Typography

(Week 1 - Week 14)
Feryn Juliesta Sulia (0336407)
Typography
Exercises and Projects

LECTURES

Lecture 1: Introduction to the module
29.08.18 (Week 1)

I wasn't in class for this lectures because my VAL hasn't approved by then, so I couldn't depart earlier and attend the orientation either. My classmates told me that they given an introduction by Mr. Vinod about the origins and basic concept of typography, then they learnt about calligraphy and we have to owns a calligraphy pen to practicing some fonts.

Lecture 2: Typography-Basic/Describing letterforms
05.09.18 (Week 2)

This is my first typography class in university. Today the lecturer show us a number of technical  terms that describe specific parts of the letterforms, so that is easier for us to identify specific typefaces.

Terminologies

Baseline - The imaginary line the visual base of the letterforms.

Median - The imaginary line defining the x-height of letterforms.

X-height - The height in any typeface of the lowercase "x".

Stroke - Any line that defines the basic letterform.

Apex/Vertex - The point created by joining two diagonal stems.
Arm - Short strokes off the stem of the letterform, either horizontal or inclined upward.
Ascender - The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform that projects above the median.
Barb - The half-serif finish on some curved stroke.
Beak - The half-serif finish on some horizontal arms.
Bowl - The rounded form that describes a counter. The bowl may be either opened or closed.
Bracket - The transition between the serif and the stem.
Cross Stroke - The horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stems together.

Crotch - The interior space where two strokes meet.
Descender - The portion of the stem of a lowercase letterform that projects below the baseline.
Ear - Stroke that extending out from the main stem or body of the letterform.
Em/en - Originally refering to the width of an uppercase M, and em is now the distance equal  to the size of the typeface. An en is half the size of an em. Most often used to describe em/en spaces and em/en dashes.
Finial - The rounded non serif terminal to a stroke.
Leg - Short stroke off the stem of the letterform.
Ligature - The character formed by the combination of two or more.
Link - The stroke that connects the bowl and the loop of a lowercase G.
Serif - The right-angled or oblique foot at the end of the stroke.
Shoulder - The curved stroke that is not part of a bowl.
Spine - The curved stem of the S
Spur - The extension articulates the junction of the curved and rectilinear stroke.
Stem - The significant vertical or oblique stroke.
Stress - The orientation of the letterform, indicated by the thin stroke in round forms.
Swash - The flourish that extends the stroke of the letterform.
Terminal - The self-contained finish of a stroke without a serif. This is something of a catch-all term.

Lecture 3
12.08.18 (Week 3)

Today's class, we have no lecture so we work on our calligraphy sentences and start working on our lettering. Before start working on my lettering, I still have to fix up some mistakes I did and then I start working on my calligraphy sentences.

Lecture 4: Development and Timeline of Typography
19.09.18 (Week 4)

This week's lecture, Mr. Vinod presented us a presentation about the early letterform development of typography. Initially, writing meant scratching into wet clay with sharpened stick. Uppercase letterforms can be seen to have evolve out of these tools and materials.

Fig 1.0 Development of Alphabets

Phoenician to Roman
Before alphabets were invented, people communicated visually by drawing pictographic symbols around them. This method is known as Pictographs, and is the basis of hieroglyphs and cuneiform. Because this method requires overabundance of symbols to identify each word, expressing ideas were difficult and limited.

Phoenician Alphabet

Sometime around 1200 B.C.E. , the Phoenicians developed a simplified writing system wherein the symbols would represent sounds. Often considered as the first alphabetic writing system, this consonantal alphabet - consisted of 22 symbols, were simple enough to learn and draw, therefore making its use much more accessible and widespread.

Greek Alphabet

Greek alphabets have a different direction of writing. They developed a style of writing called 'boustrophedon' (the ox plows). They read the lines of texts from right to left. When they changed the direction of reading, the orientation of letterforms also changed. 

Fig 1.1 Boustrophedon

Roman Alphabet

The Etruscans who ruled early Rome adopted the Greek Alphabet, which was modified over time to become the Etruscan Alphabet, to finally reformulated to produce the Latin Alphabet - which is now the standardised script of the English language and is often referred to simply as the alphabets.

Lecture 5
26.09.18 (Week 5)

No lecture this week and we work with our animated lettering, I did my animated lettering in the MacLab because I don't have a laptop yet. Mr. Vinod also assigned us to a new assignment, type expression.

Lecture 6
03.10.18 (Week 6)

No lecture this week and we showed our initial ideas on type expression based on six given words. Mr. Vinod and Mr. Shamsul gave us feedback and told us to choose one expression to be animated as in previous animated lettering we did.

Instructions

 Calligraphy (Week 1 - Week 3)

We have to do some stroke exercise with our calligraphy pen in order to familiarize ourselves to use it comfortably,

Fig 1.1 Practice I did before my first typography class

Fig 1.2 Practice on horizontal stroke

Fig 1.3 Practice on vertical stroke

Fig 1.4 Practice on circular stroke

Fig 1.5 Several attempts on horizontal, vertical, and circular strokes

Fig 1.6 Final attempt on horizontal, vertical, and circular strokes

Fig 1.7 Attempting all calligraphy hand 

Fig 1.8 Attempting all calligraphy hand (2)

Fig 1.9 Several attempts on chancery calligraphy hand 

Fig 1.10 Several attempts on chancery calligraphy hand (2)

Fig 1.11 Several attempts on uncial calligraphy hand 

Fig 1.12 Several attempts on uncial calligraphy hand (2)

Fig 1.13 Final work on chosen calligraphy hand (Uncial)

Fig 1.14 Several quotes attempt

Fig 1.15 Final Quote Outcome on Graph Paper 

Fig 1.16 Final quote outcome 

Animated Lettering (Week 4 - Week 5)

Mr. Vinod and Mr. Shamsul told us to letter our name based on our personality. I decide to go with my impulsive personality as I think represent me the most.

Fig 2.1 Rough sketch

Fig 2.2 Rough sketch (2)

Fig 2.3 Lettering illustration

Fig 2.4 Animated lettering attempt

Fig 2.5 Lettering illustration

Fig 2.6 Final animated lettering

Type Expression (Week 5 - Week 6)

Mr. Vinod and Mr. Shamsul assigned us to a new assignment, type expression. We were given 10 type families to be applied to 6 agreed words. 

Fig 3.1 Tall type expression initial ideas

Fig 3.2 Heavy type expression initial ideas

Fig 3.3 Blur type expression initial ideas

Fig 3.4 Float type expression initial idea

Fig 3.5 Rage type expression initial ideas

Fig 3.6 Sparkle type expression initial ideas

Fig 3.7 Improvement on sparkle type expression ideas

Fig 3.8 Improvement on float type expression ideas

Fig 3.9 Improvement on rage type expression ideas

Fig 3.10 More improvement on sparkle type expression idea

Fig 3.11 Final type expression

Fig 3.12 Animated rage type expression

Fig 3.13 Animated type expression using word rage attempt

Fig 3.14 Final animated type expression using word sparkle 

Fig 3.15 Artboards of fixed final animated type expression 

Fig 3.16 Fixed final type expression using word sparkle

Feedback

Week 1
No feedback received because I wasn't in class due to VAL approval matter.

Week 2 

General feedback: We have to be consistent on how we hold the pen, and we have to do it comfortably. The lecturer said that we can't press the nib too hard while writing so that our stroke can be more persistent.
Specific feedback: I have to redo my horizontal, vertical, and circular strokes sheet because Mr. Vinod told me that my thickness isn't consistent. The gap should be the same as the nib thickness. And my circular stroke should be tip the four edges.

Week 3
Mr. Shamsul said that my horizontal, vertical, and circular strokes are okay and I had to move to letter calligraphy practice so that I can catch up with the others. I have tried some calligraphy practice and I showed my uncial calligraphy practice and I was told that some of my letters are still wrong and aren't consistent, so I had to redo it. I tried to go with the chancery calligraphy instead, but as I go with it the more I felt comfortable to the previous calligraphy I did. Mr. Shamsul told me that some of my letters still also wrong and I have to keep my x-height persistent, so I had to redo it again. He also suggested me to change my diagonal nib pen to the flat nib one so that it is easier to control.

Week 4
Specific feedback: Mr. Vinod told me that I've done a good work at my final calligraphy, it has a good composition and appropriate spacing. He also looked at my rough sketch lettering and told me that it doesn't represent my personality which I chose to work with. Mr. Shamsul commented that my second lettering style still doesn't represent impulsive personality because I made it too organised. Then, I'm relief when it comes to the third lettering style because Mr. Shamsul said I can go with it but I should make them more readable.

Week 5
Mr. Vinod like how I arranged my name because it looks interesting but the animation didn't represent my impulsive character. After redoing it, Mr. Shamsul told me that I did a fine job on my animated lettering.

Week 6
Mr. Vinod approved my tall, heavy, and blur type expression, he liked my work especially heavy and blur, but not my sparkle, rage, and float type expression. He said it is better not to put star shape in my sparkle type expression. Then I start to illustrate a new one in the MacLab. After I finished, I showed my work to Mr. Vinod and he told me what I've done is much better than before, he said my rage type expression is interesting and a good idea to put the rage word into a gun, but it's kinda hard to recognise the idea of my expression. For my sparkle type expression, he suggested me to change the ellipse shape that dominated my sparkle type expression to 'sparkle alphabets, so that the typography standout the most.

Reflection

Experiences

Week 1 

No experience experienced because I wasn't in class for some reason I mentioned.

Week 2

I've been told about what the others are doing before I attend the class. So, I already did some stroke practice at home although the result wasn't really satisfying. In class, I found out that I did my practice in a wrong way. So, I paid more attention to the class and also to my classmates on how they do it correctly. I asked some of my classmates and they told me how to held the nib so the strokes come neatly.  After i feel a little satisfy with my strokes, we are told to start doing the calligraphy on the font we have chosen. At first I chose to go with uncial calligraphy but then I tried some of my classmates font choice and they did the same. I found myself enjoy this class although I still have so much to learn.

Week 3
I feel that my hand is easier to control than last week. Although I still did some mistake, my stroke isn't seems as shaky as my first try.

Week 4
I felt relieved that I got no problem with my final quote calligraphy, but then come the next assignment that even more stressful. I tried to adjust my lettering to the personality I chose but it is no easy at all.

Week 5
Designing a lettering is not an easy thing and it is just as comparable as how hard the animated lettering is. But I tried to enjoy this assignment so that I can keep up with the others.

Week 6
I felt that type expression assignment is actually a little bit easier than the previous assignment we did. Maybe that's because we have done it before but I definitely enjoy this assignment.

Observation

Week 1 

No observation observed because I didn't attend the class due to VAL approval matter.

Week 2

I think that even though I missed only one class it is so hard to keep up with the others that they already know about this class and what to do in this class. But, luckily my classmates are kind enough to tell me the big picture of last week's lecture. 

Week 3

I realised that typography is more about skill than effort. But, efforts help a lot to survive this class. 

Week 4

There are many of my classmates that seems to be professional because they are full of ideas and so creative, even the senior. Sometimes that intimidates me and at the same time motivates me to keep moving and try hard. 

Week 5

Everyone seems to work so hard on their animated lettering. I have a little difficulty because I still don't have my own laptop. 

Week 6

I felt that the type expression assignment is more enjoyable as I observed my classmates have less issues with it. 

Findings

Week 1
No findings found as I didn't attend the class due to VAL approval matter.

Week 2
I found that we need extra energies to attend this class because of its long duration and more efforts to put on. I found that my classmates are doing harder than they usually are.

Week 3
I start to found myself blend in with the class and not so much to be keeping up with as I late to attend the class.

Week 4
I always thought it was fun to do the lettering but when it comes to design the letter based on our personality, it is a total packed for me. But I always found myself enjoying to learn something new no matter how hard it is.

Week 5
I found that laptop is actually something essential to have at this point, even before this point.

Week 6

I found that no matter how small the difference between type fonts are, it can actually express certain things if used appropriately. 

Further Readings

Typographic Design: Form and Communication Fourth Edition by Rob Carter, Ben Day, and Philip Meggs

Week 1 - Week 2

Book cover

Typography design is a complex area of human activity, requiring a broad background for informed practice. The alphabet is a series of elemental visual signs in a fixed sequence, representing spoken sounds. Each letter signifies only one thing: its elementary sound or name. The twenty six characters of our alphabet can be combined into thousands of words, creating a visual record of the spoken language. This is the magic of writing and typography, which have been called 'thoughts-made-visible' and 'frozen sounds'.

An infinite variety of type styles is available today. Digital typography, with its simple and economical introduction of new typefaces, has made the entire array of typefaces developed over the centuries available for contemporary use. Numerous efforts have been made to classify typefaces, with most falling into the following major categories. Some classification systems add a decorative, stylised, or novelty category for the wide range of fanciful type styles that defy categorisation.

Egyptian typeface

Old style typeface

Italic typeface

Transitional typeface

Modern typeface

Sans serif typeface

Like the anatomy of typography, typographic syntax and communication have a language that must be learned to understand typographic design. Syntax is the connecting of typographic signs to form words and sentences on the page. The elements of design - letter, word, line, column, and margin - are made into a cohesive whole through the use of typographic space, visual hierarchy, ABA form, and grid systems. In grammar, syntax is the manner in which words are combined to form phrases or sentences. The book defines typographic syntax as the process of arranging elements into a cohesive whole. The study of typographic syntax begins with its basic unit, the letter, and progresses to word, line, column, and margin. 

Typographic legibility is widely misunderstood and often neglected by designers. Yet it is a subject that requires careful study and constant evaluation. Legibility is achieved by controlling the qualities and attributes inherent in typography that make type readable. These attributes make it possible for reader to comprehend typographic forms with the least amount of difficulty. 

Typographers and designers have a definite responsibility to their readers to communicate as clearly and appropriately as possible. This responsibility is suggested by Henry David Thoreau in Walden: "A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art."


Calligraphy Tools&Techniques for the Contemporary Practitioner Page One by Gaye Godfrey Nicholls
Week 3 - Week 4

Book Cover

History and evolution of western calligraphy
Western or Latin alphabets evolved from the Phoenician alphabet in use around 1200 BC. Greek, Etruscan and Roman forms borrowed heavily from Phoenician, with Latin forms developing from Roman. Of the three main Roman scripts in use by the first century BC, the basis for our modern alphabet was the Imperial Roman capital (the other two being Old Roman Cursive and Rustic capitals). Other notable scripts included the Square capital, Greek Uncial, and Latin Uncial. The fall of the Roman Empire around the fifth century AD also saw the demise of the classical Roman scripts and the emergence of national and regional scripts, including Luxeuil, Beneventan and Merovingian.

Latin Uncial gradually evolved into the Half-Uncial or Insular Majuscule script. From the sixth to the eight centuries AD, this script was used to produce many outstanding illuminated books, including the renewed Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. These scripts were produced using a square-cut or broad-edged quill on a substrate of vellum (calfskin) or parchment (sheepskin). The highly legible Carolingian script flourished in Europe around the ninth century. The eleventh century saw increasing vertical compression and the development of transitional or photo-Gothic scripts, which evolved into the most compressed of all scripts: Gothic. This broad term encompasses many national variations, such as Textus Prescissus, Textus Quadratus, Rotunda and Fraktur, which were in use from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.

At the same time, less formal, faster scripts were needed for less prestigious work, so the 'bastard' or hybrid scripts developed, named for their mixed parentage of Gothic and Cursive. In England, the memorably named 'Bastard Secretary' rose to prominence, while in France, Bátarde dominated Books of Hours and chronicles from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

Exploring Typography Second Edition by Tova Rabinowitz Deer 
Week 5 - Week 6

Book Cover

Layout Design Aspect

Effective layout functioned to help audience;
- Notice and decide to examine the design
- Find the information they are seeking
- Understand the information presented
- Linger long enough to receive all the pieces of information to be conveyed.

Every layout has two competing components; form and content.
A layout's form refers to the way it looks. A layout's content refers to the message or information that is meant to be conveyed by the design. The content of a layout may be intended to teach, preach, sell, convince, inform, or set a mood. Content can be presented in the form of text, symbols, or images.

Both content and content convey meaning;

even though we are not able to read the text, we can still get a sense of the light, joyous, whimsical mood, of the message.

The Reader's Interest Level

As the reader's interest in the content of a layout increases, the need for effective form decreases, and vice versa. The designers who lay out classified ads like job vacancies are aware of this, so they can create layouts that conserve space and save money for the newspaper, knowing that people will read it anyway. On the other hand, a designer must carefully consider the form of the layout when designing an advertisement for a product or service in the same newspaper because viewers are likely to pass it over if it is not visually appealing.