A Typographic
EXPOSURE
Allie Bowes
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A Typographic
Allie Bowes
EXPOSURE
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Visual Communications Design Department of Art & Design School of Visual & Performing Arts Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana A publication of the School of Visual & Performing Arts All content is copyright in the name of Allie Bowes, November, 2014
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In memory of my Grandpa, whose eye for design and love for art continue to inspire me.
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Introduction
11 Hand Sketching 33
Computer Sketching
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Final Adjustments
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Final Design
Contents
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Introduction
A Typographic Exposure may seem like an odd title. However, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, exposure is defined as the condition of being revealed or made known. This, in essence, was the goal of this three-month project. We had to integrate and combine two assigned letters, F and K or K and F, to create a unique letterform design through the careful manipulation of each form. Essentially, the results of our manipulations would be a completely new, innovative form. We needed to maintain a balance between the two forms without making one letterform stand out more than the other. Both letters must remain readable and maintain their full integrity. We explored several aspects during the process: contrast, shape, style, size, and space. Juxtaposing between large and small forms as well as experimenting with different rectilinear and curvilinear combinations helped me in my exploration. Also, incorporating the use of italic, roman, light, bold, condensed, and expanded
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styling added allure to the new form. I wanted to incorporate an appropriate contrast of caps, lowercase, negative, and positive forms to make both of the letterforms appear as a new combined form. Before I tackled my goal of creating a typographic exposure, it was imperative for me to explain the book structure. To keep with the common structure, the cover design was carried out through the section titles. Each section had a vertical, white section title on a black rectangular background. The cover design mimicked the section title format on the inside of the book, which created unity as well as gave the reader an idea of what was to come. I chose to use the color red because it is the color of extremes. It triggers alertness and puts emphasis on the objects that are exposed. I ended with a full dissection of the final design, explaining why I manipulated the letterforms the way I did to reach the best integration and exposure of both letterforms. I have left the middle sections a mystery, as I hope you read on to discover!
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Hand Sketching
CONCEALED
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As I began my first sketches, it felt almost as if I was driving a car without being able to see what was at the end of the road. It was concealed. This was largely because I was not able to see previous students’ final projects. All I knew was that I had to begin producing mass amounts of sketches, getting as many ideas down on paper as humanly possible. With each sketch I did, I became more comfortable with my letters and my abilities. Along this journey towards a typographic exposure, I encountered both small failures and huge successes. The preliminary sketches were rough, yet very critical in the development process. They allowed me to see what style of sketching was least effective. However, I didn’t discover that this was a poor technique until I put my sketches up on the board in class. By not completely filling in all shapes with marker, the letter combinations were lost when viewed from far away. Although the sketching style was wrong, I did come to find elements that were working well together.
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The first four sketches served as my time to get comfortable with the project. I was unsure of whether or not Professor Ichiyama wanted our sketches to be completely shaded in as well as whether or not we had to combine the use of pencil and marker within one sketch. I began to see a glaring similarity between the foundation of the letter K and the foundation of the letter F. They both had a vertical stroke to stand on. Also, if the F were manipulated through rotating or reflecting, it could act as other parts of the K. Perhaps, they could be fused together to act as integral parts of one another. It was difficult for me to stray from only using marker simply because the sketches seemed more complete when using black ink. Using black ink made it easier to see the sketches in class when we put everything up on the board. Although black had come across as most legible, I later learned that exploring with pencil was crucial to the design process, as I was forced to spend more time on each sketch.
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Before moving forward, it was important to point out the aspects that I saw working well. In the upper right corner sketch, the aspects working well were figure ground contrast, caps and lowercase juxtaposition, as well as size variance. I felt confident that I could use these ideas moving forward.
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As my sketching abilities strengthened, my strategy of combining both letters at their most defining parts proved to be incredibly ineffective. However, I did not discover this until after the fact. Using the K as the cross stroke of the F in the upper left sketch made the two forms look like a candy cane. In the upper
right sketch, having the K as the second arm on the uppercase F made the K appear invisible, as everyone saw only the shape of the F when viewed from far away. The most important thing I was forgetting was that both letters had to be equally dominating, meaning that they both had to occupy roughly the same amount of space.
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The two sketches that contained aspects that were working well were the two sketches in the second row. Both contained sans serif uppercase letterforms as well as figure ground distinction. What made them different was that the sketch to the left used contrast between serif and sans serif, italic and roman, thin and bold, and
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uppercase and lowercase. It was also done in marker, whereas the sketch to the right was done in pencil. Regardless of medium, both letterforms stood out. These two sketches were my inspiration going forward with the rest of the project as the goals were becoming more clear.
Here, the aspects working well were in the sketch in the second row to the right. Contrast was being shown through positive and negative shapes, serif and sans serif, caps and lowercase, and thin and bold. Since this sketch met most design requirements, I began to explore further.
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You may be wondering why I continued to explore the idea of having the F and K be defining parts of each other. Well, at the time I was unaware that this would be a bad road to go down. All I was focused on was producing quantity over quality. I had not put them up on the board yet to see that they were
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illegible. This was a great learning experience that lead me to start expanding upon a previous idea on page 18, which was using figure ground contrast with both caps and roman letterforms. Here, this could be seen in the sketch in the second row on the left. At the time, this idea seemed promising.
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Another possible solution I arrived at was shading both letters black and leaving a thin white line in between the forms to distinguish one from the other, specifically in the sketch above. The thought of rotating an italic form to the left seemed unexpected, which is what ultimately caught people’s eye when I showed the sketch in class.
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At this point, I was largely uninspired and unsure of what to do next. My sketches seemed very repetitive. I kept on fusing the two letters together at their most important strokes. In an effort to re-inspire myself, I expanded upon the favorable ideas that I already had. Instead, I used a different medium: pencil.
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I felt such pressure to keep churning out ideas that these final hand sketches seemed forceful. I started to look at the actual 10 typefaces we could use to find more inspiration. I had a feeling that it was time to move to the computer sketching stage. Now, the final product didn’t seem so concealed, just slightly blurred.
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Computer Sketching
BLURRED
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Since all of my ideas were already hand sketched, I was prepared to use the computer to further manipulate my strongest sketches. I was excited to be able to experiment with all 10 different type families, 5 serif and 5 sans serif. The serif families were Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, and Times New Roman. The sans serif families were Gill Sans, Futura, Helvetica, Optima, and Univers. My confidence was much higher going into the computer sketching stage because I was used to producing mass amounts of ideas as well as had a less foggy idea of where I was going with the project. I was moving from the concealed stage to the blurred stage. Looking back, although dreading drawing as many hand sketches as possible, it was a crucial part of the design process. I was able to become more familiar with my letterforms and become more invested in the project.
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My computer sketches focused on expanding upon my two strongest ideas thus far. The first combination that was working well consisted of the serif uppercase K and F. The K was shown as a solid black shape, putting all emphasis on the crotch of the K. I mixed up the combination of typefaces to insure that I looked at all of my options. To be honest, at first I thought this idea was the one. I really thought this particular design had strong characteristics. It wasn’t until I put this concept on the board to show the class that I realized most people disapproved. When asked how many design principles were present, I could only think of one: distinction between positive and negative. It was lacking mixes of caps and lowercase, light and bold, rectilinear and curvilinear, large and small. Looking back, I am glad that this was brought to my attention. The design was simply too expected. I needed to focus on developing my second combination.
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F 36
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F
FF
f f KK K I knew the second combination had great potential, I just could not visualize it quite yet. I began experimenting with different thicknesses, serifs, sans serifs, italics, degrees of rotation, and positioning. It seemed as though the only way I could find the perfect combination was if I started trying all combinations
that came to mind. Because I was so determined to make this combination work, I did about 30 more sketches. Although it got pretty repetitive doing 30 sketches of very similar ideas, it got me thinking outside the box. I began to see which principles worked well and which ones did not.
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f f
f K f K 40
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K K KK f K K
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K
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f K f
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f It is important to point out the sketches in the second row of this page, as I focused on refining them to reach my final design. I experimented with having the K be Optima as well as Gill Sans. Some line widths were made bigger in order to increase legibility from far away. This occurred mainly with the cross
stroke of the F. Changing the placement of the serif on each F completely transformed the combinations to have their own character. Overall, there were many strong characteristics within these sketches: italic and roman, caps and lowercase, rectilinear and curvilinear, and negative and positive.
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K
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VISIBLE
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Final Adjustments
Ultimately, I came to my top three most successful solutions. They all met the majority of the qualifications stated in Professor Ichiyama’s expectations for the project. They contained positive and negative, serif and sans serif, rectilinear and curvilinear, and roman and italic principles. There was an equal balance between both letters, which was the most important goal. The very final design was right in front of my face. It was visible. Now, all I had to do was make small adjustments and choose the one that I felt was the very best integration of the two forms I was assigned.
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Final Design
REVEALED
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I was so relieved to have reached my final design. This project brought along many great challenges. The main struggle was having absolutely no vision in my head of an end product or where this project would lead me. Although I have always been aware of the importance of the sketching process, incorporating that into this project really helped me as a designer. Without the hand sketching, I would not have come to my final design. For that, I am forever grateful. Professor Ichiyama was a great teacher along the way, constantly challenging the ways in which we were used to doing things. Thinking outside of the box was, and still is, the new expectation. Because of this expectation, I pushed myself to manipulate the letterforms in such a way as to create a harmonious new form. I formed a diagram in order to best describe the manipulations I made. Through this, the final solution is revealed.
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C I pulled the cross stroke of the F down to be in line with the crotch of the K. This allowed the eye to move in one continuous line.
E F
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A The final solution was the fusion of a negative Times New Roman Bold Italic lowercase F and a positive Gill Sans Regular lowercase K. B The crotch of the K was perfectly centered with the F’s cross stroke.
D The right side of the vertical stroke on the K had been manipulated to line up with the intersection between the cross stroke of the F and the vertical stroke of the K. E The bottom leg of the K and the top of the vertical stroke of the K were pulled in to be more in line with the top arm of the K. Because of this, the lowercase form started to become an uppercase form. F The serifs of the lowercase F beautifully framed the top of the arm and the bottom of the vertical stroke of the K. Since I used the serifs as a frame, the curvilinear and rectilinear forms started working in unison.
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Cathy Aper Xerox Services Scot Benham Haywood Printing Co. Inc. Lafayette, Indiana Lynia Coates Xerox Services
Acknowledgments
Dennis Ichiyama Professor Wendy Olmstead Visiting Lecturer And others that have assisted me in the design and completion of the project.
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Paper: Type:
Binding: Printing:
Colophon
Bindery: Printer: Edition:
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Cougar Natural 80# Cover, 70# text Cover Text: Optima Bold, 127pt, 50pt, Optima Regular, 50pt, 12pt, Times New Roman Regular, 14pt Inside Text: Optima Bold, 100pt, 90pt, 83pt, 18pt, Optima Regular, 18pt, 14pt, Times New Roman Bold, 10pt, & Times New Roman Regular, 14pt Perfect bound Xerox Services West Lafayette, Indiana Haywood Printing Co. Inc. Lafayette, Indiana IGen4 Diamond Edition 6 copies