my typography
Journal
My Typography Journal
Designed by Dylan Stefanisko With help from the fonts ITC Century and Trade Gothic.
Intro This e-journal is a brief summary of what I learned, read about, and practiced in Art 338.03 Type II during the Winter Quarter of 2016 at California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo. I have learned a great deal in regards to typography, InDesign, time management, and myself. This e-journal will serve as a tool I can refer back to in times of dire inspirational need. It will also work as a record of the four projects I did for the class.
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Chapter st
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How to Typography
“Good typography is measured by how well it reinforces the meaning of the text, not by some abstract scale of merit.” —Matthew Butterick
The Basics 8
Fonts are not the design of type. Fonts are the computer system/program. A typeface is the design of the letter forms. Things to consider when choosing a typeface: • proportion and weight • length of text • the audience/reader • format (screen or print or both) • content (serious, humorous, lighthearted, etc.) A good workhorse typeface is robust, has personality, many variations, legible numerals, and a legit small caps version. Ideal point size varies based on the application: 14pt or larger for web or screen applications. 9–12pts for print.
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Real Small Caps Fake Small Caps
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The Details 10
Text Formatting 12pts in 1 pica: 6 picas in 1 inch. Therefore... 72 points in 1 inch. 1p6 = 1 pica + 6 pts • Kerning: n ot overboar d • Leading: 120%–145% of pt size • Line length: 8–13 words per line • +10–20pt tracking maximum • Do not go smaller than -10 tracking • Type in CAPS can handle more letter spacing Can italicize “dumb quotes” for prime marks if font is missing them as glyphs Fix rags when practical, (rags = ragged edges of paragraphs) want a “gentle back and forth”.
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Dashes/hyphens - Hyphen: used if word is too long for column length. – En-dash: used to indicate duration e.g. 1993–2016. — Em-dash: used to express a break in the flow of a sentence.
InDesign Hyphenation • hyphenate words with at least six letters • after first 3 letters • before last 3 letters • hyphen limit 2
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Class Notes
InDesign Tips
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Use paragraph styles to control leading, tabs, indents, space before and after, hyphenation and justification settings, and rules above and below. Use Character styles to control bold text, italic text, lead in sub-headers, and custom bullets or numbers.
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Exercise 1 Changing the point size made a much bigger difference in legibility than changing the leading. 9/13 and 9/14 both looked pretty nice and legible, and there wasn’t much discernible difference. Interestingly making the point size bigger and keeping the same leading made a much bigger difference. 9pt looked best at the column width and adhered to the 8-13 words per line “rule�. 8/13 had too much leading, and 10/13 was too cramped for the width of the column.
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Chapter
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Wise Words From Smart People
“There is no reason to accept mediocrity.” —Matthew Butterick
Practical Typography 16
Typography in 10 minutes Typography matters because it is a weapon to use in the everlasting battle of grabbing a readers attention and keeping it focused on your writing. Ultimately time is the most precious commodity and the attention a reader gives you is not unlimited. “Most readers are looking for reasons to stop reading.�
Why Typography Matters Body text largely determines the typographic quality of your work. He says to avoid system fonts as they are (in his opinion) lazy and uninteresting. He wants you to buy his fonts. Point size, line spacing, line length, and font choice are the most important typographic choices you can make.
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Crystal Goblet This is the idea that the best typography is invisible, so as not to interfere with the content. Butterick disagrees and claims that typography and content do not exist on separate planes and are reliant on one another. He says a better metaphor would be the helium in a balloon: the rubber balloon gives shape to the otherwise invisible helium.
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Butterfly ballot Very bad because of confusing layout. Inconsistent alignment no logical hierarchy. His new example is better because it is consistent, the important information is presented first, and the arrows are easy to follow.
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Resume The resume with better typography catches the eye and is more inviting to read. “Trixie’s” resume has more white space, and presents the important information in a way that is easier to take in at a glance, and has a logical hierarchy. It shouldn’t be two pages though.
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Type composition It involves all the tiny typographic quirks that add up to make a large, high quality typographic picture. Learning the right type habits and applying them from the start of a project saves time and stress. A lot of the content was review for me, but the different white space characters, non-breaking spaces, and the paragraph/section marks were new and interesting to me. It always takes me a while to use keyboard shortcuts with regularity, as they tend to leave my mind rather quickly. For the time being I’ll just stick with using glyphs.
Text Formatting Text formatting involves making a lot of your own decisions on what qualifies as good typography. For the most part, limit the amount of typefaces used to 2, as it’s a rare project that can benefit from using 3 or more. It’s possible to use two serif or two sans serif fonts, as long as they are visually different with a high amount of contrast between the two fonts. They should also have a consistent use throughout the project.
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Page Layout Centered text is overused and boring. Asymmetry adds a dynamic and intriguing element to design. I hate tables and refuse to rely on them for anything except presenting data in a logical format. They are a web design sin as they simple do not work with mobile devices and there are much better solutions. Justification is a useful option for some applications, but is not necessary. Rules and borders should be between .5-1pt. Butterick recommends 1.5—2 inches of margins for ideal line length throughout the page for printed work.
“A text is a sequence of characters. Every character is a tool. Your goal: to always use the right tool for the job.”
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Typotheque 22
My Design Philosophy Today’s type designers benefit from the combined knowledge of 200+ years of practice. The amount of variations in typefaces has exploded in some cases, to where some have hundreds of different weights and styles.
A View of Latin Typography While Gutenberg invented the incredibly innovative printing press in Europe, movable type had already been alive and well in the eastern world for centuries. Contemporary typographic practices are unabashedly Euro-centric, hence the term “Italic”, which has its origins in Italy.
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“Family Planning” Futura was based on roman-style characteristics. Clarendon was the first bold type face. Typefaces used to have different families for each weight. Romulas roman is a typeface with serif and sans serif variations, which share the same constructive principles.
An Idea of a typeface The author theorizes about what makes a typeface mnemonic and classic. They draw inspiration from conceptual art and philosophy, and ultimately come to the incredibly dense conclusion that “Neutrality can be regarded as an auxiliary construction that lets us describe things and events that appear free of connotations to a specific social and cultural group at a specific point in time.”
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Eric Gill got it wrong Gill Sans is the ubiquitous typeface of England. The author argues a typeface done by Gills mentor is a better choice. Some examples given are its indistinguishable upper case and lowercase I’s and 1’s, sharp slants of the y’s and t’s. It is as characteristic of post-war England as the Union Jack and BBC.
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Typographica Mea Culpa While the idea of paying hundreds of dollars for a limited use license of a font might seem absurd to students and amateur graphic designers, it’s the right (and legal) thing to do. Literally years of work goes into perfecting a high quality typeface, and since the world of graphic design is an “honorable” profession, extending respect by reading and following the license of the fonts you use is a good practice to get in the habit of doing.
Lava — Voice of a Magazine The author talks about the monumental task of designing a typeface for a magazine that would span multiple mediums and languages. The typeface would also be the only constant design element of the magazine.
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Beauty and Ugliness The author sought to find the relationship and interchangeable elements of stereotypical “beautiful” and “ugly” typefaces. His example of beauty is the renowned “Bodoni” typeface, and as Bodoni himself described, it’s defining qualities are “regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm”, as are those of other beautiful typefaces. The author found that the ugly was much more interesting, as it certainly posses personality. He picked “Italian”, which has provoked guttural reactions from typographers for over a hundred years. His conclusion? Combined they form a surprisingly pleasant and downright neutral typeface.
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Bodoni, by Bodoni
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Chapter
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How to Take Criticism
“When people came to his desk, everything about his expression and body language said ‘tell me more,’ as if the critic was spoon-feeding him ice cream rather than telling him everything that was wrong with his work.” —Juliette Cezzar
Project 1
Version 1 Jan. 13 th 30
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Version 2 Jan. 13 th 31
Critique 1.13.16 The authors name and info is awkward. Idea: put authors name in bold or in a different place, a slightly bigger font, all caps, or a different color. Quotation marks have too much emphasis. Remove color, make smaller. Unimportant elements have less focus; e.g. rules OF type Reverse out color for header. Tip: experiment. Go crazy as a student, at least somewhat. Awkward negative space—make tighter. Rethink subtitle. Make body font smaller. Move bibliography info underneath quote.
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Final version Jan. 15 th 33
Project 2
Rough draft Jan. 20 th 34
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Rough draft 2 Jan. 20 th 35
Version 1 Jan. 22nd 36
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Version 2 Jan. 22nd 37
Version 3 Jan. 22nd 38
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Critique 1.22.16 Make less boring! Lack of clear focus on concept—need to determine how to present and what to say. What is purpose of the title? Probably rewrite it to “The Hero”. Illustration should draw you in. Change background color. Heavy font on black background—add tracking. Drop cap for title? One page has illustration, other has big text/letter shapes. Watch out for: line length/margins, too big of body text. Reverse out maze on a color. Color change between speakers is too much— don’t need so much for differentiation. Maybe try gray/black + an accent color.
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Version 4 Jan. 22nd 41
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Version 5 Jan. 22nd 43
Version 6 Jan. 24th 44
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Version 7 Jan. 24th 45
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Version 8 Jan. 24th 47
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Version 9 Jan. 24th 49
Version 10 Jan. 27th 50
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Critique Use headers, pull quotes to break up large amounts of text. Balance two pages. Emotion of colors = too cold. Reading order: make it start on the left. Change sub-header typeface, doesn’t work with header, too much contrast. Make last illustration more consistent with others, maybe remove transparency. Add Campbell and Moyer. Try a different paper texture. Practice presenting: sell the piece, communicate it—don’t show weakness. Don’t show you’re not proud of it. Maybe use a footnote.
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Final Version Jan. 29th 53
Project 3
Initial notes
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Clear distinction between rules and examples. Don’t cram text—leave white space, margins, for breathing room. Print on color paper for cover. Indents for examples Use table styles and a primary text frame. Use page breaks logically. Paragraph breaks—first line, indent Space after—half of leading, generally.
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Title page, version 1, Feb. 1st 55
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Inside example, Feb. 2nd 57
Cover version 1, Feb. 5th 58
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Critique 2.5.16 Watch margins. Need thicker paper. Fix page numbers, Fix how elements line up in relation to another e.g. black line on intro and part 2. Change tables possibly. Make line length slightly smaller, maybe only in introduction. Decide whether to distinct right from wrong. Pamphlet stitch maybe? Only use required elements on cover and nothing more Paper folds with grain, extra scoring along spine to get it flat Blank pages, natural break in text, pacing BIG margins: quickest way to make text more inviting Make black bar width of text box Disjointed examples; smaller subtle shifts are better Paginate with content, prefaces should use roman numerals. Page 1 starts on right hand side. Tables: too many outlines, breathing room in cell, even more. Don’t want tables to be distracting. Mindful of using negative space to differentiate separate topics/ chunks 59
Team cover idea 1, Feb. 9th 60
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Team cover idea 2, Feb. 9 th 61
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Team cover idea 3, Feb. 11th 63
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Close to final team cover idea 4, Feb. 11th 65
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Example of final team interior pages, Feb. 11th 67
Project 4
Ideas for content
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Type in the supermarket—appetizing, helps sell product, successful examples Beer Buying products based off design ALONE Examples of bad letter spacing i.e. G rapefruit Cool examples of typography Old hand lettered examples in movies Typography in other languages Where to get fonts/understanding fonts Examples of good typography from bad people Olympics The classes favorite typefaces
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Ideas for layout Sections Photo essays Social media Technical stuff 1 or 2 featured articles. Interviews Investigative piece Photo article Centerfold Typefaces for screen: Verdana, Georgia; compare to those High x-height is good for screen But not too high for classic fonts
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Rough draft 1, Feb. 23rd 71
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Rough draft 2, Feb. 26th 73
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Rough draft 3, Feb. 26th 75
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Layout 1, Feb. 26th 77
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Layout 2, Feb. 26th 79
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Layout 3, Feb. 26th 81
Ad mock up 1, Feb. 28th 82
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Ad mock up 2, Feb. 28th 83
Single page example 2, Feb. 29th 84
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Single page example 2, Mar. 1st 85
Cover page 1, Feb. 29th 86
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Cover page 2, Mar. 5th 87
Cover page 3, Mar. 2nd 88
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Name type studies, Mar. 2nd 89
Cover draft, Mar. 4th 90
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Suggestions Cover: look at CA, Print, Eye for inspiration. Fix Hische’s book examples or remove them. Text in tattoos needs work. Background color for some text examples. Olympics: less fragmented. Add real background gradient for & article. Too much leading for sub-header. En-dash in date range, not em dash.
Critique Too much leading in go-to fonts. Harir—pop off page, fix leading. Remove 2 page quiz; lump together. Body text too varied and different—make more consistent. Remove background color on Olympics. Tone down free fonts; more like & title treatment. Make table of contents more magazine like.
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Ad mock up final, Mar. 9th 92
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Cover page final Mar. 11th 93