typography Sarah Hamilton • Fall 2018
Table of Contents
Project 1 1.1 - Letter, Space and Meaning................................................3 1.2 - Dualities and Dichotomies.................................................8 1.3 - Visual Semantics...............................................................12 Project 2 2.0 - Designer Research: W.A. Dwiggins.................................18 2.1 - Hierarchy and Grid..............................................................22 2.2 - Making and Breaking the Grid........................................30 Project 3 3.1 - Type Specimen..................................................................38 Project 4 4.1 - Book Cover Redesign.......................................................43
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Project 1: The Basics The point of Project 1 was to explore how typography can add extra meaning to words. Designers often have to think about how they can create interesting logos, posters, or headlines using only typography. For part 1, each designer in the class picked two words from a list of 24, and was instructed to only use Helvetica or Futura typeface in an 8” x 8” square Next, in part 2, the specifications were the same, only we had to include the word and its opposite together within the same square. Finally, in part 3, each designer chose a famous artist and was instructed to design their last name in a 10” x 10” format, in a way that reflected the life or style of that artist.
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1.1: Letter, Space and Meaning For this assignment, I decided to challenge myself by choosing some challenging words. For part 1, I picked confusion and subjective, the latter of which proved to be very difficult to represent visually. I tried to make “confusion” difficult to read, and skew “subjective” in different perspectives.
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First 30 sketches of words confusion and subjective
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Going Digital I chose my 5 best ideas for each word and brought them into Illustrator. This was the result.
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1.2: Dualities and Dichotomies
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The next part of the assignment was to incorporate each word’s opposite into the composition - confusion versus certainty, subjective versus objective.
20 sketches juxtaposing words and their opposites
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Final 20 compositions
I actually found part 2 easier, because I was able to give the words meaning using contrast. For the subjective/objective pairs, I tried to show as the objective being stronger, clearer, and more “real� than the subjective. For confusion, I made the word difficult and frustrating to read while the word certainty was clear and legible. This project got me to think outside of the box and think about how typography can convey different feelings.
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1.3: Visual Semantics For this project, my goal was to create letterforms inspired by the technique and process of Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian painter and pioneer of total abstraction in modern art. I began this project by researching Kandinsky and his work. He painted primarily with oils, watercolor, gouache and tempera. I was interested in Kandinsky’s belief that painting from life is contrived and untruthful, while complete abstraction is raw and spiritual. His works were inspired by music – Kandinsky admired how musicians could conjure images in the mind of the listener with only sound. As a result, his pieces have a sort of rhythm and movement that make them feel musical.
Inspiration from Kandinsky
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Spread from sketchbook
My first step in this project was looking at images of his work and noticing its characteristics. I came up with a list of 15 adjectives: geometric, abstract, colorful, linear, kinetic, rhythmic, active, detached, deconstructed, engaging, fluid, detailed, methodical, otherworldly, and dynamic. Next, I started copying some of the shapes Kandinsky works with and began creating a composition of my own. I started to see how certain lines and curves looked like parts of letterforms.
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After sketching out some letters, I tried creating Kandinsky’s name with microns and gouache paint. I like the vibrance of the gouache, but I found the medium too difficult to control if I wanted to emulate Kandinsky’s tight, clean style. So, I decided to cut out painted elements, scan them into Photoshop and edit them, and then compose them in a 10”x10” format in
15 Opposite: Drawing, painting, cutting out and scanning
Illustrator. I played around with the idea of marrying the old (gouache painting) and the new (Adobe technology). I did by juxtaposing “real” scanned elements with pixelated images and flat vector shapes. To add a sense of layering and depth, I put drop shadows on some elements. This project allowed me to draw inspiration from an artist’s work and spin it into my own original piece. Final composition
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Project 2: The Grid Using grids is an important part of designing. It gives visual order and makes the eye feel more at ease when looking at a layout. For project 2, we explored different ways of making and breaking grids. I referenced Kimberly Elam’s book, “Grid Systems” during this project. First, we did research on a designer and gave presentations about their life and work. I was assigned William Addison Dwiggins, and used his work as inspiration later. Next, for project 2.1, we were assigned text from the New York Times travel column and used the grid to explore different methods of placing text. The next part of project 2 was to create two calendars, drawing inspiration from our assigned designer and utilizing grids.
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2.0: W.A. Dwiggins William Addison Dwiggins (18801956) was an American type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He is know for coining the term ‘Graphic Designer’ in 1922, to describe his various activities in printed communications. These activities included book design, lettering, typography and calligraphy. Dwiggins was an advocate for the decoration of the printed page. Influenced by stamped motifs on Indian printed cotton, his graphic vocabulary consisted of hundreds of cut-out lines, curves, and solid shapes. He used pen and India ink, hand lettering, and other time-saving methods like stamping and stenciling.
Images from Pinterest of Dwiggins and his popular cover designs
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Throughout his career Dwiggins created over a dozen typefaces, some of which are still used today. Some of the most well-known are Electra, Caledonia, and Metro. These were designed specifically for Linotype compositions. His diagnosis of Diabetes in the 1920s changed his life – at the time the disease was often fatal. Dwiggins said of his diagnosis: “It has revolutionized my whole attack. My back is turned on the more banal kind of advertising...I will produce art on paper and wood after my own heart with no heed to any market.”
20 Images from Pinterest of Dwiggins’ typeface development process, book cover designs
Dwiggins designed a total of 329 books with Alfred A. Knopf Inc., which was later acquired by Random House in 1960. These books had great attention to detail and treated every page like a work of art. Dwiggins’s work in book design increased public interest in book format. In 1928 he published his own book, ‘Layout in Advertising,’ and wrote: “The practitioner in any art is obliged to build up his own equipment of standards and to evolve and perfect his own technique. He cannot lift a method of procedure, ready made, out of a handbook.”
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He was a multifaceted creative mind, experimenting with different materials and methodologies and applying what he learned to his design. In his free time, he hand carved marionettes and put on shows in his garage theater in Massachusetts. He received the 9th AIGA medal in 1929. In 1938 AIGA presented the exhibition “The Work of W.A. Dwiggins” at the Architectural League Gallery in New York. Dwiggins died on Christmas Day in 1965. Despite his significant contributions to the world of design, prior to 2018 a comprehensive biography of his life had never been published, and few designers were familiar with his work. The Letterform Archive released a book in 2018 titled W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennet with a foreword by Steven Heller.
Top left and right: Dwiggins’ handmade puppets Above: “W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design” by Bruce Kennet. Courtesy The Letterform Archive
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2.1: Hierarchy and Grid
My goal for this project was to convey the theme of Christmas and travel through expressive typography that well organized and easy to read. I was assigned an article about the Christmas Markets of the Danube River. After doing research on the Christmas Markets, I learned they are very classically European, and the Danube is an ancient river that is historically important. Instead of going for the typical green and red Christmas color palette, I decided on royal blue and gold. The blue was a reference to the river, and the gold added a royal touch. The fonts I decided on were Bodoni and Century Gothic.
Inspiration images from Pinterest
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Bodoni is very classic looking, and has many different font variations and beautiful characters. I experimented with the Bodoni asterisk symbol in my compositions because I thought it looked like a star or a snowflake. I thought Century Gothic paired well with Bodoni because it is also geometric, but looks much more modern. For some of my compositions, I played around with the idea of the words forming a Christmas picture, such as a tree or a present. I stuck to a simple 3x3 grid, and used a lot of centering.
Preliminary sketches to explore organizational techniques
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In order to take a break and get my creative juices flowing, I printed out all my compositions, cut them up, and rearranged the elements into new pieces. I made the body text look like the curving Danube river. I found myself placing certain elements in line with others even without a grid present, which made the piece look like a sort of organized chaos. After I was satisfied with my composition, I scanned it into Photoshop and cleaned it up. At one point I tried placing a photograph of rushing water underneath, but I decided I liked the white space and the image took away from the typography. I’m happy with my final compositions, they represent the themes of the subject matter and explore many ways of arranging information. This project helped me become more comfortable with and inclined to use grids.
Cutting up and sorting elements to collage
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2.3: Making and Breaking the Grid For Project 2 Part 2, my objective was to create experimental calendars inspired by the themes of joy and growth. When I first started this project, I was thinking about my favorite season, Spring. I made a mind map starting with the word Spring, and selected three words that I associate with the season: hope, joy and growth. Then, I made Pinterest boards for each word. I felt most drawn to the images I selected for joy and growth – flowers, balloons, confetti, etc. So, I decided to move forward with these two concepts.
Inspiration images from Pinterest
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Below: Infographic by W.A. Dwiggins (1924)
The artist I did my presentation on was William Addison Dwiggins. I was inspired by the bright colors and geometric shapes he used in his work. Through my research I learned that W.A. Dwiggins was one of the first people to ever design an infographic. His wholesalers and retailers infographic (below) reminded me of “Dear Data,” a project by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. Drawing from both these inspirations, I started to brainstorm ways to break down the calendar and visualize it as an infographic.
Left: Postcards from “Dear Data,” by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec (2016)
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Mind mapping and thumbnail sketches
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Initial drawings with concepts of growth and joy
Sketching with pen and paper helped me try out different ideas without getting too attached to them, which can be difficult to do on the computer. I played with imagery of nature and used bright colors. The words growth and joy share the letter ‘o,’ and coincidentally I found myself very drawn to using circles. I developed a system of color coding numbers by day of the week, and decided I wanted to emphasize holidays, because they are associated with celebration and joy.
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Final sketches before going digital
By the time I moved to Illustrator, I knew almost exactly what I wanted my designs to look like. I used Century Gothic as my typeface, which I became familiarized with in Part 1 of Project 2, because is has a very geometric and fresh look. To create more contrast between my two calendars, I decided to give the “Growth� calendar a black background. Both calendars use the same color-coding system, but for the growth calendar holidays are indicated with larger numbers and for the joy calendar they are indicated with dotted lines.
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Project 3: Type Specimen For project 3, we were each assigned a typeface that we researched, presented on, and created a Type Specimen mailer for. I was assigned Didot, developed from 1784-1811 by Firmin Didot. Didot (1764-1836) was a Parisian printer, engraver and type founder born into a typefounding dynasty called the House of Didot, which had its own printing firm and dominated French printing for two centuries. The defining characteristics of Didot include increased stroke contrast, condensed armature, vertical stress, flat and unbracketed serifs, and hairline strokes. In typeface anatomy, a hairline is the thinnest stroke found in a typeface with varying widths. Modern typefaces are usually not best for body copy because of their high contrast. Today, Didot can be found in logos and all over fashion magazines. Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle all use Didot in their branding. It symbolizes elegance and refinement and lends a classic yet modern feel to any design.
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3.1: Type Specimen For Project 3, I created a mailer and a poster to advertise and show off the unique characteristics of my assigned typeface, Didot. Through my research I learned that Didot is a very old font, and was once considered the standard in French printing. Along with others, Didot helped established the “Modern� typeface classification.
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When I started doing sketches for the mailer I went in a couple different directions - one was based off traditional manuscripts with big margins and decorative elements, and the other was using diagonal lines to highlight the verticality of the letters. I decided to move forward with the latter, and added dots (periods) as a decorative element, and as a play on the word Di(dot).
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For the poster on the backside, I used an excerpt from a Harper’s Bazaar article on feminism by Olivia Fleming. I made this decision because Didot is used frequently in many fashion magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Elle. I also liked the strong language in this piece (outspoken, unconventional, break, push, fight) because I thought it would draw attention to the extremity in the Didot typeface. I manipulated the words in illustrator to make them represent their meanings.
Progression of mockups, experimenting with color
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At first, I arbitrarily picked a green as an accent color, but I later switched to a coral to give it more of a feminine feel, without being too stereotypical. I continued the pop of coral on the mailer. It was hard for me to design something using only typography but it was a good exercise and I’m happy with how it turned out.
Final mailer and poster
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Project 4: Book Cover Our culminating project was designing a typographic book cover. We were envcouraged to use unique materials and processes to create distinctive typography. The book I chose was “The Phantom Tollbooth.” It was one of my favorite books growing up, and I remember how excited it made me about learning and going to school. The book is about a boy named Milo, who is bored with his life and isn’t interested in school. One day he enters the Lands Beyond through a magic tollbooth, and befriends Tock the watchdog and a curious creature called Humbug. The three of them explore Dictionopolis, a land ruled by warring sovereigns King Azaz (ruler of letters) and The Mathemagician (ruler of numbers), and discover what a fantastic adventure learning can be.
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Existing book covers
4.1: Book Cover The existing book covers for The Phantom Tollbooth feel dated and only appeal to a younger audience. I wanted to go in a different direction that could attract adult readers. The title “The Phantom Tollbooth” doesn’t explain much about the book, so I tried to lean into the mystery of it.
Initial sketches
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Sketches
For my intital sketches, I was drawn to lines as a design element because I thought they could represent the threshold between the real world and the Land Beyond. I was also inspired by geometric shapes, numbers, and images of tollbooths.
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Materials
While I was doing my initial ten sketches, I spotted a red netted bag that was used to hold avocados in my kitchen (top right). I was attracted to the depth and interesting shaped all the lines made. I cut the netting up and made some scans of it to play with in Photoshop. Keeping with the theme of lines, I used embroidery floss to make curvy and straight lines (top left, bottom right). I printed out several sheets of paper with the title of the book typed in Franklin Gothic, then cut out each letter for later use.
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Setup
My original plan was to take pictures of the letters caught in the netting, but when I noticed the shadows that were being cast by the sun, I decided to make them a focal point. I glued the letters to the netting and took photos of the shadow that it cast on different surfaces - the wall, a blanket, a window, and clock. The clock felt the most fitting because it references Tock, the watchdog from the book.
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Experiments with shadow
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Finishing Touches
I decided to move forward with the image of the shadow cast on the clock. I liked the juxtaposition of the blurry, shadowed letters with the bold, black numbers, and I thought it played well into the numbers versus letters theme in the book with King Azaz and The Mathemagician. To add the author’s name, used a similar process and cut out each letter individually, then placed them on a curled piece of paper. My first attempt (top left) made the author’s name illegible, and my second attempt (top right) felt too bold. In the end, I decided to keep the author’s name simple, centered at the bottom in a different variation of Franklin Gothic.
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Mockup of book cover