GASP MAGAZINE by Tashina Wells

GASP

Incredible Innovative Typography

What is Typography All About? Type Casting When Typography Speaks Louder Than Words Back to the Basics: Stopping Sloppy Typography Letters In Wonderhand Grooming the Font Type On Screen Typographic Installation A Journey Through Beautiful Typography

Table of Contents

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31-32

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47 A Letter From the Editor

33-44 Typographic Installation

What is Typography All About?

Look at the headline after it has been set. Does it space well? Is it easy to read? Does it lead naturally into the text copy that follows? If it is more than two lines of copy, does the line spacing look even? Is the message enhanced by the typeface? Is the text copy inviting? Is it an even texture? If columns are set rag-right, do all the lines end in about the same place? If they are set justified, is the copy-block free from ribbons of white running through it? Are the lines short enough and is there enough line spacing so that the reader won’t read the same line twice? All are simple questions to answer – if the designer looks at the type, uses a little common sense and sweats the details.

By: Allan Haley

If you think about it, the craft of typography is little more than the combination of three very simple things: attention to detail, common sense and visual acuity. Sure, there are typographic rules and guidelines, but they are, for the most part, just based on what is sensible and pleasing to the eye. Learning to identify the parts of a character may increase a designer’s business vocabulary, and knowing the lineage of Garamond designs may aid in the choosing of a good modern revival of the face, but the real key to typographic success is basically just “sweating the details” and a simple coordination of mind and eye.

OK, an appreciation and understanding of the basis of good typography is a strong foundation to build on. But all the typographic education in the world is of little value, if designers do not use a little common sense – and look at the work they produce. The job is not done when the headline is dropped into the layout or the text copy poured into a column. It is only complete when the designer has looked at the finished product – really looked at it – and made sure that the type looks correct, is handled consistently and makes visual sense.

Take, for instance, the typographic rule of avoiding all cap copy. The tenet about not setting all capitals is really based on little more than simple logic. Capital letters take up more space than lowercase letters – up to 30% more space. Headlines, subheads and pull-quotes are about setting brief blocks of copy in a relatively small space. It’s only common sense to use the most space-efficient letters: lowercase. Sure, there’s all that stuff about how “word shapes” (made from ascending, descending and x-height lowercase letters) might help us read faster and that all capitals only create rectangles as visual identifiers, but just the fact that the little letters can pack more information into a given piece of design real estate than capitals, ought to be enough reason to rely on them.

Points, picas, line spacing, and kerning are only the mechanics. Software applications are just tools. It takes a concentrated effort to create typography. It takes common sense and a careful eye to create communication that is inviting, makes an impact, focuses attention, organizes information and creates a mood – ultimately giving life and personality to the printed word. It also takes the time and attention necessary to ensure that the job is done right – really right. That is what typography is all about.

Correcting typographic widows, orphans is also just about making things look right; as is the idea of not cluttering the right edge of a column with a bunch of hyphens. Keeping word-spacing tight and even is simply to create an inviting block of copy that doesn’t have visually disrupting white-space gaps that also slow down the reading process. Common sense and what looks good even applies to the basic issue of choosing the correct typeface. Some typefaces are better in one size than another. One may be bad for lengthy text in a book or brochure but good for short blocks of promotional copy. The best typeface for a particular occasion can depend upon its size, weight or its position on the page. The best typefaces, however, are always those that are appropriate for the time, the reader and the situation. All one has to do to make the correct choice is look at the design and think about how it will be used. If it looks right – it probably is.

Article 1: Type Casting By: Steven Brower

Article 1: Type Casting

remaining “thick” and the verticals thinning out. Back then, when type was “spec’d” and sent out to a typesetter, there was a standing order at the type house to condense all type for our company 20 percent. Sometimes, we would cut the type and extend it by hand, which created less distortion but still odd-looking faces. Once, I was instructed by the art director to cut the serifs off a face, to suit his whim. It’s a good thing there is no criminal prosecution for type abuse. The art director usually commissioned the art for these titles. Therefore, the job of the designers was to find the “appropriate” type solution that worked with these illustrations to create the package. It was here that I learned my earliest lessons in the cliches of typography. Mass- market paperbacks are divided into different genres, distinct categories that define their audience and subject matter. Though they were unspoken rules, handed down from generation to generation, here is what I learned about type during my employ: Typeface/genre ------------------------------Square serif/ western Script and cursive/ romance LED faces/ Science fiction Nueland/ African (in spite of the fact that they typeface is of German origin) Latin/ Mystery Fat, round serif faces/ Children’s Sans serif/ nonfiction Hand scrawl/ horror 1950s bouncy type/ humor-teen titles

By: Steven Brower

My first job in book design was at New American Library, a publisher of mass-market books. I was thrilled to be hired. It was exactly where I wanted to be. I love the written word, and viewed this as my entrance into a world I wanted to participate in. Little did I suspect at the time that mass-market books, also known as pocket” books (they measure approximately 4” X 7”, although I have yet to wear a pocket they fit comfortably into), were viewed in the design world as the tawdry stepchild of true literature and design, gaudy and unsophisticated. I came to understand that this was due to the fact that mass-market books, sold extensively in supermarkets and convenience stores, had more in common with soap detergent and cereal boxes than with their much more dignified older brother, the hardcover first edition book. Indeed, the level of design of paperbacks was as slow to evolve as a box of Cheerios. On the other hand, hardcover books, as if dressed in evening attire, wore elegant and sophisticated jackets. Next in line in terms of standing, in both the literary and design worlds, was the trade paper edition, a misnomer that does not refer to a specific audience within an area of work, but, rather, to the second edition of the hardcover, or first edition, that sports a paperbound cover. Trade paperbacks usually utilize the same interior printing as the hardcover, and are roughly the same size (generally, 6” x 9”). Mass-market books were not so lucky. The interior pages of the original edition were shrunk down, with no regard for the final type size or the eyes of the viewer. The interiors tended to be printed on cheap paper stock, prone to yellowing over time. The edges were often dyed to mask the different grades of paper used. The covers were usually quite loud, treated with a myriad of special effects (i.e., gold or silver foil, embossing and de-bossing, spot lamination, die cuts, metallic and Day-Glo pantone lors, thermography, and even holography), all designed to jump out at 1 and into your shopping cart as you walk down the aisle. The tradition mass-market covers had more in common with, and, perhaps, for the part is the descendant of, pulp magazine covers of earlier decades, their colorful titles and over-the-top illustrations, than that of its ^.stylish, larger, and more expensive cousins. I Learned So, when I made my entry into the elite world of literature, I began in the “bullpen” of a mass-market house. I believed I would be afforded a good opportunity to learn something about type and image. Indeed, in my short tenure there, I employed more display typefaces in a year and a half than I will in the rest of my lifetime. And, I abused type more than I ever dreamed possible. There, type was always condensed or stretched so the height would be greater in a small format. The problem was that the face itself became distorted, as if it was put on the inquisitionist rack, with the horizontals

And so it went. Every month, we were given five to six titles we were responsible for, and every month, new variations on old themes hung up on the wall. For a brief period I was assigned all the romance titles, which, themselves, were divided into subgenres (historical, regency, contemporary, etc). I made the conscious decision to create the very best romance covers around. Sure, I would use script and cursive type, but I would use better script and cursive type, so distinctive, elegant, and beautiful that I, or anyone else, would recognize the difference immediately. (When, six months after I left the job, I went to view my achievements at the local K-Mart, I could not pick out any of my designs from all the rest on the bookracks.) Soon after, I graduated to art director of a small publishing house. The problem was, I still knew little of and had little confidence in, typography. However, by this time, I knew I knew little about typography. My solution, therefore, was to create images that contained the type as an integral part of the image, in a play on vernacular design, thereby avoiding the issue entirely. Thus began a series of collaborations with talented illustrators and photographers, in which the typography of the jacket was incorporated as part of the illustration. Mystery books especially lent themselves well to this endeavor. A nice thing about this approach is

that it has a certain informality and familiarity with the audience. It also made my job easier, because I did not have to paste up much type for the cover (as one had to do back in the days of t-squares and wax), since it was, for the most part, self-contained within the illustration. This may seem like laziness on my part, but hey, I was busy. Eventually, my eye began to develop, and my awareness and appreciation of good typography increased. I soon learned the pitfalls that most novice designers fall into, like utilizing a quirky novelty face does not equal creativity and usually calls attention to the wrong aspects of the solution. The importance of good letterspacing became paramount. Finding the right combination of a serif and sans serif face to evoke the mood of the material within was now my primary concern. The beauty of a classically rendered letterform now moved me, to quote Eric Gill, as much “as any sculpture or painted picture.” I developed an appreciation for the rules of typography. The Rules I’ve said, it is a common mistake among young designers to think a quirky novelty face equals creativity. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If anything, for the viewer, it has the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than being the total sum of individual expression, it simply calls attention to itself, detracting from, rather than adding to, the content of the piece. It is no substitute for a well-reasoned conceptual solution to the design problem at hand. As a general rule, no more than two faces should be utilized in any given design, usually the combination of a serif face and a sans serif face. There are thousands to choose from, but I find I have reduced the list to five or six in each category that I have used as body text throughout my career: Serif Bodoni Caslon Cheltenham Garamond Sans Serif Franklin Gothic Futura Gill Sans News Gothic Trade Gothic You should never condense or extend type. As I stated, this leads to unwanted distortions. Much care and consideration went into the design of these faces, and they should be treated with respect. There are thousands of condensed faces to choose from without resorting to the horizontal and vertical scale functions. Do not use text type as display. Even though the computer will enlarge the top beyond the type designer’s intention, this may result in distortions. Do not use display type as text. Often, display type that looks great large can be difficult to read when small.

Do not stack type. The result is odd-looking spacing that looks as if it is about to tumble on top of itself. The thinness of the letter I is no match for the heft of an 0 sitting on top of it. As always, there are ways to achieve stacking successfully, but this requires care. Also, as I noted, much care should be given to letterspacing the characters of each word. This is not as simple as it seems. The computer settings for type are rife with inconsistencies that need to be corrected optically. Certain combinations of letterforms are more difficult to adjust than others. It is paramount that even optical (as opposed to actual) spacing is achieved, regardless of the openness or closeness of the kerning. It helps if you view the setting upside down, or backwards on a light box or sun-filled window, or squint at the copy to achieve satisfactory spacing. I would caution you in the judicious use of drop shadows. Shadows these days can be rendered easily in programs such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator, and convincingly, too. The problem is, it is so easily done that it is overdone. Thus, the wholesale usage of soft drop shadows has become the typographic equivalent of clip art. Viewers know they have seen it before. Rather than being evocative, it mainly evokes the program it was created in. Hard drop shadows, ones that are 100 percent of a color, are easily achieved in Quark and placed behind the main text. This method is generally employed when the main text is not reading against the background, because of a neutral tone or an image that varies in tone from dark to light. The handed-down wisdom is; If you need a drop shadow to make it read, the piece isn’t working. These solid drop shadows always look artificial, since, in reality, there is no such thing as a solid drop shadow. There should be a better solution to readability. Perhaps the background or the color of the type can be adjusted. Perhaps the type should be paneled or outlined. There are an infinite number of possible variations. If you must use a solid drop shadow, it should never be a color. Have you ever seen a shadow in life that is blue, yellow, or green? It should certainly never be white. Why would a shadow be 100 percent lighter than what is, in theory, casting the shadow? White shadows create a hole in the background, and draw the eye to the shadow, and not where you want it to go: the text. Justified text looks more formal than flush left, rag right. Most books are set justified, while magazines are often flush left, rag right. Centered copy will appear more relaxed than asymmetrical copy. Large blocks of centered type can create odd-looking shapes that detract from the copy contained within. Another thing to consider is the point size and width of body copy. The tendency in recent times is to make type smaller and smaller, regardless of the intended audience. However, the whole purpose of text is that it be read. A magazine covering contemporary music is different from the magazine for The American Association of Retired Persons. It is also common today to see very wide columns of text, with the copy set at a small point size. The problem is that a very wide column is

hard to read because it forces the eye to move back and forth, tiring the reader. On the other hand, a very narrow measure also is objectionable, because the phrases and words are too cut up, with the eye jumping from line to line. We, as readers, do not read letter by letter, or even word by word, but, rather, phrase by phrase. A consensus favors an average of ten to twelve words per line.’ Lastly, too much leading between lines also makes the reader work too hard jumping from line to line, while too little leading makes it hard for the reader to discern where one line ends and another begins. The audience should always be paramount in the designer’s approach, and it is the audience—not the whim of the designer, or even the client—that defines the level of difficulty and ease with which a piece is read. As Eric Gill said in 1931, “A book is primarily a thing to be read.”’ A final consideration is the size of the type. As a rule of thumb, mass-market books tend to be 8 point for reasons of space. A clothbound book, magazine, or newspaper usually falls into the 9.5 point to 12 point range. Oversized art books employ larger sizes—generally, 14 point to 18 point or more. Choosing the right typeface for your design can be time-consuming. There are thousands to choose from. Questions abound. Is the face legible at the setting I want? Does it evoke what I want it to evoke? Is it appropriate to the subject matter? There are no easy answers. When a student of mine used Clarendon in a self-promotion piece, I questioned why he chose a face that has 1950s connotations, mainly in connection with Reid Miles’ Blue Note album covers. He answered, “Because I thought it was cool.” I lectured him profusely on selecting type simply based on its “coolness.” Later, I relayed the incident to Seymour Chwast, of the legendary Pushpin Group (formerly Pushpin Studios). He observed that Clarendon is actually a Victorian face, which he and his peers revived as young designers in the 1950s. When I asked him why they chose to bring this arcane face back to life, he replied, “Because we thought it was cool.” Breaking the Rules Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. An infinite number of faces can be used within one design, particularly when you employ a broadside-style ^e solution, a style that developed with the woodtype settings of the nineteenth century. Another style, utilizing a myriad of faces, is that influenced by the Futurist and Dada movements of the early twentieth century. As Robert N. Jones stated in an article in. the May I960 issue of Print magazine: “It is my belief that there has never been a typeface that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the hands of the right... designer.’” Of course;’ this was before the novelty type explosion that took place later that decade, and, again, after the advent of the Macintosh computer. Still, Jeffery Keedy, a contemporary type designer whose work appears regularly in Emigre, concurs: “Good designers can make use of almost anything. The typeface is the point of departure, not the destination.” Note the caveat “almost.” Still, bad use of good type is much less desirable than good use of bad type. When I first began in publishing, a coworker decided to let me in on the “secrets” of picking the appropriate face. “If you get ‘a book on Lin-

coln to design,” he advised, “look up an appropriate typeface in the index of the type specimen book.” He proceeded to do so. “Ah, here we go— Log Cabin!”’ While, on the extremely rare occasion, I have found this to be a useful method, it’s a good general rule of what not to do. Look at the headline after it has been set. Does it space well? Is it easy to read? Does it lead naturally into the text copy that follows? If it is more than two lines of copy, does the line spacing look even? Is the message enhanced by the typeface? Is the text copy inviting? Is it an even texture? If columns are set rag-right, do all the lines end in about the same place? If they are set justified, is the copy-block free from ribbons of white running through it? Are the lines short enough and is there enough line spacing so that the reader won’t read the same line twice? All are simple questions to answer – if the designer looks at the type, uses a little common sense and sweats the details. OK, an appreciation and understanding of the basis of good typography is a strong foundation to build on. But all the typographic education in the world is of little value, if designers do not use a little common sense – and look at the work they produce. The job is not done when the headline is dropped into the layout or the text copy poured into a column. It is only complete when the designer has looked at the finished product – really looked at it – and made sure that the type looks correct, is handled consistently and makes visual sense. Points, picas, line spacing, and kerning are only the mechanics. Software applications are just tools. It takes a concentrated effort to create typography. It takes common sense and a careful eye to create communication that is inviting, makes an impact, focuses attention, organizes information and creates a mood – ultimately giving life and personality to the printed word. It also takes the time and attention necessary to ensure that the job is done right – really right. That is what typography is all about.

When Typography Speaks Louder Than Words

lowercase and closely kerned. The positioning in the frame makes the word dominant and loud, and the message comes across as enthusiastic, friendly and confident. The person speaking is pleased to see you and is coming towards you with a big smile on their face.

By: C. Knight, J. Glaser

A big bold hello

Clever graphic designers love to use typography to explore the interaction between the look of type and what type actually says. In communicating a message, a balance has to be achieved between the visual and the verbal aspects of a design. Sometimes, however, designers explore the visual aspect of type to a much greater extent than the verbal. In these cases, the visual language does all the talking. This article explores when the visual elements of typography speak louder than words.

The second illustration contrasts dramatically with the first, despite featuring the exact same greeting. The font, case, scale, color and positioning all suggest a considerably more distant and hesitant meeting. In fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that the person speaking here is not at all sure they even want to acknowledge you and would have preferred to ignore you completely. A quieter way of saying hello – small and to the side.

Cal Swan, author of Language and Typography, makes this point well when he says, “These two distinct areas often come together in practice as there is clearly a very strong relationship between the conception of the words as a message and their transmission in visible form.” To avoid any misunderstanding, let’s clarify what the terms “visual language” and “verbal language” mean. In professional graphic design, visual language refers to the meanings created by the visual appearance of both text and image. In this article, the term “visual language” refers to the character and significance created by carefully selected typography. Verbal language is the literal meaning of words, phrases and sentences.

The name style from Greenpeace’s campaign to raise awareness of the impact of deforestation.

Reading these examples aloud helps us instantly appreciate the different effects of visual language. If you read the first example out loud, it would be a loud enthusiastic call that exudes genuine delight, friendliness and openness. Reading aloud the second example, the exact same word, it would be delivered in a much quieter tone, an almost hesitant voice, lacking the assurance and delight of the first. There is an infinite range of typographic alternatives that achieve subtle or dramatic changes in volume and tone of voice.

One of Lubalin’s many typographically expressive designs that have become iconic and inspiring to generations of graphic designers. (Image: Peter Gabor)

In this first of a two-part series, we will look at the powerful effect that typography has in taking control of meaning. We will discuss a range of examples, from verbal language that inspires and shapes visual treatment to visual language that dominates verbal meaning. The implications of typographic choices in meaning and interpretation will also be examined. And we will show how the same message can be presented in a number of ways to convey and encourage a diversity of responses. We all have different cultural backgrounds and experiences that affect our perception of type one way or another. So, regardless of the designer’s skill and effort, a number of uncontrollable aspects remain, including the viewer’s perception, expectations, knowledge, experiences and preferences. And while accounting for all such unpredictable responses to type is impossible, awareness is critical. Manipulating Feelings and Reactions The visual language established when designing with type can bring into play not only emotions, but also physical responses. The following examples are simple illustrations of the varied and emotive effects and highly dominant control that can be achieved by changing the visual language of a message, while still presenting the same verbal language.

Award-winning self-promotional ad by Alison Carmichael for the Creative Circle.

This first of a pair of illustrations shows a single large bold word, set in

Article 2: Back to the Basics: Stopping Sloppy Typography By: John D. Berry

Article 2: Back to the Basics: Stopping Sloppy Typography

remedial courses in using type. Automated Errors

By: John D. Berry

As my own small gesture toward improvement, I’ll point out a couple of the more obvious problems—^in the hope that maybe, maybe, they’ll become slightly less commonplace, at least for a while. Typewriter quotes and straight apostrophes are actually on the wane, thanks to word-processing programs and page-layout programs that offer the option of automatically changing them to typographers’ quotes on the fly. (I’m not sure what has made the phenomenon I spotted on that billboard so common, but I’ve noticed a lot of examples recently of text where the double quotation marks are correct but the apostrophes are straight.) But those same automatic typesetting routines have created another almost universal mistake: where an apostrophe at the’ beginning of a word appears backwards, as a single open quotation mark. You see this in abbreviated dates (‘99, ‘01) and in colloquial spellings, like ‘em for them. The program can turn straight quotes into typographers’ quotes automatically, making any quotation mark at the start of a word into an open quote, and any quotation mark at the end of a word into a closed quote, but it has no way of telling that the apostrophe at the beginning of ‘em isn’t supposed to be a single open quote, so it changes it into one. The only way to catch this is to make the correction by hand— every time.

There’s a billboard along the freeway in San Francisco that’s entirely typographic, and very simple. Against a bright blue background, white letters spell out a single short line, set in quotation marks: “Are you lookin’ at me?” The style of the letters is traditional, with serifs; it looks like a line of dialogue, which is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Since this is a billboard, and the text is the entire message of the billboard, it’s a witty comment on the fact that you are looking at “me”—that is, the message on the billboard—as you drive past. But, as my partner and I drove past and spotted this billboard for the first time, we both simultaneously voiced the same response; “No, I’m looking at your apostrophe!” The quotation marks around the sentence are real quotation marks, which blend in with the style of the lettering—^”typographers’ quotes,” as they’re sometimes called—^but the apostrophe at the end of “lookin” is, disconcertingly, a single “typewriter quote,” a straight up-and-down line with a rounded top and a teardrop tail at the bottom. To anyone with any sensitivity to the shapes of letters, whether they know the terms of typesetting or not, this straight apostrophe is like a fart • in a symphony—^boorish, crude, out of place, and distracting. The normal quotation marks at the beginning and end of the sentence just serve to make the loud “blat!” of the apostrophe stand out. If that had been the purpose of the billboard, it would have been very effective. But unless the billboards along Highway 101 have become the scene of an exercise in typographic irony, it’s just a big ol’ mistake. Really big, and right out there in plain sight.

Anemic Type The other rude noise that has become common in the symphony hall is fake small caps. Small caps are a wonderful thing, very useful and sometimes elegant; fake small caps are a distraction and an abomination. Fake caps are what you get when you use a program’s “small caps” command. The software just shrinks the full-size capital letters down by a predetermined percentage—^which gives you a bunch of small, spindly- looking caps all huddled together in the middle of the text. If the design calls for caps and small caps that is, small caps for the word but a full cap for the first letter—it’s even worse, since the full-size caps draw attention to themselves because they look so much heavier than the smaller caps next to them. (If you’re using caps and small caps to spell out an acronym, this might make sense; in that case, you might want the initial caps to stand out. Otherwise, it’s silly. (And—here comes that word again— distracting.)

The Devil Is In the Details This may be a particularly large-scale example, but it’s not unusual. Too much of the signage and printed matter that we read—and that we, if we’re designers or typographers, create—is riddled with mistakes like this. It seems that an amazing number of people responsible for creating graphic matter are incapable of noticing when they get the type wrong. This should not be so. These fine points ought to be covered in every basic class in typography, and basic typography ought to be part of The education of every graphic designer. But clearly, this isn’t the case— or else a lot of designers skipped that part of the class, or have simply for-gotten what they once learned about type. Or, they naively believe the software they use will do the job for them.

If it weren’t for a single exception, I’d advise everyone to just forget about the “small caps” command—forget it ever existed, and never, ever, touch it again. (The exception is Adobe InDesign, which is smart enough to find the real small caps in an Open Type font that includes them, and ‘■ use them when the “small caps” command is invoked. Unfortunately, InDesign isn’t smart enough, or independent enough, to

Maybe it’s time for a nationwide—no, worldwide—^program of

say, “No, thanks,” when you invoke “small caps” in a font that doesn’t actually have any. It just goes ahead and makes those familiar old fake small caps.) You don’t really need small caps at all, in most typesetting situations; small caps are a typographic refinement, not a crutch. If you’re going to use them, use real small caps: properly designed letters with the form of caps, but usually a little wider, only as tall as the x-height or a little taller, and with stroke weights that match the weight of the lowercase and the full caps of the same typeface. Make sure you’re using a typeface that has true small caps, if you want small caps. Letterspace them a little, and set them slightly loose, the same • way you would (or at least should) with a word in all caps; it makes the word much more readable. Pay Attention Now There are plenty of other bits of remedial typesetting that we ought to study, but those will do for now. The obvious corollary to all this is, to produce well-typeset words, whether in a single phrase on a billboard or several pages of text, you have to pay attention. Proofread. Proofread again. Don’t trust the defaults of any program you use. Look at good typesetting and figure out how it was done, then do it yourself. Don’t be sloppy. Aim for the best. Words to live by, I suppose. And, certainly, words to set type by.

A Journey Through Beautiful Typography In Web Design

Well, this is definitely playful! The tone of the website is set not just by the look of the typeface, but by the way it’s displayed. It breaks the mold of communication. You would usually see axial typography on printed posters, which can be effective. On this website, the font choice isn’t particularly decorative or playful; it’s a rather simple sans serif. A nice touch is the background pattern, which mimics the reading direction and the movement of the user’s head from side to side as they read the text.

By: Shavaughn Haack

First impressions are lasting impressions. Whether you realize it or not, your typography helps to create an experience for users before they’ve even read a word or clicked a button. Typography has the potential to go beyond merely telling a story — it shows the user who is behind the website and what you’re about. The treatment of type creates an atmosphere and elicits a response much the same way as tone of voice does.

This website is altogether remarkable. The page has such a dynamic feel, created by the different elements on it. The nameplate is in a bold yet elegant typeface, setting the tone for the design. A sense of movement is established by the diagonal lines, which follow the slant of the “A” in the nameplate, setting the rhythm for the website. The movement of the slideshow of teasers grabs your attention, and the images are large without feeling cramped. However, the main background image of the website is 2560 × 5350 pixels and 2.4 MB — ouch!

You need to ask yourself, what do you want to say and how do you want to say it? Consider the user: What do you want them to feel and experience when the page loads? Typography establishes a mode of communication and, in turn, the personality of the website. The choice of typeface will determine how people respond to your website. The following websites have very distinct personalities, largely established by the typography. Granted, sometimes they aren’t perfect (unfortunately, performance is often an issue), but they use type to engage the user and generate interest. Good Web typography isn’t just about a beautiful visual treatment, but about speed as well; many designers neglect performance entirely. Please keep in mind that these websites haven’t been tested in old browsers or on mobile devices — that wasn’t the point of this article. Instead, we’ll look closely at interesting treatments and innovative uses of type.

Playful

Matt Luckhurst

This page is colorful and fun. You are greeted with lovely serif letters — and after a bit, you realize that the seemingly randomly scattered letters spell Matt’s name. It’s quite effective how hovering reveals a sample image of each project; it almost jumps out of the letter. The website shows how type can be used as graphic elements and incorporated into a design. The multicolored serif typeface breaks away from the classic, maybe even sober, idea we may have of serifs.

Atelier

Article 3: Grooming the Font

change the Font Software....” If your license forbids improving the font itself, the only the Font legal way to tune it is through a software override. For example, ‘ you can use an external kerning editor to override the kerning table built into the font. This is the least elegant way to do it, but a multitude of errors in fitting and kerning can be masked, if- r ‘’ need be, by this means.

Writing begins with the making of meaningful marks. That is to say, leaving the traces of meaningful gestures. Typography begins with arranging meaningful marks that are already made. In that respect, the practice of typography is like playing the piano - an instrument quite different from the human voice. On the piano, the notes are already fixed, although their order, duration and amplitude are not. The notes are fixed but they can be endlessly rearranged, into meaningful music or meaningless noise.

10.2 ETHICAL & AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS 10.2.1 If it ain’t broke....

Pianos, however, need to be tuned. The same is true of fonts. To put this in more literary terms, fonts need to be edited just as carefully as texts do - and may need to be re-edited, like texts, when their circumstances change. The editing of fonts, like the editing of texts, begins before their birth and never ends.

Any part of the font can be tuned - lettershapes, character set, character encoding, fitting and sidebearings, kerning table, hinting, and, in an OpenType font, the rules governing character substitution. What doesn’t need tuning or fixing shouldn’t be touched. If you want to revise the font just for the sake of revising it, you might do better to design your own instead. And if you hack up someone else’s font for practice, like a biology student cutting up a frog, you might cremate or bury the results.

You may prefer to entrust the editing of your fonts, like the tuning of your piano, to a professional. If you are the editor of a magazine or the manager of a publishing house, that is probably the best way to proceed. But devoted typographers, like lutenists and guitarists, often feel that they themselves must tune the instruments they play.

10.2.2 If the font is out of tune, fix it once and for all. One way to refine the typography of a text is to work your way through it line by line, putting space in here, removing it there, and repositioning errant characters one by one. But if these refinements are made to the font itself, you will never need to make them again. They are done for good.

10.1 LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS 10.1.1 Check the license before tuning a digital font. Digital fonts are usually licensed to the user, not sold outright, and the license terms vary. Some manufacturers claim to believe that improving a font produced by them is an infringement of their rights. No one believes that tuning a piano or pumping up the tires of a car infringes on the rights of the manufacturer - and this is true no matter whether the car or the piano has been rented, leased or purchased. Printing type was treated the same way from Bf Sheng’s time until the 1980s. Generally speaking, metal type and phototype are treated that way still. In the digital realm, where the font is wholly intangible, those older notions of ownership are under pressure to change.

10.2.3 Respect the text first of all, the letterforms second, the type designer third, the foundry fourth. needs of the text should take precedence over the layout of I the font, the integrity of the letterforms over the ego of the designer, the artistic sensibility of the designer over the foundry’s desire for profit, and the founder’s craft over a good deal else. Check every text you set to see where improvements can be made Then return to the font and make them. Little by little, you and the instrument - the font, that is - will fuse, and the type you set will start to sing. Remember, though, this process never ends Ethical and There is no such thing as the perfect font. Aesthetic

The Linotype Library’s standard font license says that “You may modify the Font-Software to satisfy your design requirements.” FontShop’s standard license has a similar provision: “You do have the right to modify and alter Font Software for your customary personal and business use, but not for resale or further distribution.” Adobe’s and Agfa Monotype’s licenses contain no stich provision. Monotype’s says instead that “You may not alter ^ .f Font Software for the purpose of adding any functionality..,. You V agree not to adapt, modify, alter, translate, convert, or otherwise

Consider- 10.3 honing the character set 10.3.1 If there are defective glyphs, mend them. If the basic lettershapes of your font are poorly drawn, it is probably better to abandon it rather than edit it. But many fonts combine superb

printed more cleanly and sharply Grooming than three-dimensional type, but the gain in sharpness rarely the Font equals what is lost in depth and texture. A digital page is therefore apt to look aenemic next to a page printed directly from handset metal.

basic letterforms with alien or sloppy supple¬mentary characters. Where this is the case, you can usually rest’ assured that the basic letterforms are the work of a real designeii’ whose craftsmanship merits respect, and that the supplementary- characters were added by an inattentive foundry employee. The- latter’s errors should be remedied at once.

This imbalance can be addressed by going deeper into two dimensions. Digital type is capable of refinements of spacing and kerning beyond those attainable in metal, and the primary means of achieving this refinement is the kerning table.

You may find for example that analphabetic characters such. as @ + ± X = *- -- © are too big or too small, too light or too dark, too high or too low, or are otherwise out of tune with the basic alphabet. You may also find that diacritics in glyphs such” as a 9 e n 6 u are poorly drawn, poorly postioned, or out of scale with the letterforms. l + 2 = 3<9> 6±l -2x4 a + b = c * a@b • © 2007 I + 2 = 3<9>6±I -2x4 a + b = c * a@b * © 2007

Always check the sidebearings of figures and letters before you edit the kerning table. Sidebearings can be checked quickly for errors by disabling kerning and setting characters, at ample size, in pairs: 11223344.…qqwweerrttyy:... If the spacing within the pairs appears to vary, or if it appears consistently cramped or loose, the sidebearings probably need to be changed.

Jose Mendoza y Almeida’s Photina Is an excellent piece of design, but in every weight and style of Monotype digital Photina, as issued by the foundry, arithmetical signs and other analphabetics are out of scale and out of position, and the copyright symbol and at sign are alien to the font. The raw versions are shown in grey, corrected versions in black. euoa->euoa

The function of a kerning table is to achieve what perfect sidebearings cannot. A thorough check of the kerning “table therefore involves checking all feasible permutations of charac¬ters: 1213141516 ... qwqeqrqtqyquqiqoqpq ... (a(s(d(f(g(h(j(k(l ... )a)s)d)f)g... -1-2-3-4-5 ... TqTwTeTrTtTyTuTiToTp ... and so on. This will take several hours for a standard iso font. For a full pan-European font, it will take several days.

Frederic Coudy’s Kennerley is a homely but quite pleasant type, useful for many purposes, but in Lanston’s digital version, the letterforms are burdened with some preposterous diacritics. Above left: four accepted shorts as issued by the foundry. Above right: corrected versions. All fonts are candidates for similar improvement. Below left: four accented sorts from Robert Slimbach’s carefully honed Minion, as originally issued by Aclobe in 1989. Below right: the same glyphs, revised by Slimbach ten years later, while preparing the OpenType version of the face.

Class-based kerning (now a standard capability of font editing software) can be used to speed the process. In class-based kerning, similar letters, such as a a a a a a a a a a a a a a, are treated as one and kerned alike. This is an excellent way to begin when you are kerning a large font, but not a way to finish. The combinations Ta and Ta, Ti and Ti, il and 11, i) and 1), are likely to require different treatment. Kerning sequences such as Tp, Tt and f( may seem to you absurd, but they can and do occur in legitimate text. (Tpig is the name of a town in the mountains of Dagestan, near the southern tip of the Russian Federation; Ttanuu is an important historical site on the British Columbia coast; sequences such as / =/(x) occur routinely in mathematics.) If you know what texts you wish to set with a given font, and know that combinations such as these will never occur, you can certainly omit them from the table. But if you are preparing a font for general use, even in a single language, remember that it should accommodate the occasional foreign phrase and the names of real and fictional people, places and things. These can involve some unusual combinations. (A few additional examples: McTavish, FitzWilliam, O’Quinn, dogfish, Honing the jack o’-lantern, Hallowe’en.)

a e i u->a e i u 10.3.2 If text figures, ligatures or other glyphs you need on regular basis don’t reside on the base font, move them. For readable text, you almost always need text figures, but most digital fonts are sold with titling figures instead. Most digital fonts also include the ligatures fi and fl but not ff, ffi, ffl, or ffj. You may find at least some of the missing glyphs on a supplementary font (an ‘expert font’), but that is not enough. Put all the basic glyphs together on the base font. If, like a good Renaissance typographer, you use only upright parentheses and brackets (see §5.3.2), copy the upright forms from the roman to the italic font. Only then can they be kerned and spaced correctly without fuss.

Character It is also wise to check the font by running a test file - a speSet daily written text designed to hunt out missing or malformed characters and kerning pairs that are either too tight or too loose. On pages

‘10.3.3 If glyphs you need are missing altogether, make them.

204-205 is a short example of such a test file, showing the difference between an ungroomed font and a groomed one.

‘Standard iso digital text fonts (PostScript or TrueType) have 256 slots and carry a basic set of Western European characters. Eastern European characters such as a c d e g h l n o r s t u are usually missing. So are the Welsh sorts “w and y, and a host of characters needed for African, Asian and Native American languages.

It is nothing unusual for a well-groomed iso font (which might contain around two hundred working characters) to have a kerning table listing a thousand pairs. Kerning instructions for large OpenType fonts are usually stored in a different form, but if converted to tabular form, the kerning data for a pan-European Latin font may easily reach 30,000 pairs. For a well-groomed Latin-Greek-Cyrillic font, decompiling the kerning instructions can generate a table of 150,600 pairs. Remember, though, that the number isn’t what counts. What matters is the intelligence and style of the kerning. Remember too that there is no such thing as a font whose kerning cannot be improved.

The components required to make these characters may be present on the font, and assembling the pieces is not hard, but you need a place to put whatever characters you make. If you need only a few and do not care about system compatibility, you can place them in wasted slots - e.g., the A <> \ | ~ ‘ positions. Honing the Character Set 10.3.4 Check and correct the sidebearings.

10.3.6 Check the kerning of the word space.

The spacing of letters is part of the essence of their design. A well-made font should need little adjustment, except for refining the kerning. Remember, however, that kerning tables exist for the sake of problematical sequences such as/*,gy, “A, To, Va and 74. If you find that simple pairs such as 00 or oe require kerning, this is a sign that the letters are poorly fitted. It is better to correct the sidebearings than to write a bloated kerning table.

The word space - that invisible blank box - is the most common character in almost every text. It is normally kerned against sloping and undercut glyphs: quotation marks, apostrophe, the letters- A,T, V, W, Y, and often to the numerals 1,3,5. It is not, however, normally kerned more than a hair either to or away from a preceding lowercase/in either roman or italic. A cautionary example. Most of the Monotype digital reviv¬als I have tested over the years have serious flaws in the kerning tables. One problem in particular recurs in Monotype Baskerville, Centaur ^ Arrighi, Dante, Fournier, Gill Sans, Poliphilus & Blados Van Dijck and other masterworks in the Monotype collection. These are well-tried faces of superb design - yet in defiance of tradition, the maker’s kerning tables call for a large space (as much as M/4) to be added whenever the/ is followed by a word space. The result is a large white blotch after every word ending in/unless a mark of punctuation intervenes. Is it east of the sun and west of the moon — or is it west of the moon and east of the sun?

The spacing of many analphabetics, however, has as much to do with editorial style as with typographic design. Unless your fonts are custom made, neither the type designer nor the founder can know what you need or prefer. I habitually increase the left sidebearing of semicolon, colon, question and exclamation marks, and the inner bearings of guillemets and parentheses, in search of a kind of Channel Island compromise; neither the tight fitting preferred by most anglophone editors nor the wide-open spacing customary in France. If I worked in French all the time, I might increase these sidebearings further. abc: def; ghx? klm! «non» abc: def; ghx? klml «hmm» abf: def; ghx ? klm! « oui»

Monotype digital Van Dijck, before and after editing the kerning table. As issued, the kerning table adds 127 units (thousandths of an em) in the roman, and 228 in the italic, between the letter/and the word space. The corrected table adds 6 units in the roman, none in the italic. Other, less drastic refinements have also been made to the kerning table used in the second two lines.

Three options for the spacing of basic analphabetics in Monotype digital Centaur: foundry issue (top); French spacing (bottom); and something in between. Making such adjustments one by one by the insertion of fixed spaces can be tedious. It is easier by far, if you know what you want and you want it consistently, to incorporate your preferences into the font.

Professional typographers may argue about whether the added space should be zero, or ten, or even 25 thousandths of an em. But there is no professional dispute about whether it should b’e on the order of an eighth or a quarter of an em. An extra space Ibat large is a prefabricated typographic error - one that would bYing snorts of disbelief and instantaneous correction from |tanley Morison, Bruce Rogers, Jan

10.3.5 Refine the kerning table. Digital type can be printed in three dimensions, using zinc or polymer plates, and metal type can be printed flat, from photos or scans of the letterpress proofs. Usually, however, metal type is printed in three dimensions and digital type is printed as two. Two-dimensional type can be

van Krimpen, Eric Gill and others on whose expertise and genius the Monotype heritage is built. But it is an easy error to fix for anyone equipped with the Requisite tool: a digital font editor.

If, for example, you install Martin Sans (issued by FontShop) on a PC, you will find that the italic and the roman are unlinked. These superbly designed fonts, handsomely kerned and fully equipped with the requisite text figures and small caps - almost everything a be - but the PC versions must be placed m a font editor and renamed in order to make them work as expected.

10.4 HINTING 10.4.1 If the font looks poor at low resolutions, check the hinting. Digital hints are important chiefly for the sake of how the type will |6ok on screen. Broadly speaking, hints are of two kinds: generic Kints that apply to the font as a whole and specific hints applicable only to individual characters. Many fonts are sold unhinted, and fonts indeed are sold with hints that cannot be improved. Manual hinting is tedious in the extreme, but any good font editor of recent vintage will include routines for automated hinting. These routines are usually enough to make a poorly hinted l0xt font more legible on screen. (In the long run, the solution is bigh-resolution screens, making the hinting of fonts irrelevant except at tiny sizes.) 10.5 NAMING CONVENTIONS The presumption of common law is that inherited designs, like 1 inherited texts, belong in the public domain. New designs (or in the USA, the software in which they are enshrined) are protected for a certain term by copyright; the names of the designs are also normally protected by trademark legislation. The names are of ten better protected, In fact, because infringements on the rights conferred by a trademark are often much easier to prove than infringements of copyright. Nevertheless there are times when a typographer must tinker with the names manufacturers give to their digital fonts Text fonts are generally sold in families, which may include a ‘ smorgasbord of weights and variations .Most editing and typesetting software takes a narrower, more stereotypical view. It recognizes only the nuclear family of roman, italic, bold and bold-italic Keyboard shortcuts make it easy to switch from one to another of these, and the switch codes employed are generic. Instead of saying “Switch to such and such a font at such and such a size,” they say, for instance, “Switch to this font’s italic counterpart, whatever that may be.” This convention makes the instructions whenever able. You can change the face and size of a whole paragraph or file and the roman, italic and bold should all convert correctly. The slightest inconsistency in font names can prevent this trick from ,working - and not all manufacturers to the same conventions. For the fonts to be names must be identical and the font names must abide by rules. known to the operating system and software use

Letters in Wonderhand

handwriting with the quality of the one doing the writing. In fact, there is even a discipline, graphology, that attempts analysis of handwriting in relation to human psychological traits.

Although I’m always dealing with letters in my work, embarking on a type design project is rather the exception. My main occupation, ‘Lettering’, varies from commission to commission and projects tend to last for short periods of time with widely different outcomes. Type projects normally extend for a longer period of time and, from my perspective, are very enjoyable until the moment I get into the rough path of type production: months spent looking at boxes of black letter shapes, dealing with letter spacing and kerning pairs. It demands considerable motivation that, in my case, only arises from the personal belief that I have a very good idea.

Handwriting embraces variation and individuality. Although it is mostly based on a particular learned model, it then develops in a different way for every individual: some hands are loose, some are very slanted and tight, while some are more rounded:

By: Martina Flor

As a letterer I tend to use a lot of script letterforms in my work. These are based on handwriting or calligraphy and therefore respond differently depending on the hand behind them. When working with these I vary the design parameters according to how loose, how nervous, or how static I want ‘the hand’ to appear. Type Design works similarly. Making a script typeface requires a certain decision about the style, the width, the weight, the sort of tool, and of the hand that is going to ‘write’ the ductus. The outcome is often a single cut — a variation in shape or a replica of existing models or letterforms. OpenType features have greatly helped in enabling such fonts to imitate the variations and flow of handwriting in type. But can handwriting be made to fit into a type system? Can we, with the systematic approach of type, produce the variability and variety that is inherent to handwriting? Wonderhand, my new family of scripts, comprising many hand variations into one type system, answers those questions in the affirmative. HANDWRITING AND VARIABILITY Handwriting is unique to every person, even when the forms are based on the same model. According to handwriting expert Rosemary Sassoon “The form and line of a letter is as sensitive and expressive as the line quality in a drawing, and as individual as the interpretation of color and light are to a painter.” Handwriting is loaded with innumerable connotations and is connected with personal identity, states of mind and emotional state. As Sassoon says: “Handwriting depends largely on a direct impact: it communicates, not only through the text, but — even more so — through the visual appearance of the individual letters and the impression produced by the whole page.” Handwriting was in the past an indicator and reflector of one’s self. In tenth-century Japan it was an essential part of a woman’s attractiveness that aided in securing her a marriage partner from a wealthier and higher social status. Today, still, there is a tendency to associate the quality of

Article 4: Typographic Installation 33

By: Tashina Wells

Article 4: Typographic Installation

the architectural hardware of typographic systems is melting down. (add image 3) The flush, full page of the classical book is dominated by a single block of justified text, its characters mechanically spaced to completely occupy the designated volume. The page is like a glass into which text is poured, spilling over from one leaf to the next. (add image 4) By the early twentieth century, the classical page had given way to the multicolumned, mixed-media structures of the modern newspaper, magazine, and illustrated book. (add image 5) Today, the simultaneity of diverse content streams is a given. Alongside the archetype of the printed page, the new digital archetype of the window has taken hold. The window is a scrolling surface of unlimited length, whose width adjusts at the will of reader or writer. In both print and digital media, graphic designers devise ways to navigate bodies of information by exploring the structural possibilities of pages and windows, boxes and frames, edges and margins. (add image 6) (add image 7) In 1978, Nicholas Negroponte and Muriel Cooper, working at MITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Media Lab, published a seminal essay on the notion of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;soft copy,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; the linguistic raw material of the digital age. The bastard offspring of hard copy, soft text lacks a fixed typographic identity. Owing allegiance to no font or format, it is willingly pasted, pirated, output, or repurposed in countless contexts. It is the ubiquitous medium of word-processing, desktop publishing, e-mail, and the Internet. The burgeoning of soft copy had an enormous impact on graphic design in the 1980s and 1990s. In design for print, soft copy largely eliminated the mediation of the typesetter, the technician previously charged with converting the manuscriptwhich had been painstakingly marked up by hand with

By: Tashina Wells

Chapter 1: Fluid Mechanics: Typographic Design Now A poetically theoretical take on the fluid state of type, design and the vernacular in digital form as they relate to language and contemporary culture. by Ellen Lupton Liquidity, saturation, and overflow are words that describe the information surplus that besets us at the start of the twenty-first century. Images proliferate in this media-rich environment, and so too does the written word. Far from diminishing in influence, text has continued to expand its power and pervasiveness. The visual expression of language has grown increasingly diverse, as new fonts and formats evolve to accommodate the relentless display of the word. (add image 1) Typography is the art of designing letterforms and arranging them in space and time. Since its invention during the Renaissance, typography has been animated by the conflict between fixed architectural elementssuch as the page and its margins-and the fluid substance of written words. (add image 2) Evolutions in the life of the letter arise from dialogs between wet and dry, soft and hard, slack and taut, amorphous and geometric, ragged and flush, planned and unpredicted. With unprecedented force, these conflicts are driving typographic innovation today. Typography is going under water as designers submerge themselves in the textures and transitions that bond letter, word, and surface. As rigid formats become open and pliant,

in historic precedent, tapping the familiarity of existing symbols and styles even as they invent new idioms. While some designers pay their toll to history with reluctance, others dive eagerly into the reservoirs of pop culture. Tibor Kalman (1949–1999) led the graphic design world’s reclamation of visual detritus, borrowing from the commonplace vernacular of mail-order stationery and do-it-yourself signage. (add image 16) Designers now frankly embrace the humor and directness of everyday artifacts. In the aesthetic realm as in the economic one, pollution is a natural resourceone that is expanding rather than shrinking away. Thirty years ago, progressive designers often described their mission as ‘problem-solving’. They aimed to identify the functional requirements of a project and then discover the appropriate means to satisfy the brief. Today, it is more illuminating to speak of solvents than solutions. Design is often an attack on structure, or an attempt to create edifices that can withstand and engage the corrosive assault of content. (add image 17) (add image 18) (add image 19) The clean, smooth surfaces of modernism proved an unsound fortress against popular culture, which is now invited inside to fuel the creation of new work. Image and text eat away at the vessels that would seal them shut. Forms that are hard and sharp now appear only temporarily so, ready to melt, like ice, in response to small environmental changes. (add image 20) All systems leak, and all waters are contaminated, not only with foreign matter but with bits of structure itself. A fluid, by definition, is a substance that conforms to the outline of its container. Today, containers reconfigure in response to the matter they hold. (add image 21)¬

instructions from the designer-into galleys, or formal pages of type. Soft copy flows directly to designers in digital form from authors and editors. The designer is free to directly manipulate the text-without relying on the typesetter-and to adjust typographic details up to the final moments of production. The soft copy revolution led designers to plunge from an objective aerial view into the moving waters of text, where they shape it from within. (add image 8) Digital media enable both users and producers, readers and writers, to regulate the flow of language. As with design for print, the goal of interactive typography is to create ‘architectural’ structures that accommodate the organic stream of text. But in the digital realm, these structures-and the content they support-have the possibility of continuous transformation. (add image 9) In their essay about soft copy, Negroponte and Cooper predicted the evolution of digital interfaces that would allow typography to transform its size, shape, and color. Muriel Cooper (1925-1994) went on to develop the idea of the three-dimensional ‘information landscape,’ a model that breaks through the window frames that dominate electronic interfaces. (add image 10) Viewed from a distance, a field of text is a block of gray. But when one comes in close to read, the individual characters predominate over the field. Text is a body of separate objects that move together as a mass, like cars in a flow of traffic or individuals in a crowd. Text is a fluid made from the hard, dry crystals of the alphabet. Typeface designs in the Renaissance reflected the curving lines of handwriting, formed by ink flowing from the rigid nib of a pen. (add image 11) The cast metal types used for printing converted these organic sources into fixed, reproducible artifacts. (add image

12)As the printed book became the world’s dominant information medium, the design of typefaces grew ever more abstract and formalized, distanced from the liquid hand. (add image 13) Today, designers look back at the systematic, abstracting tendencies of modern letter design and both celebrate and challenge that rationalizing impulse. They have exchanged the anthracite deposits of the classical letter for lines of text that quiver and bleed like living things. (add image 14) The distinctive use of type, which can endow a long or complex document with a sense of unified personality or behavior, also builds the identity of brands and institutions. Bruce Mau has described identity design as a ‘life problem,’ arguing that the visual expression of a company or product should appear like a frame taken from a system in motion.

Chapter 2: Prominent • Creative solution seeker: (this was a group school project and therefore everyone in the group played a significant role. • Lara Sibson-Lara is very technologically talented. Within our group, she’s the one who has all the right measurements, and all the proper scaling of the modules. • Dominic Whitaker- Dominic is the comic relief of the group. Whenever anything gets stressful, he’s the one who always provides a spontaneous moment of laughter.

The flat opacity of the printed page has been challenged by graphic designers who use image manipulation software to embed the word within the surface of the photographic image. A pioneer of such effects in the digital realm was P. Scott Makela (19601999). In the early 1990s, he began using PhotoShop, a software tool that had just been introduced, as a creative medium. In his designs for print and multimedia, type and image merge in dizzying swells and eddies as letters bulge, buckle, and morph. The techniques he helped forge have become part of the fundamental language of graphic design. The linear forms of typography have become planar surfaces, skimming across and below the pixelated skin of the image. (add image 15) The alphabet is an ancient form that is deeply embedded in the mental hardware of readers. Graphic designers always ground their work, to some degree,

Project Brief Situation: Typography is everywhere. Without typography, countless things in our everyday life would be impossible. Typography helps us communicate. Communication is key. Therefore, the word that was chosen to express Typography today is Prominent. The word Prominent means important or famous. It’s the perfect word to express how vitally important Typography is. It’s everywhere, doing everything for us. By many more than not, Typography goes unnoticed. However, just because people don’t always realize it, Typography is still always there, shining brighter than ever. Although most people don’t seem to grasp how famous Typography really is, hopefully, someday they will get it. Prominent is a conceptual mechanical/technological typography installation that gives voice to how

frequent everyday usage may affect importance or visibility in an indirect but surprising way. And it leads visitors on a thought-provoking journey through a popular urban site, the entrance of Flagler College. Investigation: Research included looking for just how important typography really is, seeing where it appears even if people don’t realize it. It’s in everyday life constantly.

accentuate typography’s prominence. However, this didnt end up working out either. Eventually, it was decided we’d use pasta. Budget As this was a class project, I was responsible for any monies spent to create the deliverables. • Noodles: $50 • Hot Glue: $10 • Paper and printing: $30 • Labor: Pro bono

Insight: Typography is absolutely everywhere. It’s in the things people would lastly expect. People take typography for granted and they don’t even realize it. Typography shouts all the propaganda and advertising that people are too small to say or share themselves. Though, even more than that, people wouldn’t even be able to tell time the way they do now without typography. There would be no detailed maps, no signs to show where to go, and the world as we know it would simply collide and quite possibly crash and burn. Idea: My ideas included all kinds of things that are prominent now and things that might be losing their prominence increasingly. The initial idea was to portray typography using technology, which today is around just as prominent as typography is. The first thing that came to mind as a pixel idea was CD’s. However, upon further thought, I quickly came to the conclusion that CD’s were probably not the best way to emphasize prominence due to the fact that CD’s are actually dying out. Since everything must have a reason to back up the original concept, using CD’s might actually accidentally skew the point that’s trying to be made. Therefore, it was time to come up with a new pixel idea. The next pixel idea thought of was pencils. There are pencils everywhere, and it is my belief that there will always be pencils and that they will never die out. For this reason, pencils are a perfect pixel to

Challenges On the night of the Art Walk, There were very few people out and about because it was freezing. Works Cited “Fast Facts About Homelessness and Poverty | Family Promise.” Fast Facts About Homelessness and Poverty | Family Promise. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. “North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness.” North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. “SOH 2012: Chapter One – Homelessness Counts.” National Alliance to End Homelessness:. N.p., 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2012. “This Box.” Personal interview. 14 Feb. 2013. “Welcome Home!” Supportive Housing Communities: A Place to Live Again. Supportive Housing Communities, n.d. Web. Feb.–Mar. 2013.

Type On Screen By: Ellen Lupton

By the 1990s, CD-ROMs and the Internet turned computer screens into the final display substrate. Those were the dark ages of on-screen typography. Designers traded in low-res compromise, bending to the will of fours, the tyranny of the pixel. Endless hours were spent on what my colleagues and I affectionately called “fat-bitting.” It was an activity hardly worth the effort. We were masons, chipping and shifting single pixels — fixing what the screen did to otherwise well intentioned letterforms. “I could be at the bar, but no… I have to fat-bit this shitty logo.” But the clients loved the attention to detail. We took pride in pixel craft. 5--type-on-screen-emb Fast forward to the present and Ellen Lupton’s latest book “Type on Screen” is a fascinating typographic inventory of the present. It shows us just how far we’ve come since fat-bitting. It sits alongside Lupton’s previous book “Thinking with Type” but over broadband and on a Retina display. 1--type-on-screen-stuff This book will teach you all manner of topics including type selection, web fonts, interface design, responsive design, and SVGs. There is an enlightening chapter on generative design with type and code which left me thinking about the future possibilities of type. Reading about type in this context is inspiring. For those of us who have lived through the evolution of the craft, Type On Screen is an epic hairmetal ballad — a celebration of living squarely in the age of enlightenment of on-screen typography. — Reviewed by Theo Rosendorf. Type on Screen was authored by graduate students and faculty of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) and edited by Ellen Lupton.

A Letter From the Editor By: Tashina Wells

I would like to emphasize that the majority of these hotos were not taken by me. Most of them were annonymously posted. The only photos in this magazine that I personally took, were the ones that had to do with the pasta installation. That is all. Thank you.