Typo jour
graphy
Samples of basic and experimental typography, by Nell Sheridan. Found in 2021.
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Gestalt Principles
Gestalt Pr Gestalt Principles are an essential part of visual design. There are more than ten overlapping principles; four of the most widely recognized ones are:
figure-ground The figure-ground principle states that people instinctively perceive objects as either being in the foreground or the background. They either stand out prominently in the front (the figure) or recede into the back (the ground).
continuity The principle of continuity states that elements that are arranged on a line or curve are perceived to be more related than elements not on the line or curve.
similarity The principle of similarity states that when things appear to be similar to each other, we group them together. And we also tend to think they have the same function. For instance, in this image, there appear to be two separate and distinct groups based on shape: the circles and the squares.
closure The principle of closure states that when we look at a complex arrangement of visual elements, we tend to look for a single, recognizable pattern.
proximity The principle of proximity states that things that are close together appear to be more related than things that are spaced farther apart.
focal point The focal point principle states that whatever stands out visually will capture and hold the viewer’s attention first.
common region The principle of common region is highly related to proximity. It states that when objects are located within the same closed region, we perceive them as being grouped together.
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Funk Typography
Funk Typ A pivotal moment in graphic design history where funk found it’s graphic voice and many generations of designers to come will find their inspirations
An Excerpt from “Celebrating the Artists Who Created Iconic Album Covers” by Mind Smoke Reccords. Sometimes it was just bold use of typography – as in Reid Miles’s design for Jackie McLean’s It’s Time – that produced a simple yet eye-catching triumph. Miles said that in the 50s typography was “in a renaissance period.” Sometimes companies chose an iconic symbol or look that would define their output – as Impulse! did with their trademark black, orange, and white livery and striking logo. This post-Second World War era was when the edgy modernism of bebop began to guide the innovative output of Blue Note. The label had some remarkably talented designers working for them, including Paul Bacon, whose many great covers included Thelonious Monk’s Genius Of Modern Music and Dizzy Gillespie’s Horn Of Plenty. Bacon went on to create the iconic firstedition design for Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22.
As well as gifted designers, Blue Note co-owner Francis Wolff’s own powerful photographs of musicians (playing music and relaxing off stage) also helped forge the label’s instantly recognizable identity. His photograph for John Coltrane’s Blue Train, showing the saxophonist looking anxious and saxophonist looking anxious and lost in thought, is like a journey into a genius’ psyche. The practice of using powerful photographs of the musicians has survived, and can be seen in the simple yet arresting photograph of Norah Jones on the 2002 album Come Away with Me.
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Decontructividm Design
Decontruc For this week of type inquiry I chose to examine type collages and deconstructive type. I looked at layering and block type.
Here is an article from https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com/ Deconstruction is a term which is used to denote the application of post-modern theory, to a “text”. A deconstruction is meant to undermine the frame of reference and assumptions that underpin the text. Jacques Derrida, who coined the term, argued that the existence of deconstruction implied that there was no intrinsic essence to a text, merely the contrast of difference. This is analogous to the scientific idea that only the variations are real, that there is no established norm to a genetic population, or the idea that the difference in perception between black and white is the context. A deconstruction is created when the “deeper” substance of text opposes the text’s more “superficial” form. According to Derrida, one consequence of deconstruction is that the text may be defined so broadly as to encompass not just written words, but the entire spectrum of symbols and phenomena within Western thought. To Derrida, a result of deconstruction is that no Western philosopher has been able to escape successfully from this large web of text and reach that which is “signified”, which they imagined to exist “just beyond” the text. The more common use of the term is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work, and the assumptions about it. A work then “deconstructs” assumptions when it places them in context. For example, someone who can pass as the opposite sex is said to “deconstruct” gender roles, because there is a conflict between the superficial appearance, and the reality
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Play with Typography
Play with Lastly I want to look at the expancive ways designers use typography to play and create interesting designs
In the early 1990s, the term “experimental” came to be associated with fonts displayed in Emigre magazine. A number of those fonts were worthy of the label, but in the ensuing years “experimental” was attached to any typeface that seemed to be outside the norm. It came to mean wild, radical or weird. In short, it became a marketing device rather than a useful description. Instead of looking solely, or even primarily, at such “experimental” fonts I have chosen to list typefaces that for one reason or another—technological, ideological, conceptual, cultural or even aesthetic—broke new ground in the digital era. This is not a list of the most beautiful, coolest or most popular fonts. (Nor is it simply a list of my favorite fonts.) This list is a reminder that the digital era has not been static. Like the metal era, it has had its own stages of development, each of which has affected not only how type is made, but how it looks and how it is used. The more common use of the term is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work, and the assumptions about it. A work then “deconstructs” assumptions when it places them in context. “The Digital Past: When Typefaces Were Experimental” By Paul Shaw 2005
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