Advanced Typography: Task 1 Exercises + Type & Play

 Edlin Raihana binti Mohamad Firdaus 0359096 Bachelor in Design Creative Media
GCD61004 Advanced Typography

INSTRUCTIONS

MIB GCD61004 Advanced Typography

     ⇢ Lecture Notes

• 01 - Typographical Systems

            All designs are based on a structural system that have 8 major variations with an infinite number of ways to be used. These 8 major variations being:

1. Axial - elements are organized to the left  or right of a single axis
2. Radial - elements are extended from a point of focus
3. Dilatational - elements that expand from a central point in a circular fashion
4. Random - elements that appear to have no specific pattern or relationship
5. Grid - vertical and/or horizontal divisions
6. Modular - informal system of layered banding
7. Transitional - a series of no-objective elements that are constructed as a standardized unit
8. Bilateral - arranged symmetrically on a single axis

    Effective communication is paramount in typographical organization.  Designers must prioritize communication when creating layouts and interfaces, while also adhering to principles like hierarchy, reading order, legibility, and contrast. 

• 02 - Typographical Composition

            The Principles of Design Composition includes the following:

• Emphasis
• Isolation
• Repetition
• Symmetry/Asymmetry
• Alignment
• Perspective

            Rules of Thirds - suggests that a space that can divided into 3 columns and 3 rows where the intersecting lines can be used as a guide to the eye to where the interesting points should be. From these 8 major variations , the most pragmatic and the most used system is the Grid system, which is derived from the grided compositional structure of Letter Press printing.

            Environmental Grids are a system that draws inspiration from existing structures, either individually or in combination.  Key lines, both curved and straight, are extracted from these structures. The designer then arranges information around this "super-structure," incorporating non-objective elements to create a distinctive blend of texture and visual stimulation. 

            Form and Movement is built upon the exploration of existing grid systems.  It was designed to encourage students to delve into the vast possibilities offered by grids, to dispel the often-perceived rigidity associated with grid systems, and to envision the act of turning pages in a book as a slowed-down animation, where the placement of images, text, and colour defines the form. 

• 03 - Context & Creativity

            We study handwriting because the earliest mechanically produced letterforms were directly modeled after it. Handwriting became the foundation and standard for form, spacing, and conventions that mechanical type sought to emulate. The shape and line of hand-drawn letterforms are shaped by the tools and materials used to create them. Sharpened bones, charcoal sticks, plant stems, brushes, feather and steel pens all contributed to the unique characteristics of the letterform. Further influencing these forms was the material upon which they were written: clay, papyrus, palm leaf, animal skins (vellum and parchment), and paper. 

            During the 19th century, coinciding with the rise of the British Empire, a shift in perspective occurred.  It became fashionable to disregard Africa and its people as contributors of anything valuable.  This led to a preference for Greece and Rome, elevating them above far older and more influential civilizations, particularly Ancient Egypt, but also including less extensive or ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China. 

             Programmers and Type Design explains the rise of software giants like Google has led to a surge in the creation of typefaces for vernacular scripts. This is largely driven by the increasing number of Asian programmers and designers employed by these companies.  The result is a growing number of both vernacular and "multi-script" typefaces, a term coined by Muthu Nedumaran, designed to cater to situations where written content is communicated in either vernacular scripts, Latin scripts, or a combination of both. 

            Local Movements in Malaysia, the website murasu.com, spearheaded by programmer and typographer Muthu Nedumaran, has played a significant role in revitalizing vernacular scripts. Muthu cracked the programming code necessary to encode the diverse writing systems, making them accessible on both mobile phones and desktops.  Huruf, a local group of graphic designers focused on the localized lettering of both Latin and vernacular scripts, is another prominent organization contributing to the digitization and revitalization of typefaces in Malaysia. They are particularly known for their work with painted or inscribed lettering on walls and signage. 

            Creativity and Inspiration often spring from a deep engagement with our surroundings and a thorough exploration of our shared past. 

• 04 - Designing Type

            In the introduction of his typeface 'Malaga', Xavier Dupre (2007) suggested 2 reasons for designing a typeface which are

1. to carry a social responsibility son one must continue to improve on its legibility
2. as a form of artistic expression

            General process of Type Design includes

• Research - 
• Effective type design requires a solid foundation in type history, anatomy, and conventions. This includes understanding key terminologies like side-bearing, metrics, and hinting. 
• Before embarking on a new typeface, it's crucial to define its purpose and intended applications. Will it be used for school buses, airport signage, or something entirely different?  
• Finally, studying existing typefaces provides invaluable inspiration, reference, and insight into usage patterns. By examining successful examples, we can gain a deeper understanding of how type interacts with its environment and how to create effective and impactful designs. 
• Sketching

• Type designers often choose between two approaches for sketching their initial ideas. 
• Some prefer the traditional method, using brushes, pens, ink, and paper. This allows for greater control and a more natural hand-drawn feel. The sketches are then scanned for digitization. 
• Others opt for digital tools like Wacom tablets, sketching directly into font design software. This method offers speed, persistence, and consistency, but can sometimes limit the natural flow of hand strokes. 
• Ultimately, the choice between these approaches depends on the designer's individual preferences and the desired aesthetic for the typeface. 
• Digitization
• When it comes to digitizing typefaces, professional software like FontLab and Glyphs App are the industry standards.  While some designers use Adobe Illustrator to craft letterforms before importing them into specialized font apps, this approach is often viewed as less ideal by purists. 
• During the digitization process, it's crucial to pay attention not only to the overall form of each letter but also to the "counter" form – the negative space within the letter.  The readability of a typeface heavily depends on how well these counter forms are designed. 
• Testing
• Testing is a critical part of the type design process, allowing designers to refine and improve their work.  This often involves creating prototypes and gathering feedback. 
• The type's intended use plays a significant role in testing. For text typefaces, readability and legibility are paramount.  Display typefaces, however, can prioritize expressive form over strict legibility. 
• Deploy
• Even after a typeface is released, it's important to be prepared for unexpected issues that may not have surfaced during testing. This means that the work of revision doesn't end with deployment. 
• Thorough testing is crucial to minimize these post-release problems, ensuring that any issues that do arise are relatively minor. 

        Constructing Letterforms with Grids

            One approach to constructing letterforms is to use a grid system based on geometric shapes.  A common example is the Roman capital grid, which utilizes a square, a circle, and a rectangle. 

            The square serves as the overall structure, with a circle inscribed inside that touches the square's edges at four points.  A rectangle, three-quarters the size of the square, is then positioned in the center.  This grid provides a framework for building consistent and harmonious letterforms. 

            Using grids, particularly those incorporating circular elements, can help designers create well-proportioned and visually pleasing letterforms.  

        Designing Type: Construction and Considerations

            Creating a new typeface involves careful attention to a variety of structural and visual elements. 

            One important consideration is the extrusion of curved forms, such as rounded letters or descenders.  These elements often extend slightly beyond the baseline and cap line, requiring visual adjustments to ensure consistent alignment.  Similar attention must be paid to the vertical alignment of curved and straight forms, ensuring they appear visually balanced.

            Another crucial aspect is letter spacing, also known as fitting.  Simply placing letters equidistant from each other often results in uneven visual spacing.  Instead, designers must carefully adjust the spacing between letters to create a uniform "visual" white space. This means that the white space between letters should appear consistent, even though the actual spacing may vary. 

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    Submission: All exercises given are to be completed and documented (labelled, clean, clear & concise) in your E-Portfolio and hardcopy submissions respectively (print-outs if requested)

    Exercise: Throughout the beginning of the semester, various exercises will be prescribed in the module. These exercises will aid and benefit you in your quest to gain theoretical and practical knowledge in Advanced Typography that will inform you and provide you with the necessary experience to take on the module's tasks.

     ⇢ Typographical Systems

            We were instructed to create 8 typographic posters exploring the 8 Major Variations using the given content to be featured in each typographic system per post. These 8 typographical systems are Axial, Radial, Dilatational, Random, Grid, Modular, Transitional and Bilateral. This exercise was to be done in Adobe InDesign only, with the size being 200 x 200 mm. In addition to black and white, another colour can be used and graphic elements (lines, dots, etc.) can be used but limitedly.

    For the other colour other than black and white, I chose #3bbeb2 as my colour and the title "The ABCs of Bauhaus Design Theory"

• Axial

            Fonts used: Minion Pro (Regular) / Century Gothic (Italics & Regular) / Bodoni MT (Regular)

fig 2.1 Axial System, Week 2

  This design spoke to me the most because of the simple complexity of the design. It also gives a sense of asymmetric balance without cluttering the space. The order is also very simple to read and the colour block creates a single line that helps the viewer to follow through the whole design itself.

• Radial

            Fonts used: Futura Std. (Heavy, Book, Book Condensed & Light Condensed)

fig 2.2.1 Radial System, Week 2

            

fig 2.2.2 Initial Radial System plans, Week 2

  I actually had a few designs before settling with this design and had a lot of shifts in word placements because it either looks off, didn't fit the page or the composition was not engaging or balanced enough.

    I ultimately went with a more simplified look and added a few circle shapes to give it a mroe pop of colour.

• Dilatational

          Fonts used: ITC Garamond (Bold, Bold Italic & Book Italic) ITC New Baskerville Std. (Bold Italic) & Bembo Std. (Regular)

fig 2.3 Dilatational System, Week 2

        Although there is quite the handful of fonts that have been used in this design, I made sure to use the ones that are the most similar with each other so that the texts wont look cluttered/distracting throughout the whole piece.

• Random

          Fonts used: I aint doin allat

fig 2.4.1 Random System Placements

fig 2.4.2 Random System inversion + font choices

fig 2.4 Final Random System, Week 2

        I quite enjoyed doing this design the most due to the random components. I like playing with the fonts, the sizes and the placements. I did try to keep everything cohesive enough so that the information could still be connected even if they are separated with consistent use of fonts (Lecture Theatre 12, Design & Taylor's). 

• Grid

             Fonts used: Futura Std. (Medium Condensed, Medium Oblique, Book, Heavy) & Bodoni MT (Condensed)

fig 2.5 Grid System, Week 2

        The grid systems caused me quite the headache since I didn't know if I wanted to work with or without the margins. But alas, I chose to continue without the margins. I tried to play with the placements of the information and it worked out pretty swell!

• Modular

                      Fonts used: Futura Std. (Heavy, Book, Book Condensed & Light Condensed)

fig 2.6 Modular System, Week 2

        Other than random, I had so much fun with this design. Not much to say here since the design practically hammered into my brain the moment I saw the layout of this design. This time I decided to follow the margins and split it 4 by 4.

• Transitional

                      Fonts used: ITC Garamond (Bold, Book, Ultra, Light)

fig 2.7 Transitional System, Week 2

        Oh the transitions this design went through. I had to move the information around so many times due to this overall layout that I wanted for this system. Either the font was too big, the movement looked off or just the overall flow of the whole composition was faltering. I did want to have the title to be the first thing the viewers saw so I had that bold and a different font size than the others.

• Bilateral

                  Fonts used: Bodoni MT (Black, Bold) & Garamond (Bold, Regular & Italic)

fig 2.8 Bilateral System, Week 2

        This design was pretty self-explanatory in a way that it just follows one line and has to be symmetrical.

     ⇢ Final Outcome

         

fig 3.1 Bilateral Systems

fig 3.2 Transitional Systems

fig 3.3 Modular Systems

fig 3.3 Grid Systems

fig 3.5 Random Systems

fig 3.6 Dilatational Systems

fig 3.7 Radial Systems

fig 3.8 Axial Systems

fig 3.9.1 Typographical Systems Final Compilation PDF (Gridless)

fig 3.9.2 Typographical Systems Final Compilation PDF (Grid)
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     ⇢ Type & Play ( Extraction )

            We were instructed to dissect a picture that may have potential letterforms and create a 200mm x 200mm movie poster. For this section, I decided on butterfly wings due to how many different patterns and types of wings there could be. 

Here were the pictures I chose to extract the letters from:

fig 4.1 Assortments of butterfly wings (Week 3)

            From these pictures I extracted the letters EMOYDAW and rearranged them into the word 'MEADOW'

 

fig 4.2 Letterform Extraction of EMOYDAW (Week 3)

            I then started finding a similar font to the extractions that I found and decided on ITC New Baskerville Std (Roman) to start referencing.

fig 4.3 MEADOW in ITC New Baskerville (Roman) (Week 3)

        Due to the nature of the butterfly wings being a mixture of thin, wide and very wavy, it was a little challenging translating these into a font of itself. I also had extracted multiple types of certain letters so I combined certain aspects that would look like a typeface and would translate into actual letters well.

fig 4.3 MEADOW in ITC New Baskerville (Roman) and MEADOW using ITC New Baskerville as reference (Week 3)

        This was on a good track but it was missing more of the 'butterfly-ness' of the reference pictures and the extraction itself so I did adjustments on those aspects.

fig 4.4 MEADOW in ITC New Baskerville (Roman), MEADOW using ITC New Baskerville as reference  and MEADOW updated (Week 3)

     ⇢ Type & Play ( Movie Poster )

        For the movie poster, I chose this picture initially as my cover photo since it follows the butterfly theme.

fig 5.1 butterfly man from Pinterest (Week 4)

        Inspired by the haunting photo, I then created the tagline of my movie poster which is:

"The last thing you'd expect danger...is the most beautiful place on Earth"

        This was the initial layout of the movie poster but I had a few qualms about it myself.

fig 5.2 MEADOW Poster trial (Week 4)

        Here were the problems I stumbled upon when making this movie poster:

1.  There were too many values at play in the picture itself that made colour picking hard for text to be seen throughout poster
2. The complexity of  the picture itself proved to be distracting to the title

        So I replaced the photo with another but with more emphasis on the butterfly wings.

fig 5.3 Close Up of Butterfly wing from Pinterest(Week 4)

fig 5.4 Final Type & Play Poster (Week 4)

     ⇢ Final Outcome

fig 5.5 Final Type & Play Poster (Week 4)

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     ⇢ Further Reading

fig 6.1 Typographical Systems by Kimberly Elam (2007)

        From what I learnt, Kimberly Elam does analysis on a multitude of typographical systems that are applied. In addition to this, I learnt that Asymmetry, while visually simple, adds a captivating element to a design.  Since radial structures are inherently symmetrical, introducing asymmetry enhances visual interest for viewers. Alignment, through the use of interior axes, brings order to a composition. Grouping arcs of text can simplify complex layouts, making them more appealing and easier to understand.