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Austin Hunkins is a Los Angeles based graphic designer. Austin draws inspiration from early Swiss design as well as having an appreciation for modern typefaces. The following is a record of his exploration with typography and layout during the fall 2016 quarter at The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Downtown Los Angeles.
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FONTS USED
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TYPOGRAPHICAL TERMS
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CHARACTER STUDIES
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LOGOS
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UBIQUITOUS TYPE
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SKETCHBOOK
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MUSEUM POSTER
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POP!
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In typography, a serif is the little extra stroke found at the end of main vertical and horizontal strokes of some letterforms. Serifs fall into various groups and can be generally described as hairline (hair), square (slab), or wedge and are either bracketed or unbracketed.
A cursive alphabet which is matched with a roman font and used along chiefly for emphasis. Definition: While roman typefaces are upright, italic typefaces slant to the right.
A thin stroke usually common to serif typefaces. Definition: In typeface anatomy, a hairline is the thinnest stroke found in a specific typeface that consists of strokes of varying widths. Hairline is often used to refer to a hairline rule, the thinnest graphic rule (line) printable on a specific output device.
Display typefaces are used to entice a reader into text copy, to create a mood or feeling, or to announce important information. Sometimes, they accomplish all these purposes at the same time. They are intended to stand out, and they perform well when they are appropriate. However, display typefaces can look peculiar in applications where text typeface designs are warranted.
In typography, script fonts or type mimic historical or modern handwriting styles that look as if written with different styles of writing instruments from calligraphy pens to ballpoint pens. Typical characteristics of script type are: connected or nearly connected flowing letterforms and slanted, rounded characters.
Distressed typography is an often overlooked blip in the timeline of visual communication, yet it’s one of the most important categories of type. The Awl dives in to the ‘80s and ‘90s typography revolution that thrived on messy, heavy type to express every emotion that the wayward generation of the time was feeling.
Fractions are an integral part of typography. Sometimes they appear with great regularity, such as in recipes and cookbooks, manuals, and other documentation; sometimes they appear sporadically, as in the occasional dimension, measurement and quantity. But in either case, good typography calls for professionallooking fractions, which in most cases are diagonal fractions.
A
drop cap is the first character of a document or paper that is the largest letter of that page and takes up several lines or sentences of the first paragraph. This is an example of a paragraph using a drop cap letter. As you can see, the beginning ‘A’ is large and helps bring focus to this paragraph.
Tracking refers to uniformly i n c r e a s i n g or decreasing the horizontal spacing between a range of characters. Most often used to adjust and fine-tune overall letterspacing, tracking can create more readable, pleasing color and texture. It can be utilized for just a few words (such as a logo, headline or title) or for an entire article, and can be applied in small increments to achieve subtle, gradual refinements.
Reversed type refers to text that has a light color on a darker background. When white text is set on a black background, the text is ‘knocked out’ and the paper shines through, hence the term ‘knockout text’. Reversed type doesn’t have to be white.
Decorative and display fonts became popular in the 19th century and were used extensively on posters and advertisements. This style of type and lettering could be artistic and eye-catching in a way that wasn’t considered previously.
Didone typefaces (also referred to as Neoclassical and Modern) enjoyed great popularity from the late 18th through the 19th centuries. The term Didone is a melding of Didot and Bodoni, the two most characteristic typeface designs of this era. Didones are characterized by extreme weight contrast between thicks and thins, vertical stress, and serifs with little or no bracketing.
Decorative initial caps (capital letters) at the start of a paragraph that sit on the baseline of the first line of text but are noticeably larger, raised above the accompanying text are raised caps. As with any initial cap, the size and placement of this letter is designed to draw readers into the narrative.
The Hamilton Manufacturing Co. traces its roots back to the very first wood types made in the United States. Darius Wells produced the first American wood type in 1828; his business was reorganized into Wells & Webb, then acquired by William Page, later passing back to the Wells family, and finally sold to Hamilton sometime before 1880.
Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continued to be used for the German language until the 20th century. Blackletter is sometimes called Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language, despite the popular, though mistaken, belief that the language was written with blackletter.
The em dash is perhaps the most versatile punctuation mark. Depending on the context, the em dash can take the place of commas, parentheses, or colons—in each case to slightly different effect. Notwithstanding its versatility, the em dash is best limited to two appearances per sentence.
In typography, Egyptian (also called slab serif) typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, blocklike serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular (Rockwell), or rounded (Courier). Slab serifs were invented in and most popular during the nineteenth century.
In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer’s ornament or printer’s character) is an ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, often employed for the creation of box frames. The term continues to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts that have symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters.
Two or more letters combined into one character make a ligature. In typography some ligatures represent specific sounds or words such as the AE or æ diphthong ligature. Other ligatures are primarily to make type more attractive on the page such as the fl and fi ligatures. In most cases, a ligature is only available in extended characters sets or special expert sets of fonts.
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The best tool a graphic designer posesses is type. Characters are the smallest element of type when broken down. The following is the study of the orgins, shapes, and usage of specific characters along with complimentary typefaces. This was an ongoing project this quarter.
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N
o one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet. Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere. Other sources argue against this theory because there were no vowel sounds in the Phoenician language. (The Phoenician alphabet is generally thought to be the basis of the one we use today.) No one also knows why the ‘A’ looks the way it does, but we can construct a fairly logical chain of events. Some say the Phoenicians chose the head of an ox to represent the ‘A’ sound (for the Phoenicians, this was actually a glottal stop). The ox was a common, important animal to the Phoenicians. It was their main power source for heavy work. Oxen plowed the fields, harvested crops, and hauled food to market. Some sources also claim that the ox was often the main course at meals. A symbol for the ox would have been an important communication tool for the Phoenicians. It somewhat naturally follows that an ox symbol would be the first letter of the alphabet.
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Didot is a group of typefaces named after the famous French printing and type producing Didot family. The classification is known as modern, or Didone. Didot's type in the Code civil des Français, printed by the company of Firmin Didot in 1804. The most famous Didot typefaces were developed in the period 1784–1811. Firmin Didot (1764–1836) cut the letters, and cast them as type in Paris. His brother, Pierre Didot (1760– 1853) used the types in printing.
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I
n its earliest years, the letter that evolved into our F was an Egyptian hieroglyph that literally was a picture of a snake. This was around 3,000 B.C. Through the process of simplification over many years, the F began to lose its snakelike character, and by the time it emerged as an Egyptian hieratic form it wasn’t much more than a vertical stroke capped by a small crossbar. With a slight stretch of the imagination, it could be said to look like a nail. This may be why the Phoenicians called the letter “waw,” a word meaning nail or hook, when they adapted the symbol for their alphabet. In its job as a waw, the character represented a semi-consonant sound, roughly pronounced as the W in the word “know.” However, at various times the waw also represented the ‘v’ and sometimes even the ‘u’ sound.
Egyptian Cerastes
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Early Evolution
When the Greeks assimilated the Phoenician alphabet, they handled the confusing waw with typically Greek logic: they split it into two characters. One represented the semi-consonant W and the other became the forerunner of our V. (The ‘w’ sound became the Greek digamma, or double gamma, and was constructed by placing one gamma on top of another.) While the character was eventually dropped from the Greek alphabet, it was able to find work in the Etruscan language. Here it did yeoman’s service until the Romans adopted it as a symbol for the softened ‘v’ or double ‘v’ sound. Even today, the German language (an important source for English) uses the V as an F in words like “vater,” which means father and is pronounced “fahter.” Finally, the F found a permanent home as the very geometric sixth letter of the Roman alphabet.
Phoenician Waw
Greek
Zapfino is a calligraphic typeface designed for Litnotype by designer Hermann Zapf in 1998. It is based on an alphabet Zapf originally penned in 1944. It makes extensive use of ligatures and character variations (for example, the lower case letter d has nine variations).
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he Phoenicians, and the other Semitic peoples of Syria, used a simple graphic form that looked roughly like an upside-down V to represent the consonant ‘g’ sound (as in “go”). They named the form gimel, which was the Phoenician word for camel. Some contend this was because the upsidedown V looked like the hump of a camel. The Greek form was adopted by the Etruscans and then by the Romans, where for many years it represented both the hard ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds. This brings us to 312 B.C., when our modern G was formally introduced into the reformed Latin alphabet. The G was created to eliminate the confusion caused by one
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letter representing two sounds. The basic shape, which now looked like our C, was used to represent the palatalized sounds ‘s’ and ‘c,’ and a little bar was added to create the letter G, which denoted the guttural stop ‘g.’
T
here were many typeface designs based on Clarendon letterforms seen in
type catalogs from the 1850s to the 1890s.
Adobe’s Rosewood, released
in 1994, is modeled after Clarendon Ornamented first shown by William H. Page in his 1859 Specimens of Wood Type. Page’s chromatic version of Clarendon Ornamented was first shown in the October, 1868 issue of The Chicago Specimen the periodical of the Chicago Type Foundry.
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The twenty-sixth letter
cultures, all having the
of our alphabet was the
same meaning. Around 1000
seventh letter in the
B.C. the Phoenician zayin
Semitic alphabet. They
became the Greek “zeta.”
called the letter “za”
The Greek character looked
(pronounced “zag”) and
more like a dagger than the
drew it as a stylized
zayin did, but it didn’t
dagger. The Phoenicians
bear much resemblance to
used roughly the same
the Z we currently use.
graphic sign, which they
In fact, it looked a lot
called “zayin” and which
like our present capital I
also meant a dagger or
(especially as set in ITC
weapon. A similar symbol
Lubalin Graph, or another
turns up in various other
slab serif typeface).
Semitic Ze
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Phoenician Zayin
Greek Zeta
Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. Designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurtproject. Based on geometric shapes that became representative of visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–33.
It was commissioned as a typeface by the Bauer Type Foundry, in reaction to Ludwig & Mayer’s seminal Erbar of 1922. Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness.
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ype designers have to walk a narrow path in their work. The defined shapes of the letters of our alphabet provide little room for self-expression, which limits how creative a designer can get when it comes to drawing individual letterforms. There are exceptions: the ampersand, for instance, has a well-deserved reputation as being one of our most fanciful characters, as well as one of the most fun to draw! Like many letters in our current alphabet, the ampersand probably began as a convenience. The Latin word et (meaning “and”) was first written as two distinct letters, but over time the ‘e’ and ‘t’ were combined into a ligature of sorts. Once the ampersand was accepted as a single character, artistry took over and a more flowing design evolved. Credit for the invention of the ampersand is usually given to Marcus Tiro, who included it in a shorthand writing system he devised in 63 B.C.
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American Typewriter typeface was released in 1974 to mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of the office typewriter – at a time when the machine was still the primary device for creating office communication. The design goal was to create a typeface that retained the unmistakable look of typewriter type, while overcoming its inherent flaws of marginalized legibility and poor readability in text settings.
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T
he letter x is one of the simpler ones. It is one of the less common letters of the alphabet in Latin or any other language. The essential elements of a diagonal cross are always present, although it may be adorned with a diagonal descender, or the two arms joined in a continuous loop. An interesting use of the letter x is in the nomina sacra abbreviation xpi, for Christ, in which the x was derived from the Greek letter chi. The term became Latinised and written in standard Roman letters. Arguably it is not an x at all, but it was written as one.
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ÂŽ
A logo is a graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark, abbreviation, etc., often uniquely designed for ready recognition and branding. A strong logo uses many design elements in harmony to create a symbol that is clean, tight, and identifiable.
Here are two examples of my personal logo. The lower one is my final version. It was necessary to tighten it up and create something more adaptive to be applied to a broader range of professional jobs and projects.
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Ubiquitous type is the typography we see all around us in our everyday lives. There is good type and bad type constantly in our view. This layout is comprised of photos I collected from just paying attention to the type I see during daily life.
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Portishead Album Cover
Blond Advertisement
T
ypography makes at least two kinds of sense, if it makes any sense at all. It makes visual sense and historical sense. The visual side of typography is always on display, and materials for the study of its visual form are many and widespread. The history of letter- forms and their usage is visible too, to tvvhose with access to manuscripts, inscriptions and old books, but from others it is largely hidden. This book has therefore grown into some-thing
Scum Punk Show Flyer
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Skaters Magazine Ad
Paradise Flyer
more than a short manual of typographic etiquette. It is the fruit of a lot of long walks in the wilderness of letters: in part a pocket field guide to the living wonders that are found there, and in part a meditation on the ecological principles, survival techniques, and ethics that apply. The principles of typography as I understand them are not a set of dead conventions but the tribal customs of the magic forest, where ancient voices speak from all directions and new ones move to unremembered forms. One question, nevertheless, has been often in my mind. When all rightthinking human beings are struggling to remember that other men and women are free to be different, and free to become more different still, how can one honestly write a rulebook? What reason and authority exist for these commandments, suggestions, and instructions? Surely typographers, like others, ought to be at liberty to follow or to blaze the trails they choose. Typography thrives as a shared concern - and there are no paths at all where there are no shared desires and directions. A typographer determined to forge new routes must move, like other solitary travellers, through uninhabited country and against the grain of the land, crossing common thoroughfares in the silence before dawn. The subject of this book is not typographic solitude, but the old, well- travelled roads at the core of the tradition: paths that each of us is free to follow or not, and to enter and leave when we choose
- if only we know the paths are there and have a sense of where they lead.That freedom is denied us if the tradition is concealed or left for dead. Originality is everywhere, but much originality is blocked if the way back to earlier discoveries is cut or overgrown. If you use this book as a guide, by all means leave the road when you wish. That is precisely the use of a road: to reach individu- ally chosen points of departure. By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately, and well. That is one of the ends for which they exist. Letterforms change constantly, yet differ very little, because they are alive. The principles of typographic clarity have also scarcely altered since the second half of the fifteenth century, when the first books were printed in roman type. Indeed, most of the principles of legibility and design explored in this book were known and used by Egyptian scribes writing hieratic script with reed pens on papyrus in 1000 B.C. Samples of their work sit now in museums in Cairo, London and New York, still lively, subtle, and perfectly legible thirty centuries after they were made. Writing systems vary, but a good page is not hard to learn to recognize, whether it comes. From Tang Dynasty China, The Egyptian New Kingdom typographers set for themselves than with the mutable or Renaissance Italy. The principles that unite these distant schools of design are based on the structure and scale of the human body - the eye, the hand, and the forearm in particular - and on the invisible but no less real, no less demanding, no less sensuous anatomy of the human mind. I don’t like to call these principles universals, because they are largely unique to our species. Dogs and ants, for example, read and write by more chemical means. But the underlying principles of typography are, at any rate, stable enough to weather any number of human fashions and fads. Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an
Ozzy Ozbourne Album Cover
independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of. It is true that typographer’s tools are presently changing with considerable force and speed, but this is not a manual in the use of any particular typesetting system or medium. I suppose that most readers of this book will set most of their type in digital form, using computers, but I have no preconceptions about which brands of computers, or which versions of which proprietary software, they may use. The essential elements of style have more to do with the goals the living, speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.
“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence.”
Jacket Embroidery
Babylon Event Poster
Death Museum Flyer
Jelleestone Money Cover
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This is one of my earlier designs for my personal logo. Simple and modern.
More exploration for my personal logo. the final version derived from these ideas.
Here are some doodles where I played with contrasting fonts along with dark sayings.
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Doodling is the best way for a designer to practice one’s skill and explore new styles and ideas. I carry a pen with me wherever I go. These images are all scanned out of my class notebooks weaved in between history lessons and marketing notes. As you can see I love to draw gooey and slimey typefaces. 31
This is one of my first character studies for the letter A. On this page I explored many ways to show an A. Some are more organic and abstract while other remain very geometric, streamlined and modern. My favorite is the bone and smoke in the upper left.
Some number typefaces I was exploring. Again with the gooey characters! 32
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221 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, Ca 90019 www.museumofmoderntypography.com
THE MUSEUM
OF
Paul Renner
DECEMBER 17 - JANUARY 18 TUESDAY - SATURDAY 10-5 SUNDAY 9-4
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Pop was an ongoing project throughout this quarter used the teach the basic principles of typography. It is the design of a hypothetical magazine cover with very specific guidlines. Every advancing week we were allowed to use another design principle. This project is used to understand the most basic of skills and create a good design foundation.
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