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Design 3: Visual Organization and Information Design |
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Notes on typographic anatomy and historyBasic Typeface AnatomyThere are two basic groups that typefaces may be classified
Serif has decorative embellishments on the ends of character lines. Example Times New Roman
Sans-Serif are a more modern typeface and have no embellishment. The lines are characteristically clean and in often are easier to read. (often times typography used for webdesign or public signage will utilize a san-serif typeface for "readaibility") Example Arial
The cap height is the distance from the top of the capital letter to its bottom. Some vertical elements (ascenders) may extend slightly above the cap height. The x-height is the height of the main body of the lowercase letter (or the height of a lowercase x ), excluding its ascenders and descenders. The bigger the x-height is in relation to the cap height, the bigger the letters will look. The baseline is the most stable axis along a line of text. The curves at the bottom of letters such as a or c hang slightly below the baseline. Commas and semicolons also cross the baseline. If a typeface were not positioned this way, it would appear to teeter precariously, lacking a sense of physical grounding.
Type SizeHeight The size of type is usually measured in points, a unit of length in use since 1735. The point system, used to measure the height of a letter as well as the space between lines ( leading ), is the standard measurement for type. One point equals 1/72 inch or .35 millimeters. Twelve points equal one pica, the unit commonly used to measure column widths. Typography also can be measured in inches, millimeters, or pixels. (A point is roughly equivalent to a pixel.) Most software applications let the designer choose a preferred unit of measure; picas and points are a standard default. Width The horizontal dimension of a letter is its set width. The set width is the body of the letter plus a sliver of space that protects it from other letters. The width of a letter is intrinsic to the proportion of the typeface. Some typefaces have a narrow set width, and some have a wide one. You can change the set width of a letter by fiddling with its horizontal or vertical scale. This distorts the proportion of the typeface, forcing heavy elements to become thin, and thin elements to become thick. Instead of torturing a letterform, choose a typeface with the proportions you need, such as condensed, compressed, or extended. Type families such as Helvetica, Univers, and Interstate include a variety of widths.
The meanings of typeThe back-stories, informed by trends, cults, philosophies and nationhood.Not every typeface is transparent, not all typography recedes; certain types symbolise philosophies and ideologies, some represent institutions, nations, and cults, many have intrinsic meaning. In about 1540 the French monarch François I commissioned Claude Garamond to design the typeface that bears his name. Believing that standardised typography would make governance easier, Garamond’s face was ordered to be used for all official papers, and became a symbol of French enlightenment as well as the nation’s first proprietary font. Around the same time Maximilian, the German king rejected Antiqua (used in Latin manuscripts) in favour of spiky blackletter. In the sixteenth century, blackletter stood for German protestantism and nationalism, in the 1920s it was attacked for being antiquated, replaced by the New Typography, characterised by sans serif type in asymmetrical compositions and codified in 1928 by Jan Tschichold. In 1933, however, the Nazi government revived the blackletter face, proclaiming it Volk (or the people’s) type and condemned the New Typography as un-German. Yet in 1941, the Nazis abandoned its own Volk type in favour of more readable faces. As if to prove further how mutable such symbolism can be, in the 1940s Tschichold lambasted the ‘New Typography’ as inherently Fascist, prompting a backlash by betrayed followers who saw him as Alvin Lustig characterised him, a turncoat. Typefaces and typography are never designed in a vacuum. Practical and commercial motivations prevail but social and political rationales are never far away. Type design and typography are routinely informed by conscious and unconscious contexts that change with time. Read more about the back-stories that underscore the meanings of type.1
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In Class AssignmentTypography and Meaning ExplorationInterpret the meaning of a word by adjusting the spacing, scale, and position of letters on a page.Choose two words from the list below:
Using Illustrator, create two different compositions. One word per composition. In each of the two compositions arrange each word to express its meaning. The composition is 9 x 9 inches square. You may vary the size, spacing, placement, and orientation of the letters within the square. You may repeat, omit, slice, block, crop or overlap words or letters. DO NOT use drop shadows or horizontal/vertical scaling (distortion). Consider the entire space of the square. Examples of two interpretations of this excercise by Jonschen Kudos
Type SpecimensUsing the 2-3 typeface specimens that you selected for your designed object brochure, analyze each of the 2-3 typefaces in terms of the following questions:
Note: each evaluation should look simlar to this example: Avant Garde Gothic Sample of typeface
Come to our next class with a print-out of your typefaces in every weight and style in which it is available. You don’t need to “design” this page; this is an inital reference point. Gather your placeholder text in an InDesign file from any source, such as Wikipedia or lipsum.com. |
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AssignmentDue next week: Designed Object BrochureHave the following to present in class:
Mounting and presentation Print out your four page brochure in color. Mount your brochure pages on illustration boards. As always provide for a 2" margin on the top, left and right and a 4" margin on the bottom. Protective flap and naming conventions as per syllabus presentation guidelines. ResearchClass JournalType DefinitionsFor next week: Define the following terms in your class journal, include visual examples of each of these typographic terms.
Type SpecimensThrough the rest of the semester: collect at least 20 samples of typography. You may sketch, photograph, cut items from magazines, use InDesign or Illustrator, etc. For each sample in your journal Create a type specimen page with the sample of the typeface and analyze each of the 2-3 typefaces in terms of the following questions:
Related Information
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Andrew Cornell Robinson acrStudio © 2007 1. The meanings of type, by Steve Heller. Copyright eye magazine © 2001. eyemagazine.com |
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