TYPOGRAPHY - EXERCISES

TYPOGRAPHY - EXERCISES

27/3/18 - 17/4/18 (Week 1 -  Week 4)
Ng Shu Zhi (0327158)
Typography
LECTURES

Week 1 - Introduction to Typography

Lecture 1: ( I wasn't here for week one but this is what I found out from questioning people)

The class was introduced to Typography along with the types of hands we were to pick, learn and practice upon, those being Uncial, Foundational and Black lettering. The lecturer also taught the students about fonts and typefaces.Together with this, the lecturer also informed the class about the e-portfolio, its format which is split into 2 parts: The lectures and instructions and the 2nd part, the student's feedback and reflection.

Outcomes of the lecture:

- I learned about different hands and what are fonts and typefaces.

- An organised format for making our e-portfolio

Lecture 2:

In this class we were advised about the exercise we were meant to do. On the pressure, the slant angle we are meant to write and do our exercise with. We were shown a demonstration by Mr Vinod on how to write fonts, how to space them and how to plan the size and spacing between each word and sentence.

Outcomes of the lecture:

- How to exactly begin writing calligraphy

- Spacing and planning for each of our letters to make a sentence.

- The fonts that we would be more comfortable with writing

Lecture 3:
We were taught the history of typography, its origins and its development into the fonts which we know of today. 

Outcomes of the lecture:
-Many fonts are influenced by the language, people and style of writing at the time.
- The fonts which we know today all originated from 1 kind of font which was spread out throughout the world and changed depending on the region its in. (whereby I thought fonts were made from local prehistoric findings.)

Lecture 4: 
We learned how to make stop animation with the fonts we had created for our names.We are to portray our font with an adjective that it most likely represents. To animate we had to use photoshop.

Outcomes of the lecture:
- Learned to use photoshop to animate our fonts.

Lecture 5: 
We had to show our works for designing the 6 words: Drunk, Dead, Stress, Dark, Quick and Loud, Then we were to animate them in Photoshop.

Lecture 6: Labour day [ no lessons ]

Lecture 7: We were taught about Kerning and Letter spacing. Letter spacing is the counter-form space of each letter. Kerning is when we adjust the space of the letter spacing. Spacing is to increase the spacing between each word. I also learned the space between each sentence is called legging space and, space between each paragraph is paragraph space.

INSTRUCTIONS
Week 1-4  

Week 1: We were to get graph paper and calligraphy pens in size 3.0 for our next typography class.
Week 2: We were to practice on the lines and circles of the hands we've chosen then we were to practice the alphabets of the hands.
Week 3: We had to practice writing a quote of our choosing into graph paper and when it was perfect, we were to write onto blank lineless paper.

Week 4-6

Week 4: We were to design fonts for our names portraying an adjective of our personality then animate
Week 5:
EXERCISE
Week 2:

Fig 3.1 The practice sheet before I began writing the final work. Here I found out how to do spacing and that our markers are meant to be slanted.

Fig 3.2 Foundational / roundhand which I chose

Fig 3.3 letters a - m

Fig 3.4 Final works I found that this hand was suitable for me due to the familiarity I felt writing it due to my normal hand writing.

week 3: 

Fig 3.5 Practices on lettering and to understand spacing better

Fig 3.6 The practices to understand spacing between each word and letter

Fig 3.7 Final work on lineless paper

 Week 4:

Fig 3.8 The work using 21 boards. I wanted to create an animation where it would go back to the original font so I did repeat the animation but put it backwards.

Fig 3.9 The static font

I was going for a bubbly, childlike and fun style to portray myself.

Fig 3.10 Adjective projected: Bubbly

Fig 3.11 A second try at my bubble animation to convey bubbly

This time I went with the nature of a bubble's movement as after watching many slow motion videos of bubbles, the movements of their outline is minimal but the light which bounces off them tend to move more. 

Week 5:

Fig 3.12 The words which were conveyed in Illustrator

Fig 3.13 First Animation for Dark

My first animated word was Dark whereby I wanted to light up the K which I thought was emphasized when saying the word.

Fig 3.14 Animation for stress

I went for a hydraulic compression kind of animation because I imagined the letters to be solid like a rubix cube. So this animation was based off a rubix cube getting crushed where the coloured boxes would fly off individually at different levels of it being compressed.

FEEDBACK
Specific feedback: I was taught that the lower case of the letter G in Foundational hand are tricky to write, followed by a helpful demonstration by Mr Vinod. I then knew where I should've placed the hanging curve of the lower case g and the spacing for each g. I was taught how to do proper spacing with the use of my calligraphy brush to find the correct amount of spacing between each letter.

General feedback: The spacing required for each sentence is important and usually 4 boxes down the graph paper from each sentence can make a neat paragraph. It is also important to hold the calligraphy pen/marker at a slanted angle and write with little pressure as it can damage the calligraphy marker.

Week 3:
Specific Feedback: Was told that I had consistent enough writing. Mr Vinod showed me how to do spacing between each letter which is to use one marker's width to estimate it. To estimate the space between each word, I have to use an O to space between each word and the space between each sentence is equal to space x where the letters are written.

Week 4:
Jagged lines & inconsistent strokes with the counterform in every word for every stroke.

Week 5:
My animation to convey bubbly didn't look bubbly at all. I was told it looked like it was cringing at my failures so I was to redo my animation for bubbly. I was also told that when I do animation, if I want to add something in, it has to come from somewhere to make it logical like for example, the sparks on my Dark animation were confusing because they appeared away from the word when they should've been shot out of the word.

Week 6: Labour day [ no class ]

Week 7: My animation for both my name portraying bubbly and the word animation were accepted. As for the book assignment, I would have simplify things more.
REFLECTION

Experience:
Week 2: The overall experience doing this work, well it was stressful; I had to listen to calming music to be able to draw decent quality vertical and horizontal lines. The Os were my favorite to write and was a good calming medium for me as when I would get frustrated at the vertical or horizontal lines, I would start writing the Os which sped up the process of finishing my work.

Week 3: It was confusing and stressful at first to not be able to understand how to space the letters and words properly but while writing and getting feedback from Mr Vinod, it suddenly clicked with me that it is only merely writing in a different handwriting, then after that it became much easier to space the letters and words from each other.

Week 4: To turn my font from physical paper to digital was hard and frustrating because it was a very smooth font with specific x heights, and the Illustrator program wouldn't follow what I wanted to do.

Week 5: It was stressful having to come out with more ideas to convey a word when I do not understand the nature of the word, like drunk. 

Week 6: Labour day [ no class ]

Week 7: It was quite fun to do work on the Babadook book as we could express the words in the book to make it very interesting as it is a horror children's book.

Observations:
Week 2: We had to write our letters and lines with a slanted marker, which we all didn't know of. Calligraphy apparently takes a lot of time, even just the practice for it.

Week 3: It is easy to make the mistake of spacing between each letter and sentence, especially letters where there are lots of free space near them like the letter I or y.

Week 4: It is hard to make a smooth outline using Illustrator but I learned how to use the smoothing tool with the teacher's help. 

Week 5: To portray a word through design correctly is very hard.

Week 6: Labour day [ no class ]

Week 7: I learned my initial design ideas for the book were too complex and I should simplify things more.

Findings:
Week 2: I realised Calligraphy is a very time consuming and exhausting work, but the outcomes are worth it. I also learned that when I just relax and let my hand do the work by just gliding in its own speed instead of stressing and pressing on the pen hoping it'll get better, my work comes out much better.

Week 3: I found out the writing in a hand isn't rocket science, it's just writing in a different hand from what I usually write and after figuring that out, it became much easier to write my chosen quote.

Week 4: I found out that it will take a lot of frames and time to animated something as simple as bubble movements. It is also very hard to continue an animation like bubbles because it is hard to replicate the exact smooth and natural movements of bubbles while keeping it normal looking.

Week 5: I learned that animation eventhough it can be illogical movements, it still needs a certain amount of logic behind it to be understandable. To understand something even better I should do my research and I found it the best to watch slow motion videos of the object I'm trying to animate.

Week 6: Labour day [ no class ]

Week 7: I learned more in depth about kerning and letter spacing and to apply an interesting amount of design into a few words can be quite hard rather than designing the whole sentence. 

FURTHER READING

Week 2:

Fig 6.1 Letterwork: Creative Letterforms in Graphic Design book

My book for the second week is Letterwork: Creative Letterforms in Graphic Design. 

In this book I have learned importance of Typography in creating content that is fit for audience viewing. I've also learned the important of studying typography through a brief history of the study. 

- Depending on the context, composition and emotional impact on the works, the type used is very important.

- Students without formal education can produce interesting work in the beginning but are unable to develop their work further due to informal self-criticism.

Week 3: 

Fig 6.2 Exploring Typography :Second Edition

In this book I had learned the physical attributes to a letter which surprisingly takes a lot to make such simple letters which we all know today.

- I learned what is Cap height, x-height, baseline and descender line.

- I learned counterforms are the negative space in and around a letter which produces characters.

- I learned what are stem strokes, secondary strokes/hairline strokes, cross strokes,  cross bar, spine, arm, tail and a bowl.

 Week 4:

Fig 6.3 What is Typography: Essential Design Handbooks

In this book I learned about how a person usually functions to read so I will be able to design better designs which will be more reader friendly.

- A person usually reads in a series of movements called saccades where the eye lands to read a few words in the peripheral vision instead of a smooth linear line.

- Usually someone can take in 3-4 words in one saccade if the lettering is in 10-12 pt.

- The use of complex words int he past and present are to express technical and complex ideas.

Week 5:

Fig 6.4 A Typographic Workbook: a primer to history, techniques and artistry

In this book I learned more about designing a font and phrases to fit into the context of a design.

- Hierarchy is important in designing font elements to see what is most important through the use of the elements.

- Leading or line spacing are one way to bring emphasis to phrases in a typographic composition.

- Letter spacing can give different textures to the reader and creates a particular rhythm.

Week 6:

Fig6.5 Type Style Finder: The Busy Designer's Guide to Choosing Type

In this book I wanted to focus on learning the types which can be used for simplicity and tranquility as they can be sometimes hard to portray in font without going over board.

-Tranquil scripts are usually semibold or sometimes heavy with a lower x height.

-Up and down motions are reduced and replaced with slopping, side-ways motion.

- Moderately extended san serifs faces with sloping shoulders, elliptical bowls and open apetures.

- If everything goes over a certain limit, it'll start reducing its tranquility.

- Low contrast, extended proportions and slow ducts can also show tranqulity.

fig 6.6 Some types which portray tranquility part 1

fig 6.7 part 2