Reed singles by Randy Dunbar

portfolio Ryan Reed - Spring 2018

the art of typography

ryan reed graphic design

portfolio

spring 2018

an introduction

portfolio

spring 2018

Ryan Reed is a graphic design student at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merhandsing. This is a documentation of his journey through typography.

table of contents

portfolio

spring 2018

page 8 - typographical terms page 12 - character studies page 20 - sketchbook page 24 - ubiquitous type page 28 - logo design page 32 - brand identity page 36 - fidm weekly page 40 - history of type page 50 - pop! page 58 - fonts used

typographical terms

portfolio

spring 2018

grotesque cursive 12 pt. rule hairline rule slab serif blackletter distressed reversed wood type calligraphy transitional oblique kerning ligature swash drop cap bullet glyph dingbat tracking serif handlettering display

Typograph Grotesque

Cursive

Is frequently used as a synonym with sans serif. At other times, it is used to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces.

Early italic typefaces that resemble handwriting but with the letters disconnected.

Blackletter

Distressed

Also called Gothic. A style of handwriting popular in the fifteenth century. Also, the class of typestyles based on handwriting.

Distressed is a type of effect placed on a typeface. Some replicate the irregular contours of brush strokes or other random writing implements.

Distressed

Tracking

Serif

Used in digital typography to mean overall letter spacing.

The opening and closing cross-strokes in the letterforms of some typefaces.

tracking vs. t r a ck i ng

This is Serif

Handlettering

Display

Hand lettering is a more specific subset of lettering that refers to the art of drawing letters by hand and not digitally.

Display typography is a potent element in graphic design, where there is less concern for readanility and more potential for using type in an artistic manner.

Handlettering

Rever

In printing, refers to ty the background and ass pap

Reverse

Kern

The process of adjusting characters in a proport acheive a visually

K ern

Ligat

Two or three characte character. (ex

Display

ff ſl ft

Bullet

Ding

A typograhpic element usually used to highlight specific lines of text.

portfolio

A line or rule, 12-p

Cursive

Grotesque

Blackletter

12 pt.

•∙✖➝☞

spring 2018

A dingbat is an ornamen used in typesetting som known as a print

♥✘✌✎

hical Terms Rule

point in thickness.

rsed

ype that drops out of sumes the color of the er.

ed Type

ning

Hairline Rule A fine line or rule, 1/4-point in thickness.

Slab Serif Also called Egyptian and square serif. Typstyle recognizable by its heavy, square serifs.

Slab Serif

Wood Type

Calligraphy

Type made from wood. Formerly used for the larger display sizes more than 1 inch where the weight of the metal made casting impractical.

Elegant handwriting, or the art of producing such handwriting.

Wood Type

Calligraphy

Oblique

Transitional

Roman characters that slant to the right. Comparable to Italic.

A typestyle that combines features of both Old Style and Modern. (ex. Baskerville)

ning

Oblique

Transitional

ture

Swash

Drop Cap

A capital letter with an ornamental flourish.

A drop cap is a document style in which the first capital letter of a paragraph is set in a larger point size and alinged with the top of the first line. Indicates the start of a new section of type.

g the spacing between tional font, usually to y pleasing result.

ers joined as a single x. fi, fl, ffl, ffi)

ft ffl

gbat

nt, character, or spacer metimes more formally ter’s ornament.

✎✄✭

Glyph The basic building block in typesetting is a glyph - a letter, numeral, or symbol; groups of glyphs together are called fonts.

$$$$$$

character studies

portfolio

spring 2018

a brief history of some of the most used characters and fonts

Character Studies

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.) 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.

portfolio

spring 2018

The Font Didot

The first Modern typeface is attributed to Frenchman Firmin Didot (son of Franรงois-Ambroise Didot), and first graced the printed page in 1784. His types were soon followed by the archetypal Didone from Bodoni. The Italian type designer, punchcutter and printer Giambattista Bodoni (what a great name! [1740-1813]) drew his influence from the Romains du Roi (with its flat, unbracketed serifs) and the types of John Baskerville (high contrast), for whom he showed great admiration.

Character Studies

, letter that corresponds to the sixth letter of the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin alphabets, known to the Greeks as digamma. The sound represented by

the letter in Greek was a labial semivowel similar to the English w. This sound had disappeared early from the Ionic and Attic Greek dialects, so that the Ionic alphabet, which eventually came into general use in Greece, contained no digamma. It was retained, however, for some time in many local dialects and alphabets, including that from which the Etruscan (and through it the Latin alphabet) was derived. None of the various Greek forms occur in the Semitic alphabets. Its origin in the Greek alphabet has been a matter of dispute, some maintaining that it descends from Semitic vau and others, less convincingly, maintaining that it was merely differentiated from the preceding letter E by the omission of a horizontal stroke. In either case it is probable that the Greeks were not the innovators, since a form of the letter occurs in the Lydian alphabet. The letter was probably contained in an Asian alphabet from which the Greek, Lydian, and Etruscan were derived. portfolio

spring 2018

The Blackletter typeface (also sometimes referred to as Gothic, Fraktur or Old English) was used in the Guthenburg Bible, one of the first books printed in Europe. This style of typeface is recognizable by its dramatic thin and thick strokes, and in some fonts, the elaborate swirls on the serifs. Blackletter typefaces are based on early manuscript lettering. They evolved in Western Europe from the mid twelfth century. Over time a wide variety of different blackletters appeared, but four major families can be identified: Textura, Rotunda, Schwabacher and Fraktur.

Character Studies

ather fittingly, the origins of the question mark are clouded in myth and mystery. One of the most appealing stories links the curve of the question mark to the

shape of an inquisitive cat’s tail. This feline connection is either attributed to the ancient Egyptians (who were, of course, famed for their worship of cats), or to a monk who took inspiration from his curious pet cat, and included the symbol in his manuscript. A parallel story suggests that the exclamation mark derives from the shape of a surprised cat’s tail! Sadly, like many of the most charming and amusing origin stories, there is no evidence to back up this tale. Another possibility links the question mark with the Latin word quaestio (‘question’). Supposedly, in the Middle Ages scholars would write ‘quaestio’ at the end of a sentence to show that it was a question, which in turn was shortened to qo. Eventually, the q was written on top of the o, before steadily morphing into a recognisably modern question mark. However, just like our cat friends above, there is no manuscript evidence for this theory.

portfolio

spring 2018

The Font Helvetica Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) of Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, its design was based on Schelter-Grotesk and Haas’ Normal Grotesk. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.

sketchbook

portfolio

spring 2018

portfolio

spring 2018

ubiquitous type

portfolio

spring 2018

typography is EVERYWHERE

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 letterforms and their usage is visible too, to those with access to manuscripts, inscriptions and old books, but from others it is largely hidden. This book has therefore grown into some-thing more than a short manual of typographic etiquette. It is the fruit of

Ubiqu Ty

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

The presence of typogr can be seen e

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 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 portfolio often in my mind. When all right-thinking

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 individually 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 spring 2018half of the fifteenth century, when the

uitous ype

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

raphy both good and bad, everywhere.

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

human fashions and fads. Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an 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

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence.” 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.

logo design

portfolio

spring 2018

loÂˇgo a symbol or other design adopted by an organization to identify its products, uniform, vehicles, etc.

Ryan Reed Graphic Design

Ryan Reed Graphic Design portfolio

Ryan Reed Graphic Design 30

spring 2018

Museum of Modern Typography

brand identity

portfolio

spring 2018

Brand identity is how a business presents itself to, and wants to be perceived by, its consumers.

Ryan Reed

Graphic Designer 479-595-3503

portfolio

spring 2018

FIDM weekly

portfolio

spring 2018

A redesign of the current FIDM Weekly, a campus newsletter

FIDM

WEEKLY What’s Going on Around Campus?

May 21 - June 1

DIY AIR PLANTS

We’re celebrating Earth Month! Add more greenery to your apartment by decorating your own plant pottery to take home with you. Supplies will be provided. Tuesday, April 24 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Student Lounge Patio

A Look behind the Magazine Interested in learning what it takes to put a magazine together? Join FIDM MODETM Magazine for our first photoshoot of the quarter, a makeover! Thursday. April 26 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Room 425

Confidence Workshop

Celebrity Fashion Intrested in being a fashion designer and entreprenuer? Hear from celebrity designer, Walter Mendez, whose creations have been featured on celebrities like Beyonce, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Mel B, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello and more. Tuesday, April 24 2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Room 425

Self Defense Class

Intrested in being a fashion designer and entreprenuer? Hear from celebrity designer, Walter Mendez, whose creations have been featured on celebrities like Beyonce, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Mel B, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello and more. Tuesday, April 24 2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Room 425

You got what it takes, you just haven’t realized it yet. Learn impactful ways to let your confidence speak for you. Whether your’e asking someone out on a date, going to an interview, networking or asking for a raise, confidence is key. Wednesday, May 2 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Room 425

portfolio

DENIM DAY

Wear denim with a purpose, support survivors, and educate yourself and others about sexual assualt and rape! Sign our pledge to support survivors. #endrapeculture Wednesday, April 25 All Day

Girl Power Day Ladies! Let’s have a serious (and fun) chat about our bodies. Remove the stigma that comes with being a woman. Embrace your femininity and feel empowered with PTK. Who runs the world?! Tuesday, May 1 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Room 425

Email Ettiquette Lost for words when you have to send a professional email? No worries, we got you! Join us for tea time and learn the unwritten rules of email etiquette to make the best impressions. Tuesday, May 1 2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Room 425

spring 2018

DIY AIR PLANTS We’re celebrating Earth Month! Add more greenery to your apartment by decorating your own plant pottery to take home with you. Supplies will be provided. Tuesday, April 24 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Student Lounge Patio

Confidence Workshop You got what it takes, you just haven’t realized it yet. Learn impactful ways to let your confidence speak for you. Whether your’e asking someone out on a date, going to an interview, networking or asking for a raise, confidence is key. Wednesday, May 2 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Room 425

Self Defense Class Intrested in being a fashion designer and entreprenuer? Hear from celebrity designer, Walter Mendez, whose creations have been featured on celebrities like Beyonce, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Mel B, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello and more. Tuesday, April 24 2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Room 425

DENIM DAY Wear denim with a purpose, support survivors, and educate yourself and others about sexual assualt and rape! Sign our pledge to support survivors. #endrapeculture Wednesday, April 25 All Day

DIY AIR PLANTS

DENIM DAY

We’re celebrating Earth Month! Add more greenery to your apartment by decorating your own plant pottery to take home with you. Supplies will be provided.

Wear denim with a purpose, support survivors, and educate yourself and others about sexual assualt and rape! Sign our pledge to support survivors. #endrapeculture

Tuesday, April 24 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Student Lounge Patio

Wednesday, April 25 All Day

history of type

portfolio

spring 2018

swiss style

swiss style What is Swiss Style?

Often referred to as the International Typographic Style or the International Style, the style of design that originated in Switzerland in the 1940s and 50s was the basis of much of the development of graphic design during the mid 20th century. Led by designers Josef MĂźller-Brockmann at the Zurich School of Arts and Krafts and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design, the style favored simplicity, legibility and objectivity. Of the many contributions to develop from the two schools were the use of, sans-serif typography, grids and asymmetrical layouts. Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication. The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.

portfolio

spring 2018

mid

20th century The 1950s saw the full emergence of a design movement that is arguably the most important graphic design style of the twentieth century in terms of its far-reaching impact, its longevity, and its range of practical applications. The style began in Switzerland and Germany and is sometimes referred to as Swiss Style, but it is formally known as the International Typographic Style. Its dominance in many areas of graphic design covers a twenty-year period from the early 1950s to the late 1960s, but it remains an important influence to this day. There are a range of specific visual hallmarks that characterize the style. These include the use of asymmetrical layouts built around a mathematically constructed grid; a clear and unadorned approach to the presentation of content; the use of sans-serif type, generally set flushleft and ragged-right; and a preference for photography over illustration. It is useful to place the development of the style in historical context as its early influences stretch back over several decades. In 1918, Ernst Keller—considered by many as the forerunner of the International Typographic Style—began to teach design and typography at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. He never encouraged students to adopt a specific style, but he did argue that a design solution should always be respectful of content. This can be seen as an early version of the Modernist principle of form following function.

Over the following three decades, a number of important Swiss designers would contribute to the development of the style. Theo Ballmer studied at the Dessau Bauhaus in the late 1920s under Walter Gropius and applied De Stijl principles to much of his graphic design work which utilized grids of horizontally and vertically aligned elements. Max Bill—another student at the Dessau Bauhaus from 1927 to 1929 where he was taught by Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, and Wassily Kandinsky— developed a concept he called art concret which involved the creation of a universal style based on mathematical principles. His graphic design work featured layouts where elements were precisely distributed and spaced; he favored sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk, and set text flush-left and ragged-right. On a more flamboyant note the designer Max Huber added a generous dash of energetic verve to the mix. Huber studied at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts where he experimented extensively with photomontage techniques and in the late 1940s began to create some of the most exuberant posters seen at that time. He was the master of the layered composition, making use of overprinted shapes and dynamically positioned typography and photomontage to create work which includes his noted pieces promoting races at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza (National Racetrack of Monza.)

Ernst Keller

Who is Swiss Style?

Ernst Keller, lovingly known as the “father of Swiss design.” The year is 1918 and Keller just received a teaching position at the Kunstgewerbeschule (literally translated “arts and crafts school”) in Switzerland. His teachings mark the beginning of the grid systems for which Swiss Style is known, and his belief that design should adapt to content placed focus on the importance of typefaces. Little did Keller know, some of his students would become the forefront runners in the creation of the International Typographic Style movement. Shall we call them the sons of Swiss Style?

portfolio

spring 2018

Armin Hofmann

Who is Swiss Style?

Armin Hofmann, along with Emil Ruder, founded the Schule für Gestaltung (School of Design) in 1947. Hofmann began teaching and was often regarded as unorthodox in his ways. Much of his work focused on elements of graphic form while remaining simple and objective. His compositions, having been influenced by Ernst Keller’s teachings, often made use of typography over illustration. Hofmann’s curriculum has been somewhat adapted, yet is still taught today at the School of Design in Basel, Switzerland.

portfolio

spring 2018

Examples of New Age Swiss Style Artwork by Mike Joyce

portfolio

spring 2018

pop!

portfolio

spring 2018

Experimentation to look deeper into aspects of type such as contrast, alignment, repitition, and proximity.

in this issue: picasso frank ocean ayn rand lil peep frida kahlo

pop! literary journal issue one volume seven

portfolio

spring 2018

in this issue:

picasso frank ocean ayn rand frida kahlo lil peep pop!

literary journal issue one volume seven

pop! literary journal issue one volume seven

portfolio

lil peep

frida kahlo

ayn rand

frank ocean

picasso

in this issue:

spring 2018

picasso picasso picasso picasso picasso picasso frank ocean frank ocean frank ocean frankfrank oceanocean frank ocean ayn rand aynayn rand rand ayn rand ayn ayn randrand frida kahlo frida kahlo kahlo fridafrida kahlo kahlo fridafrida kahlo lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep in this issue:

volume seven

issue one

literary journal

pop!

picasso picasso picasso picasso picasso picasso frank ocean frank ocean frank ocean frank ocean frank ocean frank ocean rand aynayn rand rand aynayn rand rand aynayn rand frida kahlo frida kahlo frida kahlo frida kahlo frida kahlo frida kahlo lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep lil peep pop!

literary journal

issue one

volume seven

in this issue:

pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! picasso frank ocean ayn rand pop! frida kahlo lil peep literary journal issue one

volume seven in this issue:

portfolio

spring 2018

fonts used

portfolio

spring 2018

helvetica adobe caslon pro belwe didot futura helvetica neue