While learning about type we explored layout of magazines, newspapers and posters. We learnt about how text should be placed on a page, hierarchy, hyphenation, leading, line lengths, and we sketched out some compositions from original art and design magazines.
We were asked at the end of the lesson on Layout, Hierarchy and Grids, to create a type specimen on typefaces each of us had been allocated. Included in the brief of designing and producing the type specimen, we needed to discuss the history of the typeface and who it was created by, the classification, and the context of the typeface and how it is used today. I was allocated to produce a type specimen on Caslon Pro.
As you can see I completed my research for the type specimen a week ago on my blog. The information in that post is what I put into my type specimen poster.
I sketched out some initial ideas I had for the poster by taking inspiration from type specimen’s and typographic posters I had researched beforehand. I tried to keep the design simple and traditional because of the age and style of Caslon Pro. Then, I trialled ideas out in Adobe InDesign and chose my favourite and strongest design.
I first thought that two columns would work on the A3 page, however it limited me as to what more I could put into the type specimen other than information about the typeface and its’ history. I also needed to include an image of a piece of context that the typeface is used in, the alphabet, numbers, punctuation, and ligatures. I first decided to place all of these under the text, after adding another column into the grid to make three columns to work in. I also tried to change the size of the text so that I could fit the remaining contents in below. And again I tried switching the columns around so that the poster was more readable and flowing. The ligatures, I decided, looked best in the top left hand corner of the page set in angle against the large letter ‘A’. I also decided to add an ampersand into the background to fill space up and make the poster more interesting.
After printing out countless copies of different stages of the production of the poster, I printed out my final copy before the class critique. The tutor gave us feedback on all of our type specimens.
To improve mine, the gutters needed widening between the columns, the ampersand in the background needed to be larger, and the information needed to be set to a bolder font to make it clearer on the page.
The model of the body within graphic design has changed over years. Design and advertisement has become more prominent within the ever-changing and demanding world. Along with changes in technology, advances have been made into what is named as the idyllic and so called ‘perfect’ body. Today people have changed the boundaries for races, sexualities, ages, and religions, making it possible to manipulate minds through design, image and words. This is what is known as the Cultural model of the body. Mentioned on page 277 from ‘The Meaning of the Body’ by Mark Johnson, to ‘throw like a girl’ is a consequence of ‘social and cultural conditioning’ rather than the ‘physiological essence’. Some discriminatory statements like these from the past have generally had a positive effect on society, forcing those to stand stronger to prove others wrong. For women to prove they can ‘throw’ has come to the extent that Paralympians have been inspired to change others thoughts about what it means to be limited to what they can do. This change in theory has influenced the choice of words others speak and the way an image or collection of words is positioned and scaled on a page or a piece of media.
We were asked to create a piece of expressive typography from our surroundings. The class were separated into groups of three and given a single word to make with the materials and space they had. One group created a word out of shadows of paper, one out of leaves and sticks from the park, and many other interpretations were created from the word they were tasked to express.
My group were given the word ‘plenty’. We came up with ideas together on a mind map of what could represent the word. Initially we thought we could go to the park and create the word out of leaves, however we felt that that would be far too common among the other groups’ choices as well. Our final decision came to using pencil sharpening’s because of the plenty that you could find in the Cardiff School of Art and Design.
We painfully sharpened the pencils ending up with blisters forming on our hands from the rigged wood, and placed out white paper on a table to form the word out of the sharpening’s on top. The first time we took photos of the word, they were out of focus because the camera was put on Manual Focus instead of Auto Focus which was what we needed for the photos to turn out clear and sharp. Unfortunately we threw away the sharpening’s the first time, and so we had to sharpen a load more pencils, grieving for our hands.
We edited the clear photos from the second shoot on Photoshop by adjusting the contrast, brightness, exposure, saturation, and curves.
We would have worked better with a computer in the room we were taking photos, a clearer and smoother background to work on, and better lighting to use to make the photos brighter and quicker to edit.
As part of the typography module for the course, we were asked to produce a traditional letterpress onto paper.
We use oil based ink to print onto soluble thick paper. I used the press machine twice. One with black ink and the other with red ink. We rolled a dollop of ink onto a piece of glass and then spread some of the ink onto the plate that the ink would stick. The rollers on the machine were then rolled up and down to give an even spread of ink for the metal stamps of letters to be pressed onto. The paper was then placed into position where the paper grip was. We pressed hard onto the machine to give a clear print of the letters on the piece of card.
The print of black ink contained a little too much ink and so it seeped out under the letter stamps. The next print I used a little less ink and made sure the ink was spread out evenly on the plate to give a clearer and sharper outcome. The benefit I found from using traditionally printing techniques such as this, was that it gives a rustic and more personal feeling to work, whereas with computers the prints are sharp and less time consuming.
After letting the prints dry, I scanned them into a computer. This would allow me to edit them in Photoshop to see how illegible I could make the text, how I could morph it, and what effects I could add to it. Here I repeated the text into different layers, making them more opaque and layering them to make them illegible. This helped me get to grips with what I could do to make something more eye-catching and exploring type and legibility further. The next step I think I should take is by changing the colour of different layers of text and adding filters such as adding noise or chromatic aberration.
Below I had picked out 5 Typographic posters and copied the layout with brief sketches to understand the composition.
Then I had picked out 5 Type Specimens out and labelled each of them for their typeface anatomy.
Caslon Pro
Paragraph 1 (Historical insight into type designer of typeface)
The designer of Caslon Pro was William Caslon I, an English typefounder born in 1693 dying in 1766. Originally trained as an apprentice in engraver, Caslon then set up his own type foundry in 1725. Caslon was hugely regarded for the accuracy in his work in creating steel punches for printing. Caslon then had several sons which joined his company during the time he was still alive. Caslon II took over ownership of the company after Caslon I died in 1766 until 1778. Up until 1819 the foundry was bought by Blake, Garnett & Co, however it was still under the name of Caslon. Then in 1837, the foundry was then bought by a type foundry from Sheffield, named Stephenson, Blake & Co.
Paragraph 2 (Information about the typeface itself eg, classification, why it was designed etc.)
Caslon Pro was digitized in the 1980’s when software became available on computers with capability to type and print economically and sufficiently. The identical arms of ‘K’, ‘Y’, ‘M’, ‘W’, and ‘V’ share bracketed serifs and well as 68 degree angles. The rounded shoulder at which they rise from the stem is consistent in ‘r’, ‘m’, and ‘n’. The stem of those letters and ‘i’ are equal in height. The strokes vary from thick when a stroke is vertical, tapering to thin when a stroke is horizontal. These stroke styles occur in lowercase ‘g’, ‘k’, ‘y’, ‘m’, ‘r’, and ‘p’. There are strong differences between serifs and terminals of different styles of Caslon fonts. For example, between regular and italic fonts. You can see a difference between upright and italic fonts with their serifs. You can also notice a strong difference from bracketed serifs and swash serifs.
Paragraph 3 (Context in which the typeface was used in)
The typeface has been used in many different ways during time. The typeface soon made its way over to America, and many alternative versions were made specifically for different uses in media. Typically Caslon Pro can be used for magazine articles, invitations, certificates, important documents, but also posters and album covers. Large letters in the style of Caslon Pro were put onto American posters and album covers. For example, Caslon 540 was used on an album cover (below).
We were asked to create a poster presenting a Six Word Story related to one of Roald Dahl’s books’; I chose ‘The Twits’. The style of typography that you see in the poster is Hybography. Hybrids are defined as being bred from two individual races, breeds or species. In this case I cut parts out of different fonts of letters. I could only choose two fonts; one font that was Serif and the other Sans Serif. I chose to use Caslon Pro as the Serif font, and Microsoft Sans Serif as the other. By using parts of letters from each font as part of our Six Word Stories, the letters were made to look unique to portray the odd, funny and fictional nature of the books, making the posters look interesting besides sticking to black and white print.
In the morning of the day we learnt about Hybography, we were taught how to use the type tool in Adobe Illustrator, how to separate text, how to use the pen tool to add anchor points to morph text, and how to use the knife tool to cut letters apart; which came of much use while creating the final outcome of the Six Word Story Poster.
Initially we explored and trialled the style of Hybography by picking out verbs. To illustrate what the verbs meant we then started to cut letters apart and replace them with parts of other letters or punctuation. Other ways we attempted to portray the meaning of the words were by changing the baseline, angle and placement of the letter in the shape of the square we had on the page. We initially used pencil and then moved on to use black fine-liner pens to outline the letters and increase the contrast between the black and the white.
The next Tuesday morning, the class attended the Quentin Blake exhibition at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. We looked at many of his most famous works, from books he has created himself, and particularly books he had illustrated for Roald Dahl. There were many initial ideas and sketches on display before final copies were made for books. The rugged and messy nature of his drawings represented the imaginative qualities Roald Dahl had put into his books, which almost imitated what we were doing for our project, only we were working with typography and not illustration or images. We decided it would also be valuable to us to practice drawing in the style of Quentin Blake. At the end we discussed how important his work was as a representative of Roald Dahl’s books to show research that he had conducted before making a start on illustrations.
The next Monday we stuck our posters to a wall. Very few had white text and black backgrounds and some were much to my surprise, landscape. We explained our work to the class and how we portrayed the meaning of each of the words.
This project was of much use to us in understanding typography and how different words can be portrayed through their definitions.
Finally my heating has come on in my flat which means I can now manage to type out this post without my fingers freezing to the point of falling off.
Before my heating came on it was as freezing as the morning we met at Cardiff castle to start a typeface searching activity the class were required to take part in. We did not know the purpose of the activity until the afternoon of that day.
The previous day we had learnt about the history of typography and had been asked to research different typefaces in order to go searching the next day. The group I was placed in had been asked to search for Humanist, Geometric, and Gothic typefaces around the centre of Cardiff. This not only increased my understanding of typefaces, how to recognise them and how to conduct research for a project, but it made me question as to how type had developed so far through time; and how much further humans could possibly develop it, whether it be a new language or a different way of reading it. Type was first recognised through the Cuneiform Writing system by the Babylonians in 3000 B.C. The writing we now use today is the Roman alphabet which was formed from 50 B.C. to 500 A.D.
The most difficult typeface we could find was the Gothic typeface. Because it was such an illegible typeface, people nowadays rarely use it to attract people hence why it was so difficult to find. The most common typeface we found was Geometric. So many shops and banks used it because it was easy to read and clear from a far distance. Humanist on the other hand was interesting as it had been developed into so many fonts we see now.
After taking the photos we were asked to copy individual letters from the photos we had taken. We drew outlines of the letters onto coloured paper and cut them out in our groups of three. The letters were then displayed in the reception of the School of Art & Design, hung by fold-back clips on string. Only after hanging the letters on string did we discover the purpose of the research we had conducted that morning. The letters represented Cardiff and what culture and typefaces someone could find in Cardiff. This was of valuable importance to our project and future projects to come, and would therefore allow us to represent the client in the smallest and most discrete way possible. It was about finding meaning and presenting a challenge to the client as well as the designer.
Photo of my own contemporary illuminated letterform.
As an introduction to the undergraduate course I am currently studying- Graphic Communications BA (Hons) at the Cardiff School of Art & Design, I was asked to design my own contemporary illuminated letterform using the initial of my first name.
The brief we were given on designing and producing our own illuminated letterform needed to answer three questions:
Who inspires you?
An interesting fact about yourself?
Why did you choose to study at Cardiff School of Art & Design?
My first thought after reading the questions was to look for ideas online through Pinterest and Behance. Most of the work I found online was digitally produced through Adobe Illustrator, however I decided I wanted to hand render my letterform by drawing and painting.
My first step in producing the outcome was to find a font to use for the initial of my first name. After browsing through fonts on Word and Photoshop I searched online through Dafont. I wanted to use a Serif font to make it stand out from the background.
An interesting fact
The first question I decided to answer was an interesting fact about myself. My first idea was to show my eclectic taste in music through representations of different genres, however this would have been difficult and I was uncertain as to what images to use and what compositional idea I could come up with. Another fact I had in mind was the fact that I play piano, and another was my skill and enjoyment in gift wrapping. As there are eighty-nine keys on an ordinary piano I thought about how I could represent the piano through imagery and composition on the page. I thought that I could morph the piano into a ribbon wrapping around the letter in the middle of the page. This would not only look contemporary but also act as a decorative feature making the letter seem of pivotal importance in aiding the ribbon to twirl around the stem of the letter ‘J’. I used black ink pens to fill in and outline the individual keys. At that point I decided to leave the letter ‘J’ white, compared to the background which I planned to fill with bright colours.
Why Cardiff School of Art & Design
My next answer was a mixture of the location and the opportunities I could encounter along the way through my time at university. To represent the nature of Art & Design at the school, I decided to express the culture of Cardiff as well. By using red, pink, yellow, green, blue, and turquoise watercolour paint, I used a straw to blow the colour of the water out towards the edge of the page from the right hand side of the letter. These spurts of water represented the opportunities and growth of the city, the school, and my knowledge growing through the years.
My inspiration
The toughest question to answer was my inspiration. I was endlessly deciding who to choose. Who was my biggest inspiration? Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, Emily Pankhurst, Mario Testino, Paula Scher. So many different designers and innovators came to my mind. My first thought was to put silhouettes of human figures in my outcome in the background to express the many people that have inspired me. However I needed to show my interest for at least one of my inspirations. I decided to choose David Bowie, initially because of his creativity with music, the many styles of music he had made and the characters he had created. As I was searching for possible photos to copy from, I looked predominantly at black and white photography because of my interest in history and the different contrasts between the greys in the photos.
Several photos I found of David Bowie were taken by American photographer Steve Schapiro. I streamed through his photography finding ever more photos that inspired me. His photos contained important historical events and people that changed America, as well as behind-the-scenes photos from films such as ‘The Godfather’. This encouraged me to experiment with my own photography using filters and tools in Photoshop.
As I was interested in macro photography I decided to take my own photos of things I could find in my room such as a bra strap, an ammonite, an amethyst etc. I increased the contrast and brightness in certain photos and changed the levels and exposure in some, which made the photos ever more intriguing and abstract. Although this would not make up part of my outcome, I would develop further interest and understanding into black and white photography.
Schapiro’s work was stunning. An array of different style images with fantastic stories behind them. I searched further into photos of David Bowie taken by him and found the perfect photo to draw from. Although it was in colour I decided to draw the photo in black and white to represent Schapiro’s use of black and white photography. I used blue watercolour to paint into the background the silhouettes I had in mind. I constructed a brief idea of the composition I had in mind for the outcome in Photoshop before making final decisions on paper.
After painting in the background with blue, I immediately regretted painting it in. It was rushed and too eye-catching compared to the foreground. However, I was extremely pleased with how the rest of the outcome turned out.
Why I chose this course was because of the freedom I had with using different materials and tools. Although it is graphic communication it is not all about using computers to communicate a message. Making hand rendered products is just as important and can be as skilful and professional as using a computer. This was something I didn’t quite realise until I started the course, which compelled me to wonder and understand how the world could be changed by graphic design and communication.
Jennifer Taylor Graphic Communication 