Letterforms &typography A PROCESS BOOK BY ANNIE LI
PROJECT 1 : Minimal letterforms
Project 1 | Minimal Letterforms OBJECTIVE: To
create a unified compositional whole of minimal letterforms while exploring the unique visual characteristics of a specific typeface. This project required us to closely examine letterforms by exploring their unique visual characteristics along with composition—including juxtaposition, contrast, form/counterform, symmetry, and balance. We started off by magnifying the letterforms to a fraction of their original form - zooming in until the letters were barely recognizable. The viewer should still be able to see stylisic clues that revealed which typeface we were exploring. During this process of focusing in on specific characters, we were able to study the positive and negative spaces within each letter. We were allowed to choose one of the six typefaces listed:
Centaur Garamond Bodoni
Memphis Helvetica Friz Quadrata
I decided to go with Helvetica, a timeless classic.
FINAL PRODUCT After many thumbnail sketches and drafts, this was my final product. I wanted to show movement while creating a continuous flow between the letterforms. I decided to go with a black background and white text to minimize white space and to emphasize negative space.
PROJECT 2: type hierarchy studies
Project 2 | Type Hierarchy Studies OBJECTIVE: To
explore compositional alternatives, to learn organizational and visual principles such as symmetry, rythm, contrast, grid structures, etc. We were provided with a set of event information and told to create three sets of text layouts with three different kinds of constraints. In Set 1A, we were given one typeface (Univers) with one weight. In Set 2A, we were given the same typeface but this time with two weights. In order to come up with the best way to show visual hierarchy, we made grid layouts for each set with tracing paper.
FINAL PRODUCT
Set 1A: Since we were constrained with using the same weight, I decided to create visual heirarchy by placing the title of the event at the highest point, following with the speakers, then the date and time on the left. I arranged the text in this split pattern in order to create continuity and flow.
Set 1B: With the option of using two weights, I decided to put emphasis on the title of the lectures, followed by the speakers, then location. I placed the date and time of the event above the event to show viewers the order of events. In order to have the title remain the main focus, I had it in bold.
Visible Language A lecture series exploring the relationship between form and content
Orientation and disorientation Ruedi Baur Nicholas Felton Richard Saul Wurman Thursday, December 3 6 pm 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
More than just a love of letters Tobias Frere-Jones Jonathan Hoefler Zuzana Licko Thursday, December 10 6 pm 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
Matter/anti-matter/does it matter? Marian Bantjes Andrew Blauvet Stefan Stagmeister Thursday, December 17 7 pm Design Musem UC Davis
Lectures are free and open to the public.
Set 2A: This time, we had the option of two sizes and two weights. I tried to make this layout more geometric with the triangles. I put the most emphasis on the title of the lectures and the speakers.
Visible Language A lecture series exploring the relationship between form and content
Orientation and disorientation Ruedi Baur Nicholas Felton Richard Saul Wurman
Thursday, December 3 6 pm 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
More than just a love of letters Tobias Frere-Jones Jonathan Hoefler Zuzana Licko
Thursday, December 10 6 pm 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
Matter/anti-matter/does it matter? Marian Bantjes Andrew Blauvet Stefan Stagmeister
Thursday, December 17 7 pm Design Musem UC Davis
Lectures are free and open to the public.
Set 2B: Two sizes, two weights, two styles. Similar to Set 1A, I tried to create visual hierarchy by splitting the information in half. Just as in Set 2A, I put the most emphasis on the lecture titles and speakers.
Visible Language A lecture series exploring the relationship between form and content
6 pm Thursday, December 3 Orientation and disorientation Ruedi Baur Nicholas Felton Richard Saul Wurman 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
6 pm Thursday, December 10 More than just a love of letters Tobias Frere-Jones Jonathan Hoefler Zuzana Licko 135 Walker Hall UC Davis
7 pm Thursday, December 17 Matter/anti-matter/does it matter? Marian Bantjes Andrew Blauvet Stefan Stagmeister Design Musem UC Davis
Lectures are free and open to the public.
Set 3A: Same rules as set 2B, two sizes, two weights, two styles. As you can see from my previous sets, I enjoyed arranging the text into triangular blocks. They reminded me of stepping stones, guiding the viewer’s eyes as they read about the lecture series.
Visible Language
A lecture series exploring the relationship between form and content 6 pm Thursday, December 3
Orientation and disorientation Ruedi Baur Nicholas Felton Richard Saul Wurman
135 Walker Hall UC Davis
6 pm Thursday, December 10
More than just a love of letters Tobias Frere-Jones Jonathan Hoefler Zuzana Licko
135 Walker Hall UC Davis
7 pm Thursday, December 17
Matter/anti-matter/does it matter? Marian Bantjes Andrew Blauvet Stefan Stagmeister
Design Musem UC Davis
Lectures are free and open to the public.
Set 3B: Any size, weight and style of Univers. I divided the lecture information into three parts - date and time, title and speakers, and location. Putting the date and time on the left allows the reader to skim through the information quickly to see if an event works with their schedule. Once again. the main emphasis (bold weight) is on the title and the speakers.
PROJECT 3: Book Design
Paul Rand
Design and the Play Instinct
1
Project 3 | Book Design OBJECTIVE: To
recreate Paul Rand’s Design and the Play Instinct book using only black, white, and one spot color. We started with thumbnail sketches as usual, and played around with grid layouts. Using InDesign, I started implementing my ideas through pixels and brought them to life. After printing the book, I hand binded the book using PVA glue, metal clamps, and wood.
The absence in art of a well-formulated and systematized body of literature makes the problem of teaching a perplexing one.
The subject is further complicated by the elusive and personal nature of art. Granted that a student’s ultimate success will depend largely on his natural talents, the problem still remains:
curiosity,
how best to arouse his
hold his attention,
and engage his creative
Two powerful instincts exist in all human beings which can be used in teaching, says Gilbert Highet:
faculties.
one is the love of
play.
“The best Renaissance teachers, instead of beating their pupils, spurred them on by a number of Through trial and error, I have found that the solution to this enigma rests, to a large extent, on two factors: the kind of problem chosen for study, and the way in which it is posed. I believe that if, in the statement of a problem, undue emphasis is placed on freedom and self-expression, the result is apt to be an indifferent student and a meaningless solution. Conversely, a problem with defined limits, with an implied or stated discipline (system of rules) that in turn is conducive to the instinct of play, will most likely yield an interested student and, very often, a meaningful and novel solution.
appeals to the play-principle. They made games out of the chore of learning difficult subjects— Montaigne’s father, for instance, started him in Greek by writing the letters and the easiest words on playing cards and inventing a game to play with them.”2
The Tangram The Tangram is an ingenious little Chinese toy in which a square is divided into this configuration. It consists of seven pieces, called tans: five triangles, one square, and one rhombus. The rules are quite simple: rearrange to make any kind of figure or pattern.
Here [above] is one possibility. Many design problems can be posed with this game in mind, the main principle to be learned being that of economy of means—making the most of the least. Further, the game helps to sharpen the powers of observation through the discovery of resemblances between geometric and natural forms. It helps the student to abstract: to see a triangle, for example, as a face, a tree, an eye, a nose, depending on the context in which the pieces are arranged. Such observation is essential in the study of visual symbols.
The Modular
In comparison to most so-called systems
The Modulor is a system based on a
of proportion, the Modulor is perhaps
mathematical key. Taking account of the human scale, it is a method of achieving
the least confining. The variations,
harmony and order in a given work.
as will be seen from this illustration, are practically inexhaustible (and this
In his book, The Modulor, Le Corbusier
example utilizes only a very limited
describes his invention as “a measuring
number of possibilities). This drawing is
tool [the proportions] based on the
one of a limitless number of so-called
human body [6-foot man] and on
Panel Exercises, played for pleasure
mathematics [the golden section]. A
or for some real application in order
man-with-arm-upraised provides, at the
to discover a most satisfactory or
determining points of his occupation
beautiful configuration. If, however,
of space—foot, solar plexus, head, tips
the system should present difficulties
of fingers of the upraised arm—three intervals which give rise to a series of golden sections, called the Fibonacci series.”9 [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.]
which happen to run counter to one’s Le Corbusier’s awareness of these potentialities is evident from the numerous references to the game and play in his book, such as “All this work on proportioning and measures is the outcome of a passion, disinterested and detached, an exercise, a game.” Further, he goes on to say, “for if you want to play modulor…”10
The Modulor is a discipline which offers endless variations and opportunities for play.
intuitive judgment, Le Corbusier himself provides the answer: “I still reserve the right at any time to doubt the solutions furnished by the Modulor, keeping intact my freedom which must depend solely on my feelings rather than on my reason.’’11
Picasso One cannot underestimate the importance of restraint and playfulness in almost any phase of Picasso’s work. Here, for example, one sees a restrained use of the brush and one flat color. The drawing of the child’s face, the ornament and the lettering are all one. Lettering is not used as a complement to the drawing, but as an integral part of the drawing. It serves as both a garland and a verbal image—a visual pun. Similarly, this ability to do much with little—to find a bull’s head in a bicycle seat and handle bars—is another aspect of Picasso’s wizardry, his humor, his childlike spontaneity, his skill as a punster and ability to improvise and invent with limited, often surprising means.
Mu Ch’i This monochrome, Persimmons, by Mu Ch’i, a thirteenth
The reader may find a parallel, at least in spirit,
It is a study in the metamorphosis
century Zen priest and painter, is a splendid example of a
between this painting and the preceding one
of a fruit, as well as of a painting.
painting in which the artist plays with contrasts (the male and
by Picasso. Both employ a single color, and
(The artist, incidentally, never
female principle in Chinese and Japanese painting):
exploit this limitation to achieve as much
used any color but black.)
variety as possible, and both undoubtedly were painted very rapidly, a condition often
rough and smooth,
conducive to utmost simplification and
empty and full,
improvisation.
one and many, line and mass, black and
white, tint and shade, up and down.
“to achieve as much variety as possible”
What emerges is a kind of game itself, revealing the ingenuity and playfulness of the artist, his ability to deal with problems in the simplest, most direct, and meaningful manner.