By Oliver Richings. Graphic Design. Level 4
Introduction Visual Thinking project was a very interesting brief in which I learnt lots of new skills and developed my current ones. It extended my visual awareness, individual creative language and understanding of contemporary practise. I took part in a series of opportunities, involving workshops and lectures with in fact expanded my knowledge of design in various different ways. Throughout this book I will document my creative journey in which took place in this brief, from my idea generation to the end result. I will also document my workshops and lectures, and show the outcomes for my LetterMPress and Japanese Bookbinding workshops. Assignment Brief Aims: A1- To extend your confidence and ability to conduct relevant research A2- To develop your critical abilities and improve your theoretical awareness A3- To enable you to use and combine a range of materials, media and techniques Learning Outcomes: On completion of this unit you will be able to: LO1- Demonstrate your abilty to conduct visual and contextual research and communicate your findings effectively LO2- Demonstrate your developing critical evaluation of your practice, appropriate theoretical knowledgeand related audiences LO3- demonstrate an appropriate range and level of technical competence in the production of coherent visual solutions
Contents Task 1 ‘Distinctive Characters: Typography as a Semiotic Resource’ Task 2 Producing an A6 Postcard Workshop and Lectures An insight into my lectures and workshops I took part in during this term Task 3 ‘Vernacular Letterforms: Mapping the landscape- A lexicon of urban typography’ Task 4 Creating a lexicon book- ‘french fold’ Exhibition Photos of our own graphics exhibiton called ‘for the love of graphics’ Typographic Glossery Disecting the ins and outs of typography
Task 1
Distinctive Characters Typography as a semiotic resource
U
Working in groups of two, we selected a letter from random. The letter could be lowercase or uppercarse, our choice. The letter we recieved would either be 300mm high, or 150mm high. We then had to generate some ideas for our letter to be created into a 3D form. Mine and Henry Kirby’s letter was...
300mm
UU U UU U U U U UU U U UU U UU U U U UUU U U U UU U UU U UU U U U U U UUUUU UU U U U U UU U U UUU UUUU U U U UU U U U UU UU U U UUU UUU U UU U U U U U UUU U UUU U U UU U U U U U U U UUUU UU U UU UUU U U U UU U U UUU UU UU
Examples of 3D Type To help us get an idea of what is expected and of potential things we could do we were displayed a few examples of work that is currently out there.
I have picked these examples as they were my favourites and I felt they inspired me the most. They are all very different and have individual concepts. The photography is particularly important within these 3D model pieces, as it is what sells the piece. This is key to the task.
Idea Generation We thought of words that began with ‘U’ to get us started, we used help of dictionaries as we found ‘u’ a challenging letter to begin with. Once we got started we felt it became a lot easier.
The circled ideas above are the ones we chose to develop and experiement with further. USA- making it somehow patriotic Udder- humorous design Urban- city/ graffiti based Ugly- possibly based on the thought of being ugly you can crack a mirror Uniform- ‘smart’ and shape based idea Underwear- again a humorous design using possible real underwear or hand made
U
Udder- a more humorous design, that could also be made in 3D
USA- idea based on the USA flag, being very patriotic, however it wouldn’t be an interesting design to be made in 3D
U
Uniform- very clean/ smart design using minimal colour and shape. However again for a 3D design, it might not be as exciting as other ideas I orignally had.
We then decided on a couple of ideas to experiement with in 3D.‘Ugly’ and ‘underwear’. The typeface below is the one we chose to work with for ‘ugly’. The reason we went with this typeface is because of the shape of the ‘U’, one side is thicker than the other and it has interesting serifs, that will make a great 3D design using our broken mirror idea. The font below is called ‘Charlemagne std’.
ABCDEF GHI JKLM NOPQRSTU VWXYZ
u
The typeface we used for ‘underwear’, was called Garineldo. We found this font online, as chose it because of its feminime style, and its very detailed serifs.
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Uu
Some more development of our final pieces that we have made. We have now begun to make our chosen final pieces in 3D. We have decided to use coloured card and layers to create the ‘underwear’ piece. The mirror design for ‘ugly’ we used broken up mirror for, and used a collage technique to create it.
The finished underwear using coloured card to create layers, emphasising the 3D effect
uU Final pieces ready to photography and create into a postcard.
Final Photos
The photos here are the final piece photographed of our ugly U. After a tutorial ‘ugly’ was favoured more than ‘underwear’, so we chose to use this for our postcard. The photo below is the final photo of our ‘U’. After editing it on Photoshop to enhance the black backgroundnand lighten the ‘U’ even more, it is ready to make into our postcard for the next task.
Task 2
Postcard
For our final postcard design, we created a quote to relate to ugle and design and how it is portrayed in different ways. The composition of the postcard is very effective, and the text has been made readable to the viewer, yet still having a lot of focus on the letter ‘U’.
“Ugly Design is relative. It is subject to our own individual taste, what may seem ugly to you may convey beauty to someone else” Quote writen by Oliver Richings & Henry Kirby
Ugly Design It is subject individua seem u bea
is relative. tive to our own al taste, what may ugly to you may convey auty to someone else.
Final postcard created by Oliver Richings and Henry Kirby. ‘Ugly’.
Workshops & Lectures
To further current skils and learn new ones, I took part in a series of lectures and workshops. The lectures that I took part in were: “Powers of Persuasion: Propaganda”
a very useful lecture, which linked strongly with the essay given to us for this brief. It made me aware of it’s meaning and it relevance to Graphic Design. I’ve been able to use the notes I made on this lecture for my essay section on ‘propaganda’. This is a theme which could become helpful in future projects/ essays as well as this one.
“Ooooh Ahhhh Mmm: Notions of taste”
very interesting lecture, looking at the different aspects of good and bad design. Looking at examples used from the university’s MoDiP. Such as lamps and toilet brushes. This also continued onto a seminar later on the same day, where we physically interacted with these objects.
“Transmedia”
this lecture wasn’t linked too strongly with design, more on the different types of media, someting that could come become more useful in future. However this was not relevent to me for my current studies. but I did pick up a few facts and ideas on the way that I thought as interesting. The lecturer was very passionate about the topic he was talking about which I found made the lecture alot more interesting.
“Cinematic Bodies”
a lecture looking into different concepts of film. Looking deep into theories by Kittler, Julia Kritera, Zizek and Judith Butler. Again not a lecture which I gained a lot from for this brief, I don’t believe it was aimed for Graphic Designers as such and during the lecture I felt confused as to what the lecture was actually about, making it irrelevant for me.
The workshops in which I engaged with were, LetterMPress, Silk Screening and Japanese Bookingbinding. However we had some workshop based activites within the class that helped with our briefs, such as perfect binding (French fold), and Poole photography. I will present my finished pieces that I created for the LetterMPress and the Japanese Bookbinding workshops. The LetterMPress workshop was one I really enjoyed, it was an app based bit of software that re-enacted the traditional letter press methods, however this way involed a lot less mess and was an overall quicker process. This is definitley a process I will use in future, and encorperate into my work, for such things like title pages. Here are the pieces of work I made during this workshop:
Using textured backgrounds to create an authentic feel.
Experimenting with layers and colours creates a very unique visual styling.
This software could even be used to make logos.
This is the workshop for Japanse bookbinding- ‘Fukuro Toji’ (which means bound- pocket books) This style of bookbinding is a very cheap method and after my go at making one, its very easy. It uses the process of drilling exact holes in the spine, in order for the thread to be stitched through. The tighter the stitching, the stronger the binding.
This is the part of the process of creating the book. The picture below shows the drilled holes for the stitched to be done.
Finished stitching of book. I was pleased with my first attempt at Japanese Bookbinding, and is a skill I will definitley take, and use in future.
Task 3
Vernacular Letterforms: Mapping the landscapeA lexicon of urban typography
These are all my photos from the Poole photography. They are a series of different letter forms, either obvious letters, such as signs, or less obvious ones, using building/ structure etc to create a letter form. Over all I found this day in Poole very useful, it didn’t just help me to develop my photography skills but helped me to use my imagination to find the not so obvious letters. There were a couple of letters forms, which were a lot harder to find, such as ‘K’. Overall very pleased with the letetrs we found. These photos must now be selected and edited to the brief, “3000dpi, CYMK Tiffs”, in order to create the book on InDesign. A collaborated task by Oliver Richings, Lewis Morgan, Ty Logan and Charles Rodriguez.
Task 4
French Fold
Book Binding Creating the Lexicon Book
This is a picture of the help guides for the book binding, it clearly shows the diagrams of where we glue and also has step by step instructions. While it’s in the clamp, we then glue the book spine (the glue we used was PVC, strong and clean). The same glue was also used to attatch the cover of the book to the spine. I now have gained knowlegde on two different types of book binding, which I think is very useful, especially when being a Graphic Designer, I will be able to use these new skills throughout my education/ career.
The layout of the book was completed in InDesign. He is our finished layout that we created into the book.
These are photos of the finished book we created. Very pleased with the turn out of the book, holds together well, and has a strong variation of page layouts, which keep the reader interested, rather than boring them with the same old page layout. There are a couple of photos which did not turn out as well as planned however, the overall quailty of the book is very good.
Exhibiton For the Love of Graphics
A one day exhibition related to Graphic Design, and specific examples of what designs we love and inspire us. We all contributed to the exhibition with what we love about graphics, and a small group of us also focused on setting up the exhibition. On the following pages there are some photos of the exhibition that we held.
The poster used to promote our exhibition. Created by Charles Rodriguez. Displayed across the whole university.
I contributed to the exhibition with an old 80’s Arts University Bournemouth prospectors, compared to the most recent one that the university uses. I wanted to show the how design has changed and evolved throughout the years, with colour, composition, typography and overall visual style. A lot of the things that people bought in were very different and unique things, some things I had never seen before, and it was really interesting to see the different types of graphics and see what other people are interested in within the theme of graphics.
Typographic Glossery To develop skills as a typographic designer, and as a designer as whole we must be able to understand the ins and outs of typography, and disect it.
Alignment The positioning of text within the page margins. Alignment can be flush left, flush right, justified, or centered. 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. 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. 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. 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 12-point type, em is a distance of 12 points. 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. 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. 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. 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. Tracking The average space between characters in a block of text. Sometimes also referred to as letterspacing. 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.
This is something I will always come back to during my work, a key glossery of terms that will become helpful. As taken from http://www.adobe.com/type/topics/glossary.html
Visual Thinking By Oliver Richings AUB Graphic Design Level 4