Typography /Task 1:Exercises

25.9.2023

Week1-Week6

Jin Rong/0361701

Typography /  Creative media in design /Taylor's Lakeside University 

Task1:exercise

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JUMPLINK

Lectures

Instructions

Feedback

Reflections

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LECTURES

WEEK1: 

In the first lesson, we learned how to create our own blogger. Mr. Vinod told us the format we need, how to upload files, and how to create them through the video.

Typo 1 Development :

Early letterform development: Phoenician to Roman

writing scratching into wet clay with sharpened sticks or carving stone with chisels

The forms of uppercase letterforms(for nearly 2000 years the only letterforms) 

uppercaseforms are simple combination of straight lines and pieces of circles

The Greeks changed the direction of writing. Phoenicians, like otherSemitic peoples, wrote from right to left. The Greek developed a styleof writing called boustrophedon’(how the ox ploughs), which meantthat the lines of text read alternately from right to left and left to rightAs they change the direction of reading they also changed theorientation of the letterforms:

Etruscan (and then Roman) carvers working in marble paintedetterforms before inscribing them. Certain qualities of their strokes-a change in weight from vertical to horizontal, a broadening of thestroke at start and finish-carried over into the carved letterforms.

Late 1st century B.C.E., Augustan inscription in the Roman Forum, Rome.

Handscripts from the 3rd to 10th Century

  Square Capitals (4th/5th century)

 Rustic Capitals (Late 3rd-mid 4th century)

 4th century; Roman Cursive

 4th - 5th century; Uncials

  C. 500; Half Uncials

WEEK2: 

In the second week, Mr. Vinod checked our sketch design. He showed us some cases and gave me some ideas. This week we watched a video about AI teaching and then digitized our designs using AI.

Typo_3_Text_P1：

Text/Tracking : Kerning and Letterspacing

 Without Kerning vs. With Kerning

Kerning: Refers to the automatic adjustment of space between letters. Removing space between lettters

Letterspacing: To add space between the letters.  

Tracking: The addition and removal of space in a word or sentence.

Gray Value: The balance between the letters and the negative space.

Counterspace: The space between the actual shape of the letters. This has a bearing on readability.

 Normal Tracking vs. Tight Tracking vs. Loose Tracking

Normal tracking 

when you give letterspacing and kerning

adding/reducing letterspace into text reduces the readability of a text; take in consideration of a long paragraph of text

not only looking at letterform but also counter form

negative spaces between strokes

white areas that make up that particular word is important to consider

Loose tracking, tight tracking

not encouraged to do letterspace on lowercase because kerning and lowercase have already been designed to the text

uppercase - able to stand on their own, lowercase require counter form created between letters to maintain the line of reading

adding letterspace = breaking counter form, reducing the readability of the text, patterns that contitute the word becomes difficult to decipher

 Normal Tracking, Loose Tracking

Tight Tracking

Flush Left

Flush left: This format most closely mirrors the asymmetricalexperience of handwriting. Each line starts at the same point butends wherever the last word on the line ends. Spaces between wordsare consistent throughout the text, allowing the type to create an evengray value.

Centered 

Centered: This format imposes symmetry upon the text, assigningequal value and weight to both ends of any line. lt transforms fields ofext into shapes, thereby adding a pictorial quality to material that isnon-pictorial by nature. Because centered type creates such a strongshape on the page, its important to amend line breaks so that the textdoes not appear too jagged.

 Flush right

Flush right: This format places emphasis on the end of a line asopposed to its start. It can be useful in situations (like captions)where the relationship between text and image might be ambiquouswithout a strong orientation to the right.

Justified

Justified: Like centering, this format imposes a symmetrical shapeon the text. It is achieved by expanding or reducing spaces betweenwords and, sometimes, between letters. The resulting openness oflines can occasionally produce 'rivers'of white space runningvertically through the text. Careful attention to line breaks andhyphenation is required to amend this problem whenever possible.

Typography: Text / Texture

 Different leading of same typeface

 Same text, different designs

Different text designs are designed for different purposes, and it is necessary to know what the design is for.

Typography: Text / Leading and Line Length

The goal in setting text type is to allow for easy, prolonged reading.At the same time a field of type should occupy the page as much asphotograph does

Type size: Text type should be large enough to be read easily atarms length.

Type size: Text type should be large enough to be read easily atarms length-imagine yourself holding a book in your lap.

Leading: Text that is set too tightly encourages vertical eyemovement; a reader can easily loose his or her place. Type that is settoo loosely creates striped patterns that distract the reader from thematerial at hand.

Line Length: Appropriate leading for text is as much a function of theline length as it is a question of type size and leading. . A good rule of thumb is tokeep line length between 55-65 characters. 

  10 fonts used this semester

WEEK3: 

Typo_3_Text P2

Typography: Text / lndicating Paragraphs

There are several options for indicating paragraphs. In the firstexample, we see the 'pilcrow'(¶),a holdover from medievalmanuscripts seldom use today

line spacing vs leading

typeface 10 pt, ideally leading is 12pt,2.5-3 larger than typeface point size

The example here displays the standard indentation. Typically herethe indent is the same size of the line spacing or the same as thepoint size of your text.

When this article is reasonable, it is best to use right indentation

The method of extended paragraphs below creates unusually widecolumns of text. Despite these problems, there can be strongcompositional or functionalreasons for choosina it.

Typography: Text / Widows and Orphans

In traditional typesetting (the kind that still endures amongconscientious commercial publishers), there are two unpardonablegaffes-widows and orphans. Designers (specifically those that dealwith large amounts of text in websites or books on online magazinesor printed magazines, news papers or online journals) must takegreat care to avoid the occurrence of the the above mentioned.

A widow is a short line of type left alone at the end of a column oftext.

An orphan is a short line of type left alone at the start of new column

In justified text both widows and orphans are considered seriousgaffes. Flush right and ragged left text is some what more forgivingtowards widows, but only a bit. Orphans remain unpardonable.
The only solution to widows is to rebreak your line endings throughout your paragraph so that the last line of any paragraph is notnoticeably short.
Orphans, you might expect, require more care. Careful typographersmake sure that no column of text starts with the last line of thepreceding paragraph.

Typography: Text / Highlighting Text

The following are some simple examples of how to highlight textwithin a column of text. Different kinds of emphasis require differentkinds of contrast.

In this example the sans serif font (Univers) has been reduced by .5to match the x-height of the serif typeface. 8 *7.5

Create a box around the text
indentation or without indentation 

Quotation marks, like bullets, can create a clear indent, breaking theleft reading axis. Compare the indented quote at the top with theextended quote at the bottom.

Typography: Text / Headline within Text

Typographers need to make sure that the information they are trying to convey makes the reader aware of what is important in the text

A head indicates a clear break between the topics within a section. lnthe following examples 'A' heads are set larger than the text, in smallcaps and in bold. The fourth example shows an A head 'extended' tothe left of the text.

The B head here is subordinate to A heads. B heads indicate a newsupporting argument or example for the topic at hand. As such theyshould not interrupt the text as strongly as A heads do. Here the Bheads are shown in small caps, italic, bold serif, and bold san serif

The C heads, although not common, highlights specific facets ofmaterial within B head text. They not materially interrupt the flow ofreading. As with B heads, these C heads are shown in small caps.italics, serif bold and san serif bold. C heads in this configuration arefollowed bv at least an em space for visual separation.

Typography: Text / Cross Alignment

Using cross-aligned headings in text, the full alignment of the left and right sides looks neat and organized. Fonts vary in thickness and size.

WEEK4

Typo_2_Basic

Typography: Basic / Describing letterforms

Baseline The imaginary line the visual base of the letterforms

Median The imaginary line defining the x-height of letterforms

X-height The height in any typeface of the lowercase 'x 

  

uppercase - smaller than ascending stroke but wider and bigger surface area on the top

lowercase - ascenders has letter real estate touching the top section

giving equal height impression = lowercase slightly above capital letters → optical adjustment

Stroke Any line that defines the basic letterform

Apex / Vertex The point created by joining two diagonal stems (apex above and vertex below)

Arm Short strokes off the stem of the letterform, either horizontal (EF, L) or inclined upward (K, Y).

Ascender The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform thatprojects above the median

Barb The half-serif finish on some curved stroke

Beak The half-serif finish on some horizontal arms

Bowl The rounded form that describes a counter. The bowl may beeither open or closed

Bracket The transition between the serif and the stem

Cross Bar The horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stem stogether

Cross Stroke The horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stems together

Crotch The interior space where two strokes meet

Descender The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform that projects below the baseline

Em/en Originally refering to the width of an uppercase M, and em isnow the distance equal to the size of the typeface (an em in 48points, for example). An en is half the size of an em, Most often usedo describe em/en spaces and em/en dashes

Ligature The character formed by the combination of two or moreletterforms.

Spine The curved stem of the S

Stress The orientation of the letterform, indicated by the thin stroke inround forms.

Swash The flourish that extends the stroke of the letterform

It is not appropriate to use capitalized, cursive letters to form a word

Tail The curved diagonal stroke at the finish of certain letterforms

Terminal The self-contained finish of a stroke without a serif. This issomething of a catch-all term. Terminals may be flat ('T' above).flared, acute, ('t' above), grave, concave, convex, or rounded as aball or a teardrop (see finial).

Typography: Basic / The font

The full font of a typeface contains much more than 26 letters, tonumerals,and a few punctuation marks.

Uppercase Capital letters, including certain accented vowels, the ccedilla and n tilde. and the ae and o/e ligatures

Lowercase Lowercase letters include the same characters asuppercase

Small Capitals Uppercase letterforms draw to the x-height of thetypeface. Small Caps are primarily found in serif fonts as part of whatis often called expert set.

Most type software includes a style command that generates a smallcap based on uppercase forms. Do not confuse real small caps withthose artificially generated

Uppercase Numerals Also called lining figures, these numerals arethe same height as uppercase letters and are all set to the samekerning width. They are most successfully used with tabular materiaor in any situation that calls for uppercase letters.

Lowercase Numerals Also known as old style figures or text figuresthese numerals are set to x-height with ascenders and descenders.They are best used when ever you would use upper and lowercaseletterforms. Lowercase numerals are far less common in sans seriftype-faces than in serif

Italic Most fonts today are produced with a matching italic. Smallcaps, however, are almost always only roman. The forms in a italicrefer back to fifteenth century ltalian cursive handwriting. Oblique aretypically based on the roman form of the typeface.

ltalic vs Roman

small capitals are not in italic → only roman

refers back to 15th century italian cursive handwriting

Punctuation, miscellaneous characters Although all fonts containstandard punctuation marks, miscellaneous characters can changefrom typeface to typeface. lt's important to be acquainted with all thecharacters available in a typeface before you choose the appropriatetype for a particular job.

Ornaments Used as flourishes in invitations or certificates. Theyusually are provided as a font in a larger typeface family. Only a fewtraditional or classical typefaces contain ornamental fonts as part ofthe entire typeface family (Adobe Caslon Pro).

Typography: Basic / Describing typefaces

Roman The letterform is so called because the uppercase forms arederived from inscriptions of Roman monuments. A sliahtly lighterstroke in roman is known as  Book'

ltalic Named for fifteenth century ltalian handwriting on which theforms are based. Oblique conversely are based on roman form oftypeface

Condense A version of the roman form, and extremely condensestyles are often called 'compressed

Extended An extended variation of a roman font

Typography: Basic / Comparing typefaces

each letters may display a range of attitude

The font used this semester

It’s not the similarities that are noteworthy, but the differences that are unique. There are differences in the height and thickness of these fonts, which requires us to observe them in detail.

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INSTRUCTIONS

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OlHLD7RAH2ruyehh83VIpxyiQms78A6k/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>

WEEK1

Task 1 : Exercise - Type Expression

 

We received 6 words for practice, and I chose fire, cry, gun, and dizzy from them.

 

GUN

The first thing I thought about was shooting bullseye.

Secondly, I incorporated the appearance of the gun into the text G.

The third one, I thought of the appearance of bullet holes after shooting, and combined it with 

words.

DIZZY

First one ,I think that everything I see after dizziness is distorted.

The second and third, I thought of the dizziness and added it to the font.

FIRE

The first one, I thought of the shape of flames, and wanted to express the strokes of the letters with the shape of flames.

Secondly, I designed the letters as flames.

The third one, I want to make the letters look like they are burning.

CRY

The first one, I thought of unhappiness, and designed it in the letter c.

The second one, I thought of tears and added them to the font.

Thirdly, I want the font to directly express an unhappy look.

WEEK2

We need to digitize the draft using AI.

In the end, I chose four designs for digitization, and I chose designs that reduce distortion.

WEEK3

We need to make the design into a GIF.

Following the video uploaded by the teacher, I tried to create a gif

I tried to create a GIF for my text design.

FINAL

WEEK4

HEAD

Font/s: Gill Sans Std Ultra Bold

Type Size/s: 24

Leading:0

Paragraph spacing:11

 

BODY

Font/s: Univers LT Std 55 Roman

Type Size/s: 9

Leading:0

Paragraph spacing:11

Characters per-line:50-65

Alignment: Left Align

 

Margins:12.7mm top,12.7mm left + 12.7 mm right + 50 mm bottom

Columns:4

Gutter:10mm

WEEK5

Before using the software to do this task, I first conceptualized a sketch

WEEK6

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FEEDBACK

WEEK2:

Mr. Vinod evaluated everyone's sketches and showed us some examples of finished products. I have received some inspiration and my sketch still needs to be modified. I still need to improve my blogger.

WEEK3:

I need to reduce my font distortion.

WEEK4:

I wanted to do some interesting designs, but I forgot to follow the rules.I need to design according to the rules

WEEK5:

The text should be interlaced, and too much blank space may not appear as a single paragraph.

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REFLECTIONS

WEEK1

I haven't created my own blog before, this is my first time doing it and it's very interesting. I learned some techniques based on the video provided by the teacher.

WEEK2

Designing fonts is not an easy task. I feel that I am not imaginative enough and the designs I come up with are boring. I need to read more references so that I can think of more

WEEK3

Digitize my own design. But I am not proficient enough in software, and I need more practice.

WEEK4

The design becomes animated, and the more frames, the smoother the picture. You can adjust the frame count time in the most suitable place. I am now much more proficient in software, but there are still many unclear areas that I need to spend time learning.

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FURTHER READING

"The Vignelli Canon" is a book written by the renowned Italian designer Massimo Vignelli in 2010. The purpose of the book is to help designers enhance their understanding of graphic design and industrial design, covering design principles, standards, guidelines, as well as typographic principles.

The book is divided into two parts, namely "The Intangibles" and "The Tangibles." In the first part,"The Intangibles," Vignelli delves into one of the three critical aspects of design, which is "Semantics."

The "Semantics" section in the book explains the application of semantics in design, emphasizing the importance of searching for meaning in the design process. Designers are encouraged to have a comprehensive understanding of the subject to ensure that the design has a rational reason for existence, meaning, and purpose.

The book underscores the crucial role of semantics in the design process, highlighting the necessity for in-depth research to better comprehend the significance of the design task. Vignelli vehemently opposes designs that lack meaning and purpose, considering them akin to visual pollution that degrades the environment.

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