338.1 Type Journal by Amanda Pe by Amanda Pe

Typography II Journal

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Introduction This journal was made for Typography II, taught by Charmaine Martinez during Winter 2016. The purpose of this journal was to record notes and main points that I have learned in class. This journal can be a reference in the future for just in case I need some typography reminders. This journal also includes some of the progress from my projects in this class. This class reinforced the importance of typography rules and has helped me have a better eye for good typography.

Week 1 Typography Review

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January 17, 2016 Reading: Butterick’s Practical Typography: Typography in Ten Minutes, Summary of Key Rules, and Forward • I have had to read Butterick’s Practical Typography, especially these pages, several times for other classes, so this reading assignment just a review of basic typography rules.

Lecture: Typographic Refinement—The Details • I felt that this lecture is a review of Type 1, so I primarily took notes of points that I would often forget. • 1in = 6 Picas = 72 points • Body text should be larger on screen, typically over 14 points. • Your workhorse typeface should have italics and very legible numerals. • Kern at display sizes! Don’t go overboard though. Just change the obvious. • Leading: 120–145% of the type’s size. • Line length: 8–13 words per line.

Week 1

• Do not go below -10 tracking. All caps needs more tracking. • Widow: One word at the bottom of a paragraph. • Orphan: one word from the previous paragraph on to a new page.

Legibility Exercise • Varying the typeface affects the legibility because sans serifs tend to be easier to read due to the lack of decorative serifs. Univers also has a larger x-height than Garamond so that also made Univers easier to read. • Making the leading tighter made the text more frustrating to read since everything was so close together and it also made it look denser. Making the leading looser made it easier to lose your place while reading since there were such large gaps in between the lines. • The sizes 9 and 10 were the best for the given column width while the size 8 was too small. • For Garamond, the best point size and leading combinations were 9/13, 9/12, and 10/13. These were the best combinations because 9/14, 9/15/ 8/13 made the leading too far apart for body text.

Week 1

â&#x20AC;˘ For Univers, the best point size and leading combinations were 8/13, 9/13, and 9/14 because since the x-height is taller, it would look bigger and need more leading. 9/12, 10/13 provided too less leading while 9/15 provided too much leading. â&#x20AC;˘ The worst combination out of out of all of the combinations is the Garamond with 8/13 point size and leading. I think that this is the worst combination because serif typefaces are more difficult to read and it has a smaller x-height, so it is difficult to read it at a small size. The small point size and the large amount of leading makes it easier to get lost and lose their place in the text.

Week 1

Week 2 Typesetting Basics

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January 12, 2016 Reading: Butterick’s Practical Typography—Why Typography Matters • I really liked this reading because it gives typography a real-life application. Sometimes when we’re a little burnt out from all of the projects that we do, it is a reminder that typography is important. • The butterfly ballot example reminded me of the several articles that I have read about redesigns of the “Miss Universe” announcement cards. Basically, the announcement cards were designed poorly, which caused Steve Harvey to get Miss Universe and the first runner-up mixed up. The author then showed us a proposed redesign of the announcement cards with clear text hierarchy and no confusing elements. • Another thing about this section that I found interesting was his rebuttal towards the Crystal Goblet metaphor. He disagreed that good typography should not be considered “invisible” because “it implies something that is itself devoid of meaning.” However, that is not how I interpreted the invisible metaphor. I interpreted it more as, good typography as to blend in very easily and good typography often goes unnoticed. Bad typography is very obvious while good typography is taken for granted. Week 2

January 14, 2016 Critique: Typography Quotes Assignment • The minor issues included leading slightly too tighter or too loose, typos in the quotes, lack of hierarchy/separation of info in the attribution, and minor spacing issues. • The bigger issues included legibility problems, headline/ title lacking weight, name of quoted person lacks emphasis, hierarchy of text is confusing, arrangement of text is confusing and leads to awkward spaces, and boring layouts. • The main concern for mines was that the layout provided awkward spacing and white space, which I will soon fix. Another thing was that the blue was not used consistently. • Some of the most common issues in the class were confusing layout and legibility problems. I think that this critique was really helpful and I am glad that we have a chance to fix our projects and turn them in again. However in the end I felt that I made my layout boring and compromised the quality that made originally made my project stand out. Maybe I just didn’t come up with a better solution for my awkward white space problems.

Week 2

WORDS OF ADVICE FOR TYPOGRAPHY

“CLASSIFYING TYPE helps a designer grasp the subtle differences among styles, organizing them in a general way and further helping to select an appropriate typeface for a particular project; sometimes, the historical or cultural context of a particular style will add relevant communication to a typographic design.”

“COMBINING TYPEFACES IS LIKE MAKING A SALAD.

—Timothy Samara, Design Elements A Graphic Style Manual, 2014, Page 138

Start with a small number of elements representing different colors, tastes, and textures. Strive for contrast rather than harmony, looking for emphatic differences rather than mushy transitions.” —Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type, 2010, Page 54

“SIMPLICITY IS GOOD, BUT SO IS PLURALITY. Typography’s principle function (not its only function) is communication, and greatest threat to communication is not difference, but sameness.”

“… FUNCTIONALITY LIES AT THE HEART OF LETTERING AND TYPOGRAPHY.

—Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 2005, Page 89

Legibility is what makes letterforms recognizable and gives an alphabet letter the ability and power to speak through its shape.” —Bruce Willen, Lettering and Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces, 2009, Page 1

“KEEP IT SIMPLE. Fewer colors with rich relationships between them will help clarify hierarchy as well as introduce an overall visual harmony.” —Timothy Samara, Typography Workbook, 2004, Page 105

Initial draft Week 2

WORDS OF ADVICE FOR

TYPOGRAPHY “KEEP IT SIMPLE. Fewer colors with rich relationships between them will help clarify hierarchy as well as introduce an overall visual harmony.” —Timothy Samara, Typography Workbook, 2004, Page 105

“SIMPLICITY IS GOOD, BUT SO IS PLURALITY. Typography’s principle function (not its only function) is communication, and greatest threat to communication is not difference, but sameness.” —Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style,

“COMBINING TYPEFACES IS LIKE MAKING A SALAD.

2005, Page 89

“CLASSIFYING TYPE HELPS A DESIGNER GRASP THE SUBTLE DIFFERENCES AMONG STYLES…

“… FUNCTIONALITY LIES AT THE HEART OF LETTERING AND TYPOGRAPHY. Legibility is what makes letterforms recognizable and gives an alphabet letter the ability and power to speak through its shape.” —Bruce Willen, Lettering and Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces, 2009, Page 1

First Critique/Before Redo Week 2

[It organizes] them in a general way and further helping to select an appropriate typeface for a particular project; sometimes, the historical or cultural context of a particular style will add relevant communication to a typographic design.” —Timothy Samara, Design Elements A Graphic Style Manual, 2014, Page 138

WORDS OF ADVICE FOR

“COMBINING TYPEFACES IS LIKE MAKING A SALAD. Start with a small number of elements representing different colors, tastes, and textures. Strive for contrast rather than harmony, looking for emphatic differences rather than mushy transitions.”

—Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type, 2010, Page 54

“CLASSIFYING TYPE HELPS A DESIGNER GRASP THE SUBTLE DIFFERENCES AMONG STYLES… [It organizes] them in a general way and further helping to select an appropriate typeface for a particular project; sometimes, the historical or cultural context of a particular style will add relevant communication to a typographic design.” —Timothy Samara, Design Elements A Graphic Style Manual, 2014, Page 138

Final/Redo Week 2

Week 3 Using Type to Create a Voice

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January 19, 2016 Reading: Butterick’s Practical Typography—Type Composition • This reading included a lot of nit-picky rules of typography that also goes along with grammar. There was an abundance of rules, so I would probably have to refer back to this article in the future. • Many of the sections were review (Ex: Curly quotes vs smart quotes or the different types of dashes), however here are some of the things that I did learn: • Ampersands are perfectly fine in proper nouns. However in proper documents, they should be used sparingly. • Be mindful of single curly quotes and straight single quotes. Also be mindful of the direction that the single curly quotes are facing. • “The paragraph mark (¶) is used when citing documents with sequentially numbered paragraphs. The section mark (§) is used when citing documents with numbered or lettered sections.” • Em dashes shouldn’t start a next line of text, bring it back to the previous line. • Always use the actual trademark and copyright symbols.

Week 3

January 21, 2016 Reading: Butterick’s Practical Typography— Text Formatting • Yet again, I felt like this reading was a lot of review, but here are some points that I learned: • Don’t underline for printed documents. • Many system fonts are optimized for the screen, but not for print. • It is better not to use superscripts for ordinals. • Optimal point size for print is 10–12pt while in web is it 15–25px. • Web addresses are really ugly so I should just use an address shortening service instead.

Lecture: Choosing Typefaces, Installing Fonts and Managing Fonts • Things to consider while picking a font: the format/ medium, distance while read, mood or tone of the piece, etc. • Technical factors to consider about fonts: • Does the font have a full character set, including all punctuation and glyphs necessary for the job? Week 3

• OpenType = able to use across both platforms • When you buy a font, you purchase a license. Read the license! Can you use it for commercial work? How much does this cost? Can I use it online, or just in print? What about apps and ebooks? • Some places to buy fonts • Google Fonts: Free fonts for print and web. Some good, some not so good. • Lost Type Co-op: Pay what you want type foundry. • League of Moveable Type: Free, open-source, @ font face ready fonts (League Gothic) • Font Squirrel • Font Spring • House Industries: very expensive • My Fonts: wide range, newsletter on font trends and design • Font.com: extensive collection, kind of expensive, has a nice blog • Go find a PC font manager. Organize your fonts and disable fonts that you don’t use. • In general, you want to have the minimum number of fonts installed Week 3

Week 4 Styles + Structures

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January 26, 2016 Reading: Butterick’s Practical Typography—Page Layout • More typography review! Some points that I learned: • Columns are an easy way to get a readable line length. • He said not to use decorated line rules or borders, but I disagree. I think they should be used sparingly or for specific stylistic reasons. • Decide on what your body text looks like first. • Relate new elements with existing elements. • Don’t use asterisks as bullet points.

Critique for the Dialogue Project: • Smart quotes & italicized book titles • It is difficult to make your reader not read left to right without something actually pointing them into a different direction (arrows). • Context and concept is key. A really clear and strong concept tremendously helps your design. • Be careful of dainty typefaces with small x-heights. • You don’t need TOO much stylistic differences to distinguish between dialogue, it can be distracting. Week 4

January 28, 2016 Reading: “Family planning, or how type families work” by Peter Bil’ak • This reading went through the history of typeface design and how typefaces eventually evolved into typeface families. He went through case studies of different typefaces and how they got their multiple weights. • It was a really long article, but it is good to learn and know some type history.

Lecture: Typesetting in InDesign—Tools and Techniques • Paragraph and character styles are extremely important! • Space after paragraphs: usually half of the leading • Paragraph shading: basically highlighting • Span column, handy if you are switching number of columns • Check “apply style to selection” • Do not mess with leading in character styles • Tables are a great tool for organizing type, it is possible to have invisible tables

Week 4

â&#x20AC;˘ Cell styles: styling individual cells â&#x20AC;˘ Look back at the word doc for styles that have been undone

Week 4

First Critique/Before Redo

After Redo Week 4

Week 5 Grid Basics

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February 2, 2016 Readings: Grid, Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton; Using Layout Grids Effectively, Designers Insights; “Typographica Mea Culpa, Unethical Downloading” by Steven Heller • The reading by Steven Heller about downloading font illegally was interesting. I do feel a little guilty about obtaining some fonts illegally but I am a poor college student who cannot actually afford these type families. I’ll probably start buying the typefaces once I actually have an income. • Grids are extremely functional and helps a lot while organizing your layout. • Always use a grid!

Week 5

February 4, 2016 Reading: “My Type Design Philosophy” by Martin Majoor • Majoor reviews the history of type design and some case studies of the design of several popular typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk, Futura, and Univers. He then went on to describe his experience designing his typefaces Scala, Scala Sans, and Telefont. • Typefaces designs were based on classical designs from the typesetting era. Futura was one of the first typefaces that were made from scratch. • He believes that typefaces that should be paired if they are based from similar origins.

EOS critique • Symbols can be distracting. • Lots of spacing is good! • Witty cover makes the reader want to pick up the booklet more. • Combining our booklets into one was kind of messy and all over the place, but we eventually got an idea of what we wanted to do.

Week 5

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THE ✰

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Elements OF Style ✰

Sections 3 and 4

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Solo version Week 5

Week 6 Collaboration + Compromise

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February 9, 2016 Reading: “A View of Latin Typography in Relationship to the World” by Peter Bil’ak • Typography has a Euro-centric bias‑–Typography history mainly refers to the Latin alphabet and ignores Eastern alphabets. • The “Roman” weight name is inappropriate for typefaces that isn’t from Western Europe. “Italics” refers to cursive typefaces inspired by the handwriting of Italian humanists. • However currently more designers are creating typefaces for non-Latin alphabets.

Week 6

February 11, 2016 Critique: Team EOS Booklets • Overall all of the booklets in the class came out really nicely. • The cover that I was the most jealous of were the ones with a small illustration referencing popular novels using punctuation marks. It was really clever and it reminded me that designs are so much better when they have context behind it. • A reflection for my team: • It was kind of difficult organizing where to start designing the team booklet. • Establish your levels of hierarchy beforehand! • I learned how to import character and paragraph styles. • You can drag the pages around in the text tool by holding down the Alt button!

Week 6

The

Elements of Style

Final Team Version Week 6

Week 7 Planning a Zine

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February 18, 2016 Reading: “Lava — Voice of a Magazine” by Peter Bil’ak; The First Thing I Ever Designed: Elena Schenker and “Gratuitous Type” Magazine • Bil’ak’s article is about the development of the typeface “Lava” which he made for a magazine called Works that Works. Lava is unique because it is optimized for both screen and print. • Schenker’s article is about how designing her own magazine has helped her practice with editorial design and explore her creativity. Magazines are a great way to showcase your design and type skills. She said that publishing her own magazine has even helped her get a full time position

Week 7

February 19, 2016 Artist Talk: Tad Carpenter • I was super excited for Tad Carpenter’s talk since his work has a playful quality and he is a pretty well-known designer. • The artist talk was awesome! Ten out of ten, would go again. He is a very energetic speaker and obviously super passionate about design. It also didn’t hurt that he had an awesome sense of humor. • Sadly I was unable to attend his workshop, however his talk along was super inspiring! • His gallery was also really great. I wonder what it would be like to have your own large body of work displayed in a gallery. #goals

Week 7

Week 8 Using Grids to Organize Content

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February 23, 2016 Reading: “Eric Gill got it wrong; a re-evaluation of Gill Sans” by Ben Archer • The article describes the history of Gil Sans, an English classic, and includes an analyzation of its form. Although it was once claimed that the typeface was “fool proof,” Archer rebuttals that claim and pointing out its flaws. It is was also compared with Johnston to showcase the subtle details of their form differences. • Personally I don’t think much of Gill Sans probably because it is currently not as widely used as it once was before.

Week 8

February 25, 2016 Reading: “Beauty and Ugliness in Type design” by Peter Bil’ak • In this article, Bil’ak wanted to show that beautiful and ugly typefaces can look closely related. He shows that by comparing Bodoni and Boat, which are both high contrast stroke weight typefaces with hairlines. He and another type designer then created a neutral typeface called Karloff. • I thought it was interesting that Boat looked ugly because the position of the thick and thin stokes were switched with where Bodoni had theirs.

Week 8

Week 9 The Grid in Use

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March 1, 2016 Reading: “An Idea of a typeface” by Kai Bernau; A Typeface Designed to Revive the Endangered Cherokee Language • Bernau’s article describes his senior project, which was to create a completely neutral typeface called, Neutral. Initially he wanted a typeface without any previous connotations and delivers the message of the text without distractions. Bernau constantly had to go back to question, “what is neutrality?” and redraw his letters to fit his new definition of neutrality. • Personally, I thought that final font family looked like a typical sans serif typeface and it was hard to believe that he spent so much time on such an average looking typeface. But I suppose he wanted it to look average with no distractions. This article also shows all of the work that type designers go through, it is probably one of the most underrated jobs out there. • The article about designing a typeface for the Cherokee language was probably one of the more interesting articles of the quarter. It starts off with the backstory about how two Cherokee representatives went to a design conference to ask someone to design a new typeface for the language since the existing ones were very poor and the Cherokee tribe was the largest tribe in the United States. Week 9

In order to help preserve their language and culture, Mark Jamra designed a typeface for them. • I really enjoyed this article because I really like learning about other languages and cultures. I am glad that the Cherokee’s language is able to be preserved through type and that the design community was able to help.

Lecture: Designing for the Screen • Pick typefaces with large x-height, lots of open space, even stroke weight. • Beware of x-height extremes: stumpy ascenders and descenders • Differentiation between different characters (Ex: in Gill Sans 1 I l all looks the same) • Pick typefaces with all of the necessary characters • Look for typeface alternatives with similar traits of your favorite typefaces • Pairing typefaces: • Avoid pairing typefaces that look too similar. • Pair display and text faces • Look for harmony—inherent visual relationships in their structure Week 9

Week 9

Week 10 Refinements & Details

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March 8, 2016 Precritique: Zine • Magazine covers to look at: Print, Communication Arts • The cover should have the section number, season, or some sort of date. • Strong image or strong type treatment. • Letter from the editor, include name of the editor. • Move the author of the article to the top of the article, underneath the title name. • Citations needs to be captioned or numbered. • White book covers need some more of outline or drop shadow. • References can be super tiny. • Footer doesn’t need to be on EVERY page. • Colophon on the back cover. • SIZE contrast is extremely important. Along with DRAMATIC entrances for new articles. • Remember to italicize book titles!

Week 10

March 10, 2016 Critique: Zine • Presenting your project can be just as important as your project yourself. If you don’t sound confident or excited for your project, your audience may get disinterested. • Reminder: Context and references always helps your design seem more interesting. • Another reminder: Check the DPI of your scanner! (I didn’t check it before I scanned in my handlettering and while I was trying to scale my handlettered titles, it turned out pixelated). • Personally, I underestimated the scope of this project. It ended up being much larger than I anticipated and it made me wish that I spent more time on it refining the details of the Zine and conceptualizing it.

Week 10

Draft Week 10

Final Version Week 10

Week 10

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