Visual Thinking

Visual Thinking Michael Harrison 1303858 BA Hons. Graphic Design Level 4

‘Visual Thinking’ focuses on extending your visual awareness, individual creative language and understanding of contemporary practice while examining the fertile and complex semiotic and aesthetic nature of word, image and object

typography Line breaks: typÂŚog|raphy NOUN 1. The style and appearance of printed matter.

1.1. The art or procedure of arranging type or processing data and printing from it.

top bearing line cap line cap height

descender line bottom bearing line

Typography Win Ascent

ascender

descender

Win Descent

ascender line mean line x-height base line

Outline Syllabus An indicative guide to the content covered in this unit • Text and image/object • Ideas generation • Developing criticality • Time based media • The many uses of type and letterforms • Materiality.

• The manipulation of the formal qualities of type – words as images • What it is and what it says.

• Official and unofficial language• Space • Drawing • Casting objects • Painting • Multiples • Documents- books, zines, leaflets, posters, altered books, manifestos • Study visits • The hand-made and the manufactured.

• Grids and other compositional structures • Making bespoke hand drawn and digital letterforms • Typologies • Printmaking • Social contexts of Art and Design • Audience & Interpretation • Identity and Visual culture (Race/Gender/Class) • Photography.

Method of Delivery: Studio based workshops | demonstrations | group critiques | lectures | seminars | study visits | individual | group tutorials

Contents Distinctive Characters Page 5 A6 Postcard Page 22 Vernacular Letterforms: Mapping the landscape Page 29 The Power of Persuasion: Propaganda Page 48 Oooh, aah, mmmm Page 49 Transmedia Page 50 Letterpress: Introduction to Letterpress Page 52 Letters in the Landscape Page 53 For The Love of Graphics Page 55 Evaluation Page 56 Key Texts Page 57 Typographic Glossary Page 58

Task One Distinctive Characters Michael Harrison Luka Nikcevic

Working in groups of two choose an initial letter from the following set and based on the terminology and glossaries contained within the brief create a word that is related to the unit - you can produce it in caps or lowercase. After careful planning and research you are required to design and make a three dimensional initial character that communicates the meaning of the word.

The model can be made of found objects but must ďŹ nally be wallmounted.

O

150mm

Word Ideas Oak Oar Oasis Oatmeal Obedience Obelisk Obese Obey Object Obligate Oblige Oblique Obliterated Oblivion Obscure Observe Obsess Obsidian Obsticale Obtain Occlusion Octavo Ocult

Occuptation Ocean Ocelot Octagon Octave October Odd Odour Off Offend OfďŹ cial OilO kay Old Olympic Open Opium Opposite Oral Orange Order Octavo Orgasm

To start off this project we came up with a list of words all starting with the letter ‘O’. We shortlisted 8 words and drew up some initial ideas for anything related to the letter ‘O’ to get a view on which words worked and which did not.

After shortlisting a few designs we moved on to the designing these initial ideas to get a perspective of how the final outcome would look.

Shortlisted words: • • • • •

Ocean Obese Obscene Old Obelisk

• Oak • Orange • Oil

Fonts

O O O O Myriad Pro

Lucida Blackletter

Didot

DIN 1451 Engschrift LT

O O

Gill Sans Shadowed

Gotham

O

O O O

Century Schoolbook

Fedra Mono Book

Futura

Sabon LT Std

O

O

Gotham Condensed Bold

Rockwell Std Bold

Oak

A benefit to the word Oak is that is very easy to identify and put the meaning across. A few ways we could go about creating the outcome would be to laser cut the letter ‘O’ out of Oak wood or to make the letter out of cardboard and cover it in greenery and place a model oak tree on top

Obelisk

The word Obelisk is not so easy to identify with because most won’t recognise the shape. An outcome we could produce could be a letter made out of card, with either an obelisk cut out of the centre, or placed in the bowl of the letter

Octagon

An Octagon is also a very simple yet effective shape to create; although it is steering away from the shape of the letter ‘O’. Two outcomes could be either an Octagon like the one above created out of cardboard, or a letter ‘O’ with an octagon shaped bowl also created using cardboard

Ocean

Although Ocean is one of the better looking it’s not viable in terms of practicality.

To create the image above would take a lot of time and effort, which would produce an outcome not as strong as some of the other shortlisted words, such as Oak.

Oil

Oil is personally my favourite outcome idea but it isn’t practical to produce as a final outcome in the time frame and wouldn’t look as good as the vector produced. A possible final outcome could be the letter ‘O’ with a drip as the bowl, but that doesn’t get across the representation of oil

Orange

Orange would be a very simple yet effective outcome to produce.

Out of the initial designs created orange is seeming like the best to follow up due to it’s practicality and range of outcomes, such as, using the peel to create the letter, or to simply carve out the centre

Photoshoot Due to it’s practicality and the range of outcomes that come with it we decided to go with the word Orange to represent the letter ‘O’.

We produced two different outcomes; the first was to cut a segment of the orange and cut out the centre to create a bowl. The second was a hole cut through the whole orange. Out of the two outcomes we went with the segFor the photoment, purely beshoot we used a cause it was Canon D 500 with cleaner and a 15mm - 18mm easier to recoglens and transnise as an ferred the orange; the bowl images over into in the whole Photoshop for orange was too editing small for it to effectively identify as the letter ‘O’. We also decided to document all of the utensils we used to create the final outcome

These are the ďŹ nal images chosen from the photoshoot after editing.

There are a multitude of compositions to chose from for the next project; giving us a wide range of images for our postcard

Task Two Postcard Produce an A6 postcard with the image on one side and a brief description of word on the other.

The next task we were set was to use our 3D letterform to create an A6 postcard. Firstly we had to pick one picture out of our chosen images and then to see how our letterform related to typography and design. After endless searching we couldn’t find anything typography and design based to do with orange, apart from the fact that it was a colour, so we started to look at the shape of the letterform itself. We compared it to numerous fonts to see which it best represented and we concluded that it related the most to the font Gotham. After researching about the font we came across how the font was first commissioned and what the brief given to the designer contained.

We then took that excerpt of information and played with the placement until we were happy with the final outcome

Lisa Rienermann Lisea Rienermann is a German typographer who experiments with many different text forms. She uses anything from food, to cut outs, to the sky and creates a whole alphabet using these processes.

Andrew Byrom Andrew Byrom, a professor at California State University, is a typographic conceptualist - a sculptor by any other name - who creates experimental typefaces out of every day object and has even turned them into objects like furniture, bathroom ďŹ xtures and kites.

Size - 148mm x 105mm Margins - 12.7mm Bleed - 3mm Slug - 18mm

The Gotham typeface was initially commissioned by GQ magazine, whose editors wanted to display a sans-serif with a "geometric structure" that would look "masculine, new, and fresh" for their magazine. GQ agreed that they needed something "that was going to be very fresh and very established to have a sort of credible voice to it," - Jonathan Hoefler

The Goth

missioned

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a "geome

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magazine

somethin

fresh and

of credibl

- Jonatha

ham typeface was initially com-

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ted to display a sans-serif with

etric structure" that would look

ne, new, and fresh" for their

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The font Gotham is

ng "that was going to be very

a geometric

d very established to have a sort

sans-serif digital

le voice to it,"

an Hoefler

typeface designed

by Tobias Fere-Jones in 2000.

Gotham’s letterforms are inspired by a form of architectural signage that is extremely popular throughout New York

Task Three Vernacular Letterforms Michael Harrison Luka Nikcevic Nevil Fernandes

This unit begins with a visit to Poole where you will identify, collect and photograph, examples of vernacular letterforms in the town. Your images could be literal interpretations of details of road signs, hand painted signs, neon signs, fragments of words, individual characters, manhole covers, gravestones or shop-front signs. Documenting these typographic havens is crucial to rebuff the constant threat from planners and councils that choose to subvert Technical local history specifications: and ignore the Trimmed size: rich traditions 300 x 300 mm of vernacular Four Colour heritage.

Pix to be saved Alternatively, as 300dpi CMYK you could Tiffs. choose to Binding: French record a Fold slightly more challenging abstract collection of ‘hidden signs’ drawn from architectural forms, found objects, and unintentional typographic structures.

Size - 190mm x 190mm Margins - 12.7mm Bleed - 3mm

Photos by Michael

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Photos by Luka

Photos by Nevil

Book Binding Layout

Final Images

Fold

Printed Pages

Back Cover

B C

Spine

A

Gluing

Front Cover

Binding Binding with the Lumbeck Press: With this binder you can easily bind loose sheets to make a book. The maximum size of a book can be 34cm long and 5cm thick.

Preparation: Take your printed pages and accurately fold them in half by lining up the crop marks so that they align. Make sure you use the bone folder to get sharp creases. Then Organise them in the correct order. The spare paper on the left hand side then gets guillotined.

Binding: The working method in three steps

1.

Place the binder upside down on a at surface and open it

as far as required. Make sure all 4 swivels are turned down to hold the jaws straight. Make a square block of the loose sheets and sink them with the back down between the jaws. Place the block in the middle and push the sheets at the top equal. Clamp the block my turning the wingnuts.

2.

A= 19.2cm B= 4mm C= 1.1cm

Turn the binder with the jaws up and turn the swivels out.

Now you can bend the sheets in two directions while the block is clamped. Glue the back in these two positions while it is bend.

Always use protection sheets to keep the jaws clean.

3.

Turn the swivel back straight and let the glue dry. Use

mull (starched cheesecloth) to strengthen the back. Allow to dry for 6 hours.

Bound Book

After binding this is the ďŹ nal outcome of our book. Due to it being printed on thinner paper than some of the other students when binding the paper had a tendency to tear. This caused a multitude of issues but luckily we managed to salvage it and the areas that were damaged were covered by the spine. Overall I feel proud of the book that we produced, although I feel if we had spent more time gather better quality photos we would have had more images to work with and thus the outcome could have been better.

Lectures

Visual Thinking lecture programme Monday 13 Jan 9.00-11.00 Digital Materiality University House Lecture Theatre LM 11.00-13.00 Transmedia University House Lecture Theatre PR 13.30-16.30 Seminar LM PR Monday 20 Jan 9.00-11.00 Oooh, aah, mmmm: Notions of Taste, Aesthetic Judgement and Consumer Culture University House Lecture Theatre KH 11.00-13.30 Photography Killed Painting and‌ University House Lecture Theatre SJ 13.30-16.30 Seminar KH SJ LM PR Monday 27 Jan 9.00-11.00 The Power of Persuasion: Propaganda meanings, methods and messages. University House Lecture Theatre KH 11.00-13.00 Digital Materiality University House Lecture Theatre LM 13.30-16.30 Seminar PR LM KH Monday 03 Feb Berlin Trip Monday 10th Feb 9.00-11.00 Postmodernism and Identity University House Lecture Theatre PR 11.00-13.00 Rip-off Versus Witty Repartee University House Lecture Theatre SJ 13.30-16.30 Seminar PR LM SJ Monday 24th Feb 9.00-11.00 Rip-off Versus Witty Repartee University House Lecture Theatre SJ 11.00-13.00 Cinematic Bodies University House Lecture Theatre LM 13.30-16.30 Seminar PR LM SJ

The Power of Persuasion: Propaganda

Definition ‘(organised promotion of) information to assist or damage the cause of a government or movement’ ‘the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person’ ‘ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also: a public action having such an effect’ Chomsky has become more widely known—especially internationally—for his media criticism and politics. A key intellectual figure within the left wing of US politics. Chomsky is widely known for his political activism.

Organisations • Respect for Animals • Greenpeace • Liberty • PETA • Amnesty International • Act Up El Lissitsky Barbara Kruger

"information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view"

“False flag terrorism” occurs when elements within a government stage a secret operation whereby government forces pretend to be a targeted enemy while attacking their own forces or people. The attack is then falsely blamed on the enemy in order to justify going to war against that enemy.”

The first casualty when war comes is Truth -U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917

Oooh, aah, mmmm

Taste Judgement, style, discrimination, elegance, experience

Aesthetics Good & bad taste relatively modern terms

Cultural consumption Different tastes in different countries cultural preferences, social taboo in 19th century - development of taste as an idea and as an aesthetic parallels the rise in popular expectations which grew with the increase in spending power

How do we judge design? kitsch • Visual pleasure – novelty, humorous • Cheap, mass produced, poor quality • Non functional • Superficial, copy, fake • Vulgar, ignorant • Sentimental, souvenir, momento • Personal • decoration

• Subjectively • Objectively • Experience of objects • Influence – eg. media, exhibitions • Education – knowledge of objects…

• Fashion, styles • Aesthetic judgement taste • Lifestyle preference

less is more less is not more, less is a bore Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944).

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. kitsch Have nothing in your home that you do not believe to be useful or beautiful -William Morris 1834-1896

Transmedia

Monomedia Any form of communication through the spokenword • Spoken Language • Traditional Forms • Books No media exists in singular isolation

Multimedia A combination of media working together • • • • •

Book Film Sound Video Internet

Transmedia • • • •

Open ended Adaptability Co existing Interactively

Transmedia Example: The Matrix franchise • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • •

Book Film Sound Video Internet Game Toy Touch Speech Internet

Film Game Action figue Book Website

The Gutenberg Parenthesis Consider the beginning and end point of something. Find the original source

Workshops

Visual Thinking workshop programme Friday 10 Jan 10:00 - 16:30 Introduction to Letterpress Friday 17 Jan 10:00 - 15:30 Letters in the landscape - A lexicon of urban typography Friday 21 Feb 10:00 - 16:30 Hand Lettering Friday 21 Feb 10:00 - 16:30 Risograph printing Friday 24 Jan 10:00 - 16:30 Letterpress: Text and Image Friday 31 Jan 10:00 - 16:30 Letterpress: Working with Type Monday 03 Feb Berlin Trip Friday 14 Feb 10:00 - 16:30 Non-Traditional letterpress Multiple Dates Introduction to Perfect Binding - personal journal Multiple Dates Fukuro toji - Japanese Bookbinding Multiple Dates Mein Gott Gutenberg has gone digital Multiple Dates Altered Books Multiple Dates Explosive Drawing

Letterpress: Introduction to Letterpress

I attended the introduction to letterpress workshop because, although I have done letterpress before, I haven’t used it in a while and felt it would be an enjoyable workshop to do. Although I personally feel that letterpress is an outdated medium, due to their being digital letterpress and an abundance of fonts that are easily digitally manipulated, it is still a fun process to do. I feel that, although throughout I enjoyed my time there, I didn’t learn as much as I had hoped; this might be down to me having previous experience with it in the past. I didn’t The workshop like any of my started with outcomes produced an introduction to the in the workshop letter blocks and various purely because of presses and as the time it took the day went on we created to create; ala variety of posters using though the work multiple letcame out well and terforms looked neat, for the time invested I feel digitally I could have achieved a lot more with my time. Overall it was a fun experience and nice to break out of the comfort of digital work and do something hands on, but I personally won’t be using it when it comes to final outcomes unless specified, purely because I feel I could invest my time more efficiently

Letters in the Landscape

The second and last workshop I attended was Letters in the Landscape.

Although one of our projects outlined in the brief was the same I felt it could be fun and useful to do the workshop twice. I made my own way to Poole and with a couple of people we set out taking photographs of the landscape. I enjoyed this workshop purely because I have never done anything like this before and it was fun to get out of the house and walk around searching for inspiration outside. I took an abundance of photos ranging from shapes on drain covers to using buildings as letter forms.

Although I didn’t I used a variety use most of the of objects to create letter photos I took on forms, from doorways and the day I gained windows to an insight to the cranes and the coastal line project we would landscape giving be doing later on me a broad amount of conin the brief and tent an eye for spotting letter forms in weird places.

When it came to starting the project outlined in the brief I had a head start in terms of content that the others who didn’t attend the workshop which gave me an advantage to them and more photos to chose from when it came round to creating the book; although I still wish I had taken more photos during both trips

Designed by Charles Rodriguez

Exhibition For The Love of Graphics

For The Love of Graphics was an exhibition that we as a class put together for the students of AUB. A team was selected to curate the exhibition and the rest of us set out to ďŹ nd examples of graphic design that we personally loved. I personally brought in Nike and Vans shoe boxes; this is because I enjoy buying shoes and the look of the packaging they come. Examples that people brought in ranged from comics and toys to trinkets and typographical letterforms.

Overall it was a very successful exhibition with a good turn out and variety of work

Evaluation

To evaluate the unit as a whole I feel it went well. Personally again I wasn’t as strict with my own time management as I feel I should have been but I still got the work completed in the set time frame and to a good standard. I would have liked to have been able to attend more workshops but unfortunately the night we were told about them the majority were sold out with only a couple, that I was interested in, left. I also enjoyed the fact that we got to pick and chose the lectures and workshops we attended; we weren’t forced onto any and I could cater my learning to my personal interests. I also feel this unit forces us to go out and gain inspiration from the world, not just books and the internet, which I really enjoyed purely because it broke me out of the mould of sitting at a computer desk. I also feel I relied to heavily on Illustrator this unit and wish I had used InDesign more like we were pushed to. The essay was a nice addition to the unit due to the fact that I haven’t written one in almost two years and it was nice to get back into it; even though I felt really out of my comfort zone.

Key Texts

Baines, Phil & Haslam, Andrew (2005).

Type and Typography. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King.

Bar, Noma (2009). Negative Space. New York: Mark Batty Publisher.

Fairey, Shepard (2009). Supply and Demand. California: Gingko Press, Inc. Friedl, Friedrich & Ott, Nicolaus & Stein, Bernard (1998). Typography: When Who How. New York: Konemann.

McCandless, David (2010). Information is Beautiful. Scotland: Collins.

Shaughnessy,Adrian (2009). Graphic Design: A User's Manual. London: Laurence King.

YCN (2014). YCN Student Annual 13/14.

London: YCN.

Typographic Glossary alignment The positioning of text within the page margins. Alignment can be flush left, flush right, justified, or centered. ascender The part of lowercase letters (such as k, b, and d) that ascends above the x-height of the other lowercase letters in a face. baseline The imaginary line on which the majority of the characters in a typeface rest. body text The paragraphs in a document that make up the bulk of its content. The body text should be set in an appropriate and easy-to-read face, typically at 10- or 12-point size. boldface A typeface that has been enhanced by rendering it in darker, thicker strokes so that it will stand out on the page. Headlines that need emphasis should be boldface.

Italics are preferable for emphasis in body text. cap height The height from the baseline to the top of the uppercase letters in a font. This may or may not be the same as the height of ascenders. Cap height is used in some systems to measure the type size. condensed A narrower version of a font, used to get a maximum number of glyphs into a given space. descender The part of lowercase letters (such as y, p, and q) that descends below the baseline of the other lowercase letters in a font face. In some typefaces, the uppercase J and Q also descend below the baseline. dingbats Typefaces that consist of symbol characters such as decorations, arrows and bullets. drop cap A design style in which the first capital letter of a paragraph is set in a larger point size and aligned with the top of the first line.

ellipsis A punctuation character consisting of three dots, or periods, in a row. em, em space, em quad A common unit of measurement in typography. Em is traditionally defined as the width of the uppercase M in the current face and point size. It is more properly defined as simply the current point size. For example, in 2-point type, em is a distance of 12 points. em dash A dash the length of an em is used to indicate a break in a sentence. en, en space, en quad A common unit of measurement in typography. En is traditionally defined as the width of the uppercase N in the current face and the current point size. It is more properly defined as half the width of an em. en dash A dash the length of an en is used to indicate a range of values. face One of the styles of a family of faces. For example, the italic style of the Garamond family is a face. flush left Text that is aligned on the left margin is said to be set flush left. If the same text is not aligned on the right margin, it is said to be set flush left, ragged right. flush right Text which is aligned on the right margin is said to be set flush right. If the same text is not aligned on the left margin, it is said to be set flush right, ragged left. font One weight, width, and style of a typeface. Before scalable type, there was little distinction between the terms font, face, and family. Font and face still tend to be used interchangeably, although the term face is usually more correct.

font family The collection of faces that were designed together and intended to be used together. For example, the Garamond font family consists of roman and italic styles, as well as regular, semi-bold, and bold weights. Each of the style and weight combinations is called a face. glyph In the context of modern computer operating systems, it is often defined as a shape in a font that is used to represent a character code on screen or paper. hanging indent A document style in which the first line of a paragraph is aligned with the left margin, and the remaining lines are all indented an equal amount Italic vs. Oblique Italic is a slanting or script-like version of a face.

The upright faces are often referred to as roman. Oblique is similar to italic, but without the script quality of a true italic. The upright faces are usually referred to as roman. justified A block of text that has been spaced so that the text aligns on both the left and right margins. Justified text has a more formal appearance, but may be harder to read. kerning The adjustment of horizontal space between individual characters in a line of text. Adjustments in kerning are especially important in large display and headline text lines. The objective of kerning is to create visually equal spaces between all letters so that the eye can move smoothly along the text. leading The amount of space added between lines of text to make the document legible. Closer leading fits more text on the page, but decreases legibility. Looser leading spreads text out to fill a page and makes the document easier to read.

ligature Two or more letters tied together into a single letter.

In some typefaces, character combinations such as fi and fl overlap, resulting in an unsightly shape. The fi and fl ligatures were designed to improve the appearance of these characters. margin The white spaces around text blocks. Margins typically need to be created on the edges of a page, since most printers can’t print to the very edge. pica A unit of measure that is approximately 1/6th of an inch.

A pica is equal to 12 points. The traditional British and American pica is 0.166 inches. In PostScript printers, a pica is exactly 1/6th of an inch. point A unit of measure in typography. There are approximately 72 points to the inch. A pica is 12 points. point size The common method of measuring type. The distance from the top of the highest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender in points. raised cap A design style in which the first capital letter of a paragraph is set in a large point size and aligned with the baseline of the first line of text. Compare to a drop cap. roman Commonly refers to the upright version of a face within a font family, as compared to the italic version. rule A solid or dashed graphic line in documents used to separate the elements of a page. Rules and other graphic devices should be used sparingly, and only for clarifying the function of other elements on the page. sans serif A type face that does not have serifs. Generally a low-contrast design. Sans serif faces lend a clean, simple appearance to documents.

serif Small decorative strokes that are added to the end of a letter’s main strokes. Serifs improve readability by leading the eye along the line of type. set solid Leading that is equal to the point size of the font in use. Generally used only with larger display sizes. symbol A category of type in which the characters are special symbols rather than alphanumeric characters. tabular figures Numerals that all have the same width. This makes it easier to set tabular matter. tracking The average space between characters in a block of text.

Sometimes also referred to as letterspacing. typeface The letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is often part of a type family of coordinated designs. The individual typefaces are named after the family and are also specified with a designation, such as italic, bold or condensed. typographic color The apparent blackness of a block of text. Color is a function of the relative thickness of the strokes that make up the characters in a font, as well as the width, point size, and leading used for setting the text block. unjustified Depending on alignment, this term refers to text which is set flush left, flush right, or centered. weight The relative darkness of the characters in the various typefaces within a type family. Weight is indicated by relative terms such as thin, light, bold, extra-bold, and black.

word spacing Adjusting the average distance between words to improve legibility or to ďŹ t a block of text into a given amount of space. x-height Traditionally, x-height is the height of the lowercase letter x. It is also the height of the body of lowercase letters in a font, excluding the ascenders and descenders. Some lower-case letters that do not have ascenders or descenders still extend a little bit above or below the x-height as part of their design.