Type Journal, 1

TYPE JOURNAL

This is a logo designed by Hyrdo Seven Four, a graphic designer from America. He's a very talented graphic illustrator so it was interesting to see him design with type. I don't think type is his strongest, I like the flowing shapes but for a logo I think its too much. It's unreadable and for me personally doesn't make me want to work out what it says to work out what the company is. This is like an example of an illustrator attempting typography and going wrong.

His more successful illustrator work

I came across this old sign in Leeds City Library, which on it's own is an amazing to look around!

The design of the sign fits right into the look of the library, it's so old and used. It reminded me of Hogwarts.  On this type, I really like the shape of the letters, they're quite peculiar. The serif have a weird curved shape on them which you don't see a lot of, it reminds me of the 70's.  For a command type of sign I think the typeface is quite funky and laid back, normally it would be in capitals or at least straight lines. 

Design Principles, Readabilty Vs. Legibilty

We were asked to bring in 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' in upper and lower case in the four different font categories.

Using these we decided which were easiest to read down to hardest, individually, then as a table and finally as a class.

I decided that script was hardest to read and gothic was the easiest.

• Gothic was easiest because they have wider letters, no serifs, easy clean curves, wider letters and larger gaps between the letters making them easier to read. 

• Script is all joined up and too close, with decorative or serifs.

• Block is thick and close together, which makes it hard to read.

• Serifs are in the middle, when type with serifs are used in body copy it becomes a lot easier than when they are on a larger part of text. 

• Bigger bowls and counters make it easier to read, this is because we naturally look at those to recognise the letter rather than the stroke.

• Roman fonts can be defined after a while whereas gothic fonts can be muddled up.

• Serifs work better in lowercase and sans work better in uppercase

What makes something readable

• Tracking, contrast in glyphs, kerning depending on font, size of bowls, counters and x height.
• Gothic and Roman fonts are normally body copy, easy to read on a small scale
• Counters are the most important part of the text

Legibility is the degree to which glyphs in text are understandable based on appearance

• Kerning - space between two letters, it affects legibility of individual letterforms
• Leading - space between lines above and below
• Tracking - spacing letters out
• Readability - ease in which text can be understood/read

Design Principles, Manipulating Type

One of our tasks were to manipulate some of the letters we had brought in, in any way. We could add to them or take away. I brought a Roman font in, Times New Roman. So I chose to cut the heavier line down to create a more even line weight throughout the letters.

Maniupulating type by hand really helps to get an idea of how you want to look before you put it on the computer. This way you have quite a lot of freedom to play around with the letterform before you decide if it will work or not. 

Module Evaluation

I enjoyed this module because I'm quite interested in typography and the detail of it. It was a good way into the course because typography is so important in design, I think it will benefit my future work.
Designing a typeface for someone else was also really good because it meant getting to know people and challenging myself to really communicate Ashley's character. I think it was quite hard at times trying to work out how to do that but I'm happy with the result.
I really enjoyed the poster design brief because I enjoy making high impact posters, especially with catchy slogans. That let me put some of my personality and character in to my work a lot more obviously than the alphabet briefs.
Overall I am pleased with the way the first module has gone for me, I'm looking forward to moving onto new things and learning more about the industry. 

Mono print Induction

We went down to Rossington street to be shown how to mono print. I have mono printed before but quite a while ago so it was good to relearn the basics and have a go. At the time I didn't have any ideas for briefs that would benefit from mono print so I just cut some shapes out and used them. 

This is what was on the board after printing onto paper,which I thought was interesting. I like the colour contrast and texture in it.

I put some cut out shapes over the edge so that when it prints you can see where the lines of the board were and gives a good effect.

These are the prints that I produced during the induction. I really enjoyed seeing the results of the ink on different stock. The tracing paper was my favourite because it gave a opaque effect and the texture was interesting. The shapes I cut out were completely random, I don't know why I chose a banana. 

Studio Brief 5, Message and Delivery

When I began to design my posters from my research I knew I was going to have a jokey humorous tone in it. I am aiming my posters at men who suffer from male pattern baldness. To me this is a very normal thing that men should not be embarrassed by or upset about.

When I began researching the posters I had a strong idea of what kind of composition I wanted. The brief was to create a high impact poster and I instantly thought of these two. They're bold in colour and type and have a very clear simple message, which is what I wanted to create. 
I think posters work well if they have a catchy slogan on them.

I also looked at Saul Bass because I quite like his designs, they're normally quite simple with interesting illustrations. I think it's quite interesting that the posters I was drawn to use red a lot but when it came to my own posters I didn't like it and they didn't work.

I began with the slogans because I like thinking of puns or catchy slogans, however my first attempt were very weak and not very funny. A lot of the people I asked didn't really get them.

I found it really hard thinking of pure image posters because they needed to communicate my message separately from the other posters. Again my first attempts weren't good and wouldn't work with the two colour rule.
I asked my table for feedback and ideas which was really helpful because they gave me the idea of having a very simple image rather than trying to cram loads of ideas visually in a small layout.


The image and text was also still a bit of struggle but was easier because this way I could have a funny slogan and an image that supports the words. I went through quite a lot of ideas with this trying to make the image not too complicated and to match the words.

I thought of colour schemes I had seen work together like orange and purple (ADD ALEC POSTER PHOTO), or black and red. When I showed this to the crit group a lot of people were in favour of black and red because the posters are aimed at men, which I agreed with.

After the crit I had a very clear idea of which posters I was going to produce and what colours. I went through a range of different compositions, working with the 2:1 layout. I chose 400mm by 20mm so I could have quite an elongated portrait poster which I think creates a more high impact poster.

I quickly worked out that red would not work within my posters because I just couldn't get it to look good, I think it looks too bold and cheap.

I worked with black and white which I think works a lot better because it's clear clean and bold, which adds to the high impact. I tested out both ways of using black and white and decided that white text and image on black was the stronger look.

 Final Outcome

Studio Brief 3, Alphabet Soup, Typeface

After spending time with Ashley I got to know him well so thought this brief would be quite good to do. I used the font Kanada as a starting point because it resembled his handwriting.

When developing the font, I focused a lot on his handwriting because I quite like it. He also mentioned that he skate and longboards which I thought was cool. So I incorporated that into the ascenders and descenders by extending them quite dramatically.

Ashely is quite a social laid back relaxed person who is open to anyone so I but a backward italic lean on the letters to show this. 

One of my favourite letters is the F which is actually how Ashely writes them but I have just extended the ascender further.

In the crit a lot of people had good things to say, but one thing kept cropping up and that was my Y. I struggled on developing that to make it look like part of the font. I wanted the loop to be over exaggerated and large but I didn't know how to make it work with the lean.

I drew it with straight lines but when I talked to Ashely he preferred it with the loop to be curved, which I think suits the font a lot more and it now fits well within the alphabet. 

Working on the Y and trying to make it suit the rest of the alphabet.

 Working with the M and N with the lean, which makes me think of skate and longboards.

 Early start of development, working with lines and line weight.

Final Alphabet

Studio Brief 1, Final Outcome

These are the final ten letter forms I created from the word Capture and the font Times Roman. I'm happy with the outcome, to carry this on I am interested in looking at the Z and the S for the illustrator brief.