhoo Fortune. 3/11/20

Figure 1.08: Omadhoo Fortune, English. 3/11/20

After showing my design to sir, I was told it was looking good and on track. However, my fonts seem to have a uniform weakness being the curved strokes getting too thick and to make it thinner around the curves.

Figure 1.09: Omadhoo Fortune, English & Thaana, Fazal. 4/11/20

After receiving my feedback, I had to make my amendments along with the punctuation. I realised while refining the curves of the font in Thaana there were many, many, MANY, inconsistencies across the width and had to make a lot of small fixes across the board.

Figure 1.1: Omadhoo Fortune, Refining Process 9/11/20

I made the required fixes, below is an up-close comparison between the previous curve and the current one. The red letter being the previous version, while the green one has the curves amended. 

Figure 1.11: Omadhoo Fortune V1 vs V2 9/11/20

Figure 1.12: Omadhoo Fortune V1 vs V2 9/11/20

I had to apply this change to nearly all of the letters in the Thaana script as most of them had a curve somewhere in its structure. One fixed and polished they looked like this:

Figure 1.13: Omadhoo Fortune V2 Thaana 9/11/20

For the English letters, I had to try and fix the letters "J" and "S" specifically along with smoothing out the corners on the letters such as "D" and "R". Along with adding some basic punctuation. The green letters being the newly fixed letters while the red are the previous versions.

Figure 1.13: Omadhoo Fortune V1 vs V2 9/11/20

After fixing the letters, I had to begin with my punctuation, I used Univers LT Std 53 Extended as reference points for the punctuation. I compared the comma with the quotation marks, realising they are exactly the same. with the full stop and dots on the exclamation mark and question mark being the same as well..

Figure 1.14: Omadhoo Fortune V2 Punctuation Usage 9/11/20

After some more feedback from Mr. Vinod, I decided to change the curves in the Thaana typeface once again. I realised the curve was so awkward because of them starting to bend at the same point. Rather, the inner part of the curve should be starting to curve higher than the outer part of the curve. Due to this realisation, I amended all my letters in the Thaana script once again resulting in:

Figure 1.15: Omadhoo Fortune V3 Curvature Change (11/11/20)

The red letter is the previous version while the green is the newly fixed version, where the curve begins lower for the outer part of it. This was a huge improvement and I changed all the letters once again.

Figure 1.16: Omadhoo Fortune Thaana (11/11/20)

Now with all my letters ready, I had to move it all into FontLab7. Starting with all the English letters first. I did all the letters with no problems at all it was rather simple, especially because we've done this before along with the fact that these letters are all the same height since they're capital.

Figure 1.17: Omadhoo Fortune V3 Thaana (13/11/20)

However, I could only wish the letters in the Thaana letters were this simple. I ended spending almost 3 entire days working all day trying to deal with the inconsistencies and problems in the font trying to get a functioning font. 

Figure 1.18: FontLab Process (15/11/20)

You can see those small little characters above each character. They are called "fili" in our language. They basically are the indicator of what to do with the letters, most of letters cannot stand on their own in proper day to day conversations without fili. In the above picture it was after I had corrected every single fili, which I had to do with every single letter. Honestly I really don't know if it was worth it because it STILL ended up looking rather wonky, but I couldn't waste anymore time and needed to begin on my collateral. 

Figure 1.19: Article in Dhivehi(15/11/20)

For figure 1.19, it looks relatively fine, a lot of small mistakes scattered around but I was running low on time. However, to a Maldivian, this is a complete jumble of words. We read right to left, but FontLab refused to allow my letters to start from the right of the page, meaning all of the above is actually backward.

Figure 1.2 Testing all English letters(15/11/20)

Figure 1.21: All letters and fili in Thaana(15/11/20)

Figure 1.22: Finished letters and punctuation in FontLab (15/11/20)

Figure 1.23: Omadhoo Fortune English, Final (23/11/20)

Figure 1.24: Omadhoo Fortune Thaana, Final (23/11/20)

Figure 1.25: Omadhoo Fortune Thaana Fili, Final (23/11/20)

Figure 1.26: Omadhoo Fortune Punctuation, Final (23/11/20)

After finishing all my fonts. I needed to start my collaterals as soon as possible. Firstly I'll show some of Fasmeeru's products currently. 

Figure 1.27: Fasmeeru Mas Dhalha AKA Tuna Can (16/11/20)

Figure 1.28: Fasmeeru Minced Smoked Tuna (16/11/20)

Figure 1.29: Fasmeeru Tuna Chunks in Brine(16/11/20)

These products are just a few of many in their line of fish related product. All of which are extremely popular in the Maldives, it's basically guaranteed every single Maldivian can recognise the first image because everybody uses it. I was talking to a friend and they mentioned how it oftentimes the company doesn't focus on advertising or packaging because there's basically no competition, they are the largest company in this market.

However, that won't stop me from redesigning their products, they're not terrible in any sense but they're a little outdated to me. I will incorporate the fonts I made along with some illustrations for a little bit more of an interesting overall product. I have labelled the images I will be putting in my final PDF compilation as FINAL, while some of them will not be in as I don't think they are up to par with the rest.

Figure 1.3: Fasmeeru Collateral(17/11/20)

Figure 1.31 Fasmeeru Collateral(17/11/20)

Figure 1.32 Fasmeeru Collateral FINAL (17/11/20)

Figure 1.33 Fasmeeru Collateral FINAL (17/11/20)

Figure 1.34 Fasmeeru Collateral FINAL  (17/11/20)

The collateral was okay, but Mr Vinod suggested that my font may not be appropriate for the packaging in the way I had applied it and to explore other methods such as advertising for example. Firstly, I began with trying to get my font to function properly, as in allow it to be typed out right to left from the beginning. 

Firstly, I had to read a PDF sent to me by Mr Vinod on how to create an Arabic font, in hopes it would explain how to switch the directions of the font. I followed the directions as much as I could but it was really difficult if I'm being honest. Firstly, it asks you to open the "OpenType" panel in FontLab. I had to google how to do it in FontLab7 as it seemed to be different. 

Figure 1.35 FontLab "OpenType" (23/11/20)

After opening the Features, a box will open below. In which you need to click on the small + icon on the bottom left and create an empty feature (at the top labelled xxxx) and edit the code so it looks like:

Figure 1.36 FontLab "OpenType" (23/11/20)

After doing this, it asks me to Save this as a VOLT project files (.vtp). The way it directed wasn't possible so I had to figure it out on my own. Below depicts how it was done. 

Figure 1.37 FontLab "OpenType" Exporting (23/11/20)

Figure 1.38 FontLab "OpenType" File Format (23/11/20)

I ran into an error here. Not too sure why, so I referred back to my instructions. I tried fixing it and still ran into a few errors. But I decided to continue and see what would happen. 

Now I had to open Microsoft VOLT, which I had already downloaded. After which I opened the font.

Figure 1.39 Volt Open Font (23/11/20)

Next, I imported the VTF file. At first the tutorial said to choose the file from import project, but that was not possible it seemed. So I tried "Import Everything" as the ttf and vtf files were together in a file.

Figure 1.4 Volt Importing Font (23/11/20)

This is just me checking the edit glyphs panel to see if my glyphs were in place, which they were. 

Figure 1.41 Volt Edit Glyphs (23/11/20)

Following the instructions, I added a script name, mine being "Thaana". After which I had to add my lookup commands. You need to type a specific word otherwise it will not work. I tried "Thaana" and was lucky it had worked. 

Figure 1.42 Volt Add Script(23/11/20)

I added all of the features that the tutorial had listed down. However, after reading through more, I realised I needed none of these features as they were very specifically towards an Arabic font. 

Figure 1.43 Volt Added Features(23/11/20)

I added the Mark Positioning and Mark to Mark Positioning the tutorial mentioned as I needed to change the pairings of the letter and "fili" being the strokes above and below a letter. 

Figure 1.44 Volt Added Positioning (23/11/20)

Now I had added a position from "Add Positions" in the second panel. Which popped up with the following blank interface. I followed the instructions; I changed the type direction from Left-to-Right to Right-to-Left. Also changed Process Marks to "ALL". 

Figure 1.45 Volt Positioning Panel(23/11/20)

After reading, I realised you could group certain glyphs together to create an easier process when pairing them. To which I did from the rightmost panel by creating a glyph group by "Add Glyph Group". However, this did not work for some reason, though I followed the instructions as best as I could. 

Figure 1.46 Add Glyph Group Panel and Edit Glyph Panel (23/11/20)

Which meant I had to insert each glyph into the Positioning panel one by one! However, it was much easier in terms of fixing the kerning and such in comparison to FontLab. However, after completing all of the kerning, I tried to export the font. Which did not work, an error showed that one of my "marks" was supposedly a normal letter character. While I was trying to fix this, the program closed on me! And I lost ALL of my progress. 

Figure 1.47 Individual Mark Positioning Attempt (23/11/20)

 Sadly though, after all of this, it still did not work as intended. Mostly because I was running low on time, and my VOLT crashed on me and I somehow lost all my progress. If I were to have more time, I feel like this may have been possible. But using such an unknown program leaves you in the dark most of the time. However, it was always a learning experience as if I were to try and do this again. I would have the knowledge to attempt this.

Though extremely disappointing I lost a lot of progress, I still had a decently functioning font and barely any collateral. Which means I need to focus on all of my collateral. This time I had found some beautiful images online on the Mifco website (MifCo owns Fasmeeru). I wanted to take some images I found of the Mifco Store in Male as well and change their signage to my typeface. I also got a few pictures of boats from my dad back at home. Here are the original images: 

Figure 1.48: "Mifco Fish Market" in Male (23/11/20)

Figure 1.49: Photo was taken from https://mifco.com.mv/ (23/11/20)

Figure 1.5: Photo was taken from https://mifco.com.mv/ (23/11/20)

Figure 1.51: Photo was taken from Google, no exact source. (23/11/20)

Figure 1.52: Photo was sent to me by my father. (23/11/20)

Figure 1.53: Photo was sent to me by my father. (23/11/20)

After looking through all my pictures, I decided on trying to do advertising and storefront rehaul for my collateral and possibly some boats with the "Omadhoo Fortune" name as a remembrance to my father's font and ship name. 
 

I began with the storefront, it says exactly "Mifco Masfihaaru" meaning Mifco Fish Market in English. What I did first was Clone Stamp the original sign board out, along with using the brush tool and a soft brush to hide some of the rougher edges. 

Figure 1.54: Clone Stamp (23/11/20)

After which I typed out what I wanted to be replaced on the store. After which I used the "Distort" Tool to follow the perspective of the original image. Lastly, I added a simple Drop Shadow onto my text to give it more depth. 

Figure 1.55: Mifco Masfihaaru, Redesigned. FINAL (23/11/20)

After completing the storefront, I tried to do the design onto some Maldivian fishing boats. I personally don't really understand how boats are really named or anything, so I decided to stick with my father's ships name being the "Omadhoo Fortune". Which I put in both English and Dhivehi on the ships. 

Figure 1.56: Omadhoo Fortune, a Tuna boat FINAL (23/11/20)

I also tried it on the picture below, however, the quality of the boat and the text are quite contrasting which lead to the final image to look al little bit odd. 

Figure 1.57: Omadhoo Fortune, a Tuna boat (23/11/20)

Next, I tried doing some advertisements for Fasmeeru, I wanted to keep it clean and simple. Fasmeeru is extremely well-known in the Maldives. Everyone knows of them, so I felt like the images they used would be appropriate, as they don't need to compete with large brands but rather set a specific image for themselves to the public.

I used a few simple slogans, "Always Fresh, Always Fasmeeru", "Fasmeeru, The Taste of Maldives" and "As Fresh As It Gets, Fasmeeru". I also used the Thaana script in some of these but not all of them were very fitting so I only did the English. 

Figure 1.58: In Dhivehi "Fasmeeru, The Taste of Maldives" FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.59: Fasmeeru, The Taste of Maldives FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.6, Always Fresh, Always Fasmeeru. FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.61, Always Fresh, Always Fasmeeru. Both English and Dhivehi. FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.62: As Fresh As It Gets, Fasmeeru. FINAL (23/11/20)

After completing these, I had tried applying them on some billboards as well. I wanted to find images of actual billboards in Male, as the ones online are just too obvious it isn't in the Maldives. I found quite a few on some Facebook page from 2011. 

Figure 1.63: Billboard 1 FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.64: Billboard 2 FINAL (23/11/20)

Figure 1.65: Billboard 3 FINAL (23/11/20)

After experimenting with all of the above media, I chose a few of them for my final submission as  I feel as few of them are not strong enough. These are my final chosen items for the submission along with the finished typeface in a PDF format: 

Figure 1.66: FINAL SUBMISSION TYPEFACE PDF (23/11/20)

Figure 1.67: FINAL SUBMISSION COLLATERAL PDF (23/11/20)

FEEDBACK

Week 10: The fonts look nice, the history behind it makes it much more interesting and adds a lot more depth to the font. I chose Omadhoo Fortune as my final to continue with, the "O" is too narrow in comparison to the rest of the letters. Try extending the Thaana letters like the Roman ones are extended. Try adding more nuance to the letters, look at Helvetica Extended and Optima. 

Week 11: Looking good, however, I do have a bit of an Achilles heel, being my curved strokes being rather problematic in the Thaana script. Also to make the curve of the "D" particularly more smooth, personally, I really liked it. But Mr. Vinod said, "It's not something you should like, frown upon it!" so with my brand new opinion. I will be changing the curved strokes among both scripts, seeing as it is my biggest weakness. Along with doing my basic punctuations. Look into the fonts Eurostile Extended and Akzidenz Grotesque for reference and inspiration. 

Week 12: Looks good, the curve could be further improved on, rather than the curved point beginning from the exact same position, to begin to the outer part of the curve from lower in comparison to the inner part of the curve. The D and S are still a little problematic. The "D" can be kept, however, the "S" is too thick and I need to make sure it is the same thickness as the rest.

Week 13: The font looks good. However the collateral may not be appropriate with the font, try other variations. Also, try to get the Thaana font to work using the Arabic font creation PDF that I received from Mr Vinod. For the collateral, try applying it in different methods. Such as on boats, advertising or store fronts instead. The all-capital typeface may not be suitable for the packaging

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REFLECTIONS:

Week 10: I'm really excited to start making fonts to be honest. In all aspects of typography, font design is my absolute favorite, especially from last semester. Though I am not sticking with my original idea of trying to use old Thaana as inspiration. I much prefer the new idea of using a typeface that was once on a ship. One observation I have made was that the letters "A" and "M" have the same angle in their diagonal strokes. One finding I have made is that Thaana originated around 200 years ago! (Though I am not 100% sure because I read it off a website that is in Dhivehi and I am not very fluent in the specific dialect)

Week 11: This week was a really interesting week! I enjoyed making the font a lot, it felt extremely cool and interesting. It was like walking through a portal in time, and going back to when my father was on a ship, remaking his typeface made me firstly respect my father's design ability even more. I am really excited to continue refining the font, as there is always room for improvements! I am glad to be designing a font with such history like this. One observation I had made is that many fonts have a certain degree of contrast between its strokes, some are more pronounced than others of course. Such as the font designed by my father has rather minimal contrast, as it most likely had to be ready from afar and would need to be easily seen. One finding I made is that the official font used by the Maldives is actually extremely inconsistent. Without even a proper x-height for the letters creating chaos at times.

Week 12:  Refining the font took a little longer than I had anticipated. There were many small inconsistencies along my font which I had to refine. Thankfully it was rather quick. Though it made me realise how much effort and work all of these font designers have to go through. We all go about our days oftentimes not questioning the typefaces we read, when designers must have spent weeks upon weeks refining them. One observation I made was that a very small change in a font can have an extremely drastic change, such as changing the curve in mine. One finding I made was that some fonts look decent from afar, but up close can be close to a disaster. Such as the Maldivian font used in most of our legal documents (extremely frustrating to say the least).

Week 13: This week was in short absolutely hell. I had spent nearly 3 entire days of fiddling around in FontLab in hopes that the Thaana font would work. Hours and hours of trial and error until I had finally started to understand what was going on within the program and I got a decent level of cooperation from FontLab. After which I could export it, though it was filled with many inconsistencies, I had to begin my collateral which was much more fun. I had designed an illustration for my collateral to try and keep consistent between all of them. One observation I made was that the Maldives is still decades behind in the graphic design and marketing department, our designs are very... ugly to put it nicely. It's clear the market for designers should be big, yet we are struggling! Possibly because the country does not want to invest in its designers. One finding I made was that Fasmeeru often uses television advertisements rather than physical ones.

Week 14: Here we are, after 14 weeks of extremely difficult and time-consuming exercises and assignments we are at the END of Advanced Typography! I am a little bit sad that this is the end. I am also slightly disappointed that I could not get the Thaana font to function as well as I could, if I had realised the difficulties that I would run into, I would've started much earlier than I actually did. But you can't win them all, and even I need to learn this. One observation I made was that Arabic typefaces are extremely complex, reading through the guide really showed that there are multiple versions of a single letter that pair with a different letter. One finding I made was Microsoft Volt, another program that is also for font design. 

FURTHER READING

Atlas of Endangered Alphabets: Thaana // https://www.endangeredalphabets.net/alphabets/thaana/

Figure 1.68: Atlas of Endangered Alphabets

I thought reading about my language in a little more depth may be useful as I am not fully educated on it. Thaana has existed since as early as 1705. Thaana Akuru can be roughly translated as "script of the people" though this isn't fully accurate. There is very little order in Thaana, as it does not follow a specific alphabetical order. Thaana is said to have originally been used to write out magical incantations, it is said that Maldivians well versed in sorcery could see use in writing with a rather hidden an unknown script. This gradually allowed for the increased usage in Thaana.

Vignelli Canon on Design // Pg 32-33 // Equity:

Figure 1.69: Vignelli Canon on Design

This chapter in the Vignelli Canon on Design discusses the term "Equity". Talking about logos and branding in particular. Specifically saying, some companies may want to rebrand themselves and design a brand new logo. However, this can be done with the wrong intentions of just wanting a new logo with no valid reasoning. The real identity of a company logo can often times be boiled down to have being in the public eye for so long. When a logo such as Coca Cola or American Airlines exist, there is no reason to change them. As they have basically been subconsciously engrained into humans who have been exposed to their branding constantly. What I learned from this chapter is that sometimes a brand may not need rebranding, due to their recognisability. Mr Vinod pointed this out when I wanted to originally redesign a French jam brand. 

Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design // Key Concepts: Designer as Author // Pg 42

Figure 1.7: Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design

In this book, I read a chapter labelled "Key Concepts". They talked about the importance of a designer. Specifically talking about how it is not just a designers job to make things look beautiful, but also to convey a message. Such a street sign depicting scenarios which are easily understood or a product that looks so enticing to buy. A designers job is also to convey and persuade their audience. This concept applies a lot heavier to graphic designers who are being employed by companies to send their message.