Process of Learning Typography by spillert

process of learning

typography

Created and Designed By: Stefanie Pillert

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Project 1 - Part 1 Letter, Space, Meaning Design Statement: After taking pairs of words from a list I was able to create 10 designs. I wanted to achieve movement and evoke the meaning of my words to the audience through typography.

For the first project into the semester we were given two words to experiment with in Illustrator. Each word would be in a 8 by 8 space, which meant that we had to utilize the word in a very precise way. The words I chose were divorce and lies. Each of these words were fairly negative, which is why my experiments with the typeface are sharp and mysterious. Since we were only allowed black and white color and either Futura or Helvetica, we could really use our imagination or interpretation of the words to let them speak for themselves.

Throughout this project it was hard to understand what I wanted to convey to my audience when creating these designs. I had looked into some pictures for inspiration and guidance to inspire me. This had helped me create more ideas on how I wanted to pursue my project.

I was happy with the overall process of my pieces in the end. I felt as though my sketches were a clear understanding of how I felt towards my project. The designs I had created on paper seemed to transfer onto the computer how I wanted them to, when usually that is not the case! Seeing my 10 pieces in the critique helped me to see how my work was progressing from sketches to designs.

Project 1 - Part 2 Dualities // Dichotomies Design Statement: After we were given pairs of words we needed to create a design that used both words in a functional matter. I wanted my design to showcase both words working together in the same space.

Similar to Project 1, Project 2 involved words in pairs! Now, instead of having the word in a single 8 by 8, the words had to interact with each other. I found this a challenge especially because of the conflicting words. The two pairs I had were; divorce and marriage and lies and truth. Since these were direct opposites it was hard to find a meaning they could embody together. 8

Throughout sketching these pairs I was able to see many ideas in my head, but they could not be transferred easily into Illustrator. I had difficulties with seeing the words work together in the same space as well as not using similar ideas from my last project. I learned about the Shape Builder Tool in Illustrator to help me split words very roughly. I needed to use an element to show movement in my pairs since they were not synonyms, but instead antonyms. I needed to focus on which word would overpower the other.

For example, with the pair marriage and divorce I chose marriage to be lowercase and divorce uppercase. This was because I wanted divorce to overpower marriage and divide it. Decisions like this was hard to do and see when you take the words too literally. 9

After refining my pairs I was truly happy with the outcome. I had come up with various different pieces that all emulated the same idea I wanted. I felt that with this project I was able to see how my thought process had grown out of the sketches and into something completely different in Illustrator.

Project 1 - Part 3 Visual Semantics Design Statement: I was assigned to the artist Salvador Dali. I created his name with his surrealist ideas as well as incorporating my own style to make a unique the design.

For Project 3 I was very excited to start since the focal point of my project was to imitate the style of one of my favorite artists, Salvador Dali! Dali is known for his curly mustache and that is where I wanted to start in my project. After drawing many different designs with his mustache I realized that it might too literal. I wanted my design to imitate Daliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work but not copy it. Therefore after sketching for 2 or 3 days I decided not to use the mustache in my work. 12

Moving away from my original idea lead me to other ideas. Since most of Daliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work was illusions I researched more about his artwork with food. Instead of painting or using the computer to design most of my work I decided to take pictures of food and incorporate it into my design! Dali was known to have artwork that was inspired by our reality and food.

With my design I started with inputting all my photos as png files and then arranging them into his name. Since most of the foods I used were the same color I decided to put them through photoshop to change their original color.

After going through that process I wanted to create a theme for my design so that the food was apart of a bigger picture. I chose a theme of a picnic with snacks and flowers. Although his name was hidden in the design I felt that the theme as well as his style and name were represented in my design.

Project 2 - Part 1 Grid Systems 1 // Hierarchy & Grid Design Statement: After being assigned a body of text with a title and some paragraphs, I was challenged to arrange the texts nicely in an 8 by 8 layout. I wanted my layout to resemble my theme of the San Francisco Opera with all of its glamor still available to anyone.

Throughout the beginning of this project I struggled with the amount of text I received. I wanted to have my layout be comfortable and not crowded. WIth my theme being the San Francisco Opera I wanted there to be a sense of uniform and class. Before moving into Illustrator I sketched out some grids to see where I would like the placement of my text. 16

After sketching I moved into Illustrator. I started working in black and white and struggled with moving my paragraphs around. I started by using the baseline grid in Illustrator and quickly realized that I needed to make my own. After creating a 4 by 4 grid I was quickly on my way.

Once I developed an overall grid that was helpful to me and worked with my text, I started to add color. I used a picture from San Francisco Opera and used it as a way to create my color palette. There were soft gold, velvet red, chandelier blue and cream white throughout the photo. 17

I found that using the grid also limited my creativity. As I explored the text I had I really wanted to challenge myself to be creative with it. Moving the words and titles vertically was a big step for me, because I thought it was so unnatural for text to be that way.

After printing out several copies and looking at my pieces we were given an assignment to cut 5 of our pieces and rearrange them on a paper. This activity really helped me to be more creative on where I wanted things. I learned that because I am a very hands on artist I found that this helped me open up more about implementing creativity in my project.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project. I felt that it was challenging for me since I have not worked with a lot of text and how to arrange it. I ended up loving my pieces and their differences. I enjoyed learning more about grid and the importance of it in Typography.

Project 2 - Part 2 Grid Systems 2 // Making and Breaking the Grid // Calendar Design statement: Required to have just the minimum of the months, days and year I created my form of a calendar that can be functional or also interpreted as art. With the use of only Illustrator, Photoshop and a scanner I was able to create a calendar for this assignment.

Having jumped into this project I quickly realized that I had forgotten how to brainstorm and that was the first challenge I had with this project. Starting from nothing is never easy but it was very hard to see past the word and affirmation of a calendar. Something that is functional, used for organization and purpose. I had firstly made the mistake of going into Illustrator too soon and picking an idea of what I wanted my calendar to be. Unfortunately this exploration lead me back to my sketchbook to find a new idea. I had been overthinking the brainstorming and tried to find things I want to design instead of what was coming to me in my brainstorm. 20

After taking a step back I realized that I needed to start back to my roots with very basic themes and ideas. There, in the basic words I had written I found the themes of my calendar; music and memories. My first piece would include tape recorders to resemble music, vintage and jazz.

The second piece would include the documentation of memories with the use of polaroids. This idea came from my experience in school and having the urge to document everything we do in order to preserve the memories forever. I wanted both my calendars to have similar themes but also be able to stand apart on their own as individual pieces.

The second challenge I experienced was the physical design. For calendar 1, I set out to find tape recorders to see a tangible object in front of me that I would experiment with and take apart.

Once found I took one apart and saw its individual pieces, then scanned them into Photoshop, therefore I would be able to implement them into my design. Having the physical object there helped me to create a more fluid piece with a mix of type and design. 22

I enjoyed the final look of my piece and felt that the black and white gave the contrast I was trying to convey. It was also functional, yet still had the feel of a creative piece of artwork.

For calendar 2 I had set out to take and find polaroids to scan and place into Illustrator. Each photo was chosen to hold a different meaning for that month. I also wanted to showcase handwriting in this piece because I feel as though it gives a more realistic feel to what a polaroid is for. I had gone back and forth with the idea of having my calendars vertical or horizontal. After testing both ways, I realized that horizontal fits much better with my layout.

Overall, this project had me rethink the idea of a calendar and its functions. Not only can it be helpful for everyday tasks or just needed for the knowledge of what day of the week it may be. A calendar can be something interpreted by many different ways. My goal for this calendar was to showcase a feeling of nostalgia and its antonym, the looking towards the future.

Project 3 Type Specimen Mailer Design Statement: The goal of this mailer was to utilize our typeface and explain its history throughout the four panels of a mailer. Then when you were to open the mailer and flip it around you could see the creative use of the typeface with our own choice of text created into a poster form.

When I was introduced to this project I was immediately interested in receiving my typeface and using it to create this mailer. Univers was the perfect typeface for me since I had never used it before and was excited to learn more about it. Throughout my research I realized that this typeface has been used in the world and specifically in places I have seen. Univers is very well known typeface in the transportation services in Europe, specifically in Paris.

I was fascinated by the visuals that Univers was designed in. I found that it was inspiring to see all the creative ways that Frutiger and other designers had used the typeface. Researching more about the typeface showed me that there were many different ways that the typeface could be applied. Although this typeface was designed or legibility and metro stations, designers also used it as a typeface that they could use creatively. 28

When opening the mailer and seeing the poster on the back I wanted to have it correlate well with my panels in the front. With this in mind I chose lyrics from Frank Sinatra “Fly Me To The Moon” to play on the idea of the theme of this typeface. Not only does this fit my theme for this mailer but it is a song that it very close to my heart.

As a kid I was always exposed to jazz music and it still remains one of my favorite genres of music. This made the poster aspect of this project something I was very passionate about. I chose the lyrics “fly me to the moon / and let me play amongst the stars” as the focal lyrics for this piece.

In the middle of this project we had went on a field trip to Letterform Archive in San Francisco. While we were there we were able to learn about the beginning of typography and see the tangible objects that changed the way people viewed typefaces. Fortunately, I was able to learn more about my typeface and actually see some of the original works of creating the varieties of these fonts. This visit helped inspire me again and motivated me throughout the rest of the project.

One challenge I had with this mailer was the way it needed to be folded after printing, I found that this was very difficult for me. Since I wanted the design to measure out correctly and have no overlapping I had done many printed tests before reaching my final mailer.

I also wanted to make sure that the mailer and the poster were represented together. When the poster was folded on the back I did not want there to be too many creases in the words. I folded my tester mailer multiple times to make sure that it was just how I wanted it.

I struggled with placement of the words. I wanted the poster to resemble a universe type of the look but I was having a difficult time with making it something look organized and structured. At first I did not want to incorporate repetition in my poster but it was more successful when I played off the words in the lyrics.

Overall, this has been one of my favorite projects because it was something that I found very interesting. I also enjoyed the freedom of playing with a song I love and showcasing it with typography.

Project 4 Redesigning a Book Cover Design Statement: This assignment gave us the freedom to pick our own book and design a new book cover for it. The design needs to give hints of the book without giving away the major storyline.

Scanned with CamScanner

When beginning this project I did not know exactly what book I wanted Scanned with CamScanner to redesign. After researching on some books that I have read I finally stumbled upon the idea of The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I had read this book after I had seen the film. I was always interested in the mysterious lives of the mafia in New York since I have family from there. Once I had made my decision to do redesign this book cover I started to create many ideas.

When researching I found that there were not many modern designs of this book, which I was excited about. I was inspired by the color palette of red, black and white.

I started cutting the title individually in order to use it to experiment with my cards. I wanted to glue them onto the cards to give a different perspective of typography. I had a good time experimenting with the different sizes of text and which cards I wanted to place them on.

I also wanted to experiment with using red and blue paint to resemble blood on the cards. Since The Godfather is a violent and gory book I wanted to convey that in a less obvious way. That is why I decided to use blood on the cards to see if it would work with my final book cover.

I began working in Illustrator with versions of my cards and playing with how I wanted my book cover to look. I found that when I used my typeface directly on Illustrator it did not give me the depth I wanted for my book cover. I did like the effect of the font but I found that when I saw the cut outs place on the cards and scanned in, it made the cover look more interesting.

I decided that since I wanted to scan the cards with the typeface glued on it, I wanted to create a mockup to see how I would arrange the letters onto the cars. I liked the idea of having each word on one card but then I started to explore what it would look like to have one or two letters on each card and create a collage out of cards.

I thought that this was a breakthrough for me since it was utilizing the purpose of the cards as well as giving more insight to the book. Once I developed this idea I could not wait to scan it and place it into Illustrator.

I scanned all my cards and put it into Illustrator to start working with it. I wanted to have my background use the back of the cards to act as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;bloodâ&#x20AC;? of the book cover without physically splattering paint on a piece of paper.

I added some cards that I had painted on to give the illusion without being too obvious. I also ripped some paper to see how the layering with the cards would look. I was happy with the outcome of the scans and it worked well with my design towards the end.

Overall, I was happy with the result of my book cover. I found that throughout this project I was able to really explore what I wanted to pursue for this book cover. Since there were not many designs of the book cover online I was very creative and explored a lot of different ideas. I knew the book well and feel like I executed my ideas thoroughly. Although it was challenging to find a pack of cards out in San Francisco, it was worth looking for because this project would not have been the same without them.