ADVANCED TYPOGRAPHY - TASK 1

30/08/2023 - Week 1

Thanaphorn Daensaad  / 0350930
Advanced Typography / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media 

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List:

Lecture

Instruction


Feedback
Reflection
Further Reading

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Lecture

Week 1 - Lecture 1
Advanced Typography: Typographic Systems

Typorgraphic systems provide a sense of purpose that focuses and directs decision-making.

Shape grammar is a set of shape rules that apply in a step-by-step way to generate a set, or language of designs.

There are eight major variations of typographic systems: 

• Axial
• Radial 
• Dilational 
• Random
• Grid
• Modular
• Transitional
• Bilateral 

1. Axial System

Organised to the left or right of a single axis.

2. Radial System

Elements are extended from a point of focus. Spread out from the point of focus, can be multiple focus points.

3. Dilatational System

Elements expand from a central point in a circular fashion.

4. Random System

Elements appear to have no specific pattern or relationship.

5. Grid System

A system of vertical and horizontal divisions.

6. Transitional System

Informal system of layered banding. Banding is segregating information within certain bands.

7. Modular System

System of non-objective elements that are constructed as standardised units. Units are the same size, thus can be moved. While units can be placed randomly, it is not suggested. Can be more than 1 standardised base unit.

8. Bilateral System

Text is arranged symmetrically on single axis. It is used in formal invites.

Fig 1.1 8 major typographical systems

Week 2 - Lecture 2

Advanced Typography: Typographic Composition

Principle of Design Composition

- most are better in imagery

- hard to translate to text and some easier to be translated

The Rule of 3rd

- 3x3 grid put in given space

- intersecting lines used as guide to place points of interest
- generally not used in typography but great guide to use for layout

Fig 1.2 Rule of third

Typographic Systems
- 8 major systems

- grid system is commonly used for its versatility

- modern era; asymmetry, dialtational, radial, and repetition becomes more popular

Fig 1.3 Modern era design

Other systems

Enviromental Grid

- exploration of existing structures or combination of multiple structures

- includes non-objective elements to create unique mixture of texture and visual stimuli

- example given; arranging text layout according to real-life structures

Fig 1.4 Example of enviromental grid

Form and Movement

- exploration of existing grid systems

- exploration by making a spread with grid system but make it interesting so that it create movement through the placement of image, color and text.

Fig 1.5 Grid systems exploration

Week 3 - Lecture 3

Advanced Typography: Content & Creativity

Hand Writing

- first letterform made with a imitation of a handwriting

- become the basis and standard for form

- shape and line influenced by the tools and materials used to make them like sharped bones, charcoal sticks, plant stems, brushes, feather and steel pens.

Fig 1.6 Latin Alphabet

Cuneiform

- earliest system of writing

- used in number of languages between the 34C. B.C.E through 1st century C.E

- result by pressing blund end of a reed stylus into wet clay tablets

Hieroglyphics

- a Egyptian writing system 

- fused with art of relief carving

- mixture of rebus and phonetic characters

Fig 1.7 Hieroglyphics Chart

Early Greek / 5th C. B.C.E

-built on Egyptian logo-consonantal system

- consist of 22 letters

- adopted by the Greeks

- no serifs

- letters grew thicker, aperture lessened and serifs appear

Roman Uncials

- more rounded

- curved forms allowed for less strokes so can be written faster

English Half Unicals, 8th C.

- uncial evolved into more slanted and condensed form

Movable Type 11 C. - 14 C.

- earliest known printed book is Diamond Sutra

- Korea establish foundry to cast movable type in bronze

- allows the dismantling and resetting of text

Black Letter 12 - 15 C. CE

- Gothic term originated with Italy to refer to rude or barbaric cultures north of Italian Alps

- tight spacing and condensed lettering and evenly spaced verticals dominates the letterform

- reduced the amount of costly materials in book production

The Brahmi script 450 - 350 BCE

- earliest writing developed in India after Indus script

- most influential writing systems

- debates on the origin of the script as it is believed that the script was at least influenced by one or more Semitic scripts

Handwriting

- the oldest wiring in Southeast Asia were Indian scripts while Pallava was highly influential in writing Sanskrit or Tamil

- indonesia had a script for communication with other kingdom called Kawi (poet)

- kawi widespread which results in the kingdoms in Malay Peninsula to use both Indian and Kavi to write old Malay

- indonesia have caritey scripts that assimilated into Peninsula Malay

- jawi was introduced along with Islam

- ancient Hindu societies in both South and Southeast Asia were classist. Though, Islam didn't change completely but encourage teaching for sake of proselytization

- missionary work by traders were taught Jawi to people that did not learn to read and write

- causing the spread among upper and middle-class in trading ports

- Jawi is important in Malaysia due to the usage of the script in the famous work of literature

- Jawi is not "tulisan asal Melayu" but ignorantly claimed

Why is Handwriting Important?

- designed to directly imitate handwriting

- more vernacular scripts produed by software giants (Google)

- more vernacular and "multi-script" typefaces produced to cater to situations where written matter is communicated in vernacular script or vernacular and Latin script

Local Movements & Individuals to help preserve local handwriting and scripts

- murasu.com by Muthu Nedumaran

- Huruf

- Ek Type 

- Indian Type Foundry

Week 4 - Lecture 4

AdTypo_4_Designing Type

General Process of Type Design:

1.Research

- it is essential to understand the type history, anatomy and conventions before making a type.

- finding the purpose of the type, the use of it, the ways of application.

- examine existing fonts as inspiration, ideas, etc.

2. Sketching

- can be used both traditional tool set then scan them to digitalize it using a digital tool into a font design software.

3. Digitization

- using software like fontlab and glyph apps or using adobe illustrator to design then export into the font apps.

- attention is not given in the whole form in this stage as readability is heavily dependent on it.

4. Testing

- is part of refining and correcting aspects of typeface and also lead to feedbacks.

5. Deploy

- after deploying the complete version, teething problems that doesnt emerge during the prototyping and testing phase.

- testing process is important to ensure teething issue remain minor.

Typeface Construction

Fig 1.8 Construction grid for the Roman Capital using 8x8 cells

Fig 1.9 Classification according to form and construction

- many different forms and constructions must be taken into consideration when creating a type

- one of the important visual correction is the extrusion of curved and protuding forms past the baseline    and capline. This also applies to vertical alignment between curved and straight forms.

Fig 1.10 Comparison of Humanistic and Didone typeface

Week 5 - Lecture 5

AdTypo_5_Perception & Organisation

Perception in Typography deals with the visual navigation and interpretation of the reader via contrast, form and organization of content. The content can be textual, visual, graphical or in the form of color.

Form refers to the overall look and feel of the elements that make up the typographic composition. A good typography tends to visually intriguing to the eye. However when a typeface is perceived as a form, it no longer reads as a letter because it has been manipulated by distortion, texture, enlargement and has been extruded into a space.

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Instruction

Module Information Booklet

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1. Exercise 1 - Typographic Systems

For the first exercise, we are required to explore 8 systems which are Axial, Radial, Dilatational, Random, Grid, Modular, Transitional and Bilateral in Adobe InDesign using the text provided in the MIB.

Requirements:

-Size: 200x200mm

-Colours: Black, White and one additional colour

-Minor graphical elements

Text provided:

The Design School,

Taylor’s University

All Ripped Up: Punk Influences on Design

or

The ABCs of Bauhaus Design Theory

or

Russian Constructivism and Graphic Design

Open Public Lectures:

June 24, 2021

Lew Pik Svonn, 9AM-10AM

Ezrena Mohd., 10AM-11AM

Suzy Sulaiman, 11AM-12PM

June 25, 2021

Lim Whay Yin, 9AM-10AM

Fahmi Reza, 10AM-11AM

Manish Acharia, 11AM-12PM

Lecture Theatre 12

Axial System

My initial thought was to make sure there's a line flow to show the axial system of my design. Therefore, I first explore the line flow I could do with the canvas.

Fig 1.8 Attempt on Radial week 2 (5/9/2023)

Bilateral system

Fig 1.9 Attempt on Bilateral week 2 (5/9/2023)

Dilatational system

Fig 1.9 Attempt on Dilatational week 2 (5/9/2023)

Modular system

Fig 2.0 Attempt on Modular week 2 (5/9/2023)

Grid system

Fig 2.1 Attempt on Grid week 2 (5/9/2023)

Radial system

Fig 2.2 Attempt on Radial week 2 (5/9/2023)

Random system

Fig 2.3 Attempt on Random week 2 (5/9/2023)

Transitional system

Fig 2.3 Attempt on Transitional week 2 (5/9/2023)

Final Outcome

Fig 2.4 PDF without grid (5/9/2023)

Fig 2.5 PDF with grid (5/9/2023)

2. Exercise 2 : Type and play

For this exercise, we were required to find an image with a pattern either natural or man-made. I first focused on choosing on if my focus were to be on natural or man-made pattern. I picked on a natural approach. I came across a few choices: link

Fig 3.0 Typo board week 2 (5/9/2023)

In the end, I went with the neuron web (1st image on top) as I find it more interesting and simple to focus on keeping its form when making the typeface.

Fig 3.1 Neuron web week 2 (5/9/2023)

Extraction Phase
My extraction was pretty straightforward as the words identified was clearly seen at first glance. Therefore, I continued with the 4 letters I found which are V, A, C, E.

Fig 3.2 Extracting letters week 2 (5/9/2023)

Letterform Refining
From the extraction, I was able to identify the existing typeface that could work as a reference judging with the thin and thick strokes I noticed on the extracted form.

Fig 3.3 Progression week 3 (12/9/2023)

Existing typeface used: Chiller Regular

Fig 3.4 Letterform comparison week 3 (12/9/2023)

Incorporate Letters Into Poster Design

For the final part, we are required to incorporate the extracted letters and turn it into a movie poster using the pictures from what we extracted from.

On the first poster, I chose to reuse the extraction image to show origin of the letterform. I changed the color of the image to a reddish color to make it more pop like blood vessels. From that, it looks pretty much like a sci-fi genre movie poster.

On the second poster, I made it look like it's a horror thriller style poster. 

Fig 3.5 Poster progression week 3 (12/9/2023)

Final Poster Outcome

Fig 3.5 Poster #1 week 4 (20/9/2023)

Fig 3.5 Poster #2 week 4 (20/9/2023)

Fig 3.6 Poster PDF week 4 (20/9/2023)

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Feedback

Week 1

General Feedback

- write what you understand instead of copying the slides.

- put description and figure on lecture pictures

Specific Feedback

- no specific feedback as we have not start on work.

Week 2

General Feedback

- Make sure the movement is consistent when making transition to make it not confusing

- don't italized in dilatational

Specific Feedback

- make it more readable

- control leading, kerning

- too much white space is not good but can be accepted

- element distracts attention (make it small to make less distracting)

- white colors helps balancing off strong colors

- red outlined circle > red solid circle

Week 3

General Feedback

- study the image for the characteristics of the form

- make sure the letters look consistent

Specific Feedback

- make it look more like the image by adding structure

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Further Reading

Before proceeding on the second exercise, we were told to read Mr Vinod's article on the work as there were examples of past students' work that gave us a glimpse of what was expected from us as our outcome. The process was broken down to a few steps as such:

1. Finding an image

2. Deconstructing an image

3. Identifying letterforms

4. Extracting letterforms

5. Identify a reference

6. Refining letterforms.

When refining letterforms, it is when we have to refine to a point where the letterforms look consistent, uniform and stylistically similar to the others. The characteristics need not to be faithful to the original extraction as long as it retains the essence of its structure and form.