Typography Task 1 / Exercises

29.8.2022 - 26.9.2022 (Week 1 - Week 5)
Edwin Choo Quan Rong 0348305
Typography / Bachelor Of Design (Hons) In Creative Media
Task 1: Exercises

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LECTURES

Week 1: Typo_3_Text_P1 and Typo_4_Text_P2

I had learn multiple terms from this lecture. To start it off, let's dive into some of these terms.

• Kerning - automatic adjustment of space between letters
• Letterspacing - adds space between letters
• Tracking - addition or removal of space in a word or sentence
  

Tip: Apply letterspacing uppercase letters as they are able to stand on their own, do not / not encouraged to apply letterspacing onto lowercase forms as it hinders readability. 

To apply these, use Alt + Left Arrow Key to reduce space and Alt + Right Arrow Key to increase space.

There are 3 types of tracking, Normal Tracking, Loose Tracking and Tight Tracking.

Text Formatting 

There's 4 types of text formatting.

• Flushed Left - easy to read
  
• Centered - hard to read, use sparingly for small amounts of text
• Flushed Right - hard to read, use in small amounts
• Justified - easy to read (if left justified), but watch out for "rivers", these are small gaps formed between words due to justification

There are certain factors that affects how designers set their type. It can range from personal preference, prevailing culture or the need to express in a certain typeface. One thing that is of utmost importance is for the text to be clear
and presented appropriately for the best readability. 

Texture

• Heavier stroke leads to darker mass, thus higher vertical height
• Lighter stroke leads to lighter mass, thus lesser vertical height

X-height being larger than the ascender/descender increases readability (insert X-height img here)

Leading and Line Length

Typesetting goal: Allow for easy and prolonged reading

Type size / Point size: large enough to read easily at arms length (8-12 pt)

Leading: Tight text encourages vertical eye movement (easier to lose readability), whereas Loose type create stripped patterns that distract, the goal is to find a balance.

Line Length: 55-65 letters is appropriate text length for reading, avoid extremely long or short line lengths as it impacts reading.

Indicating Paragraphs

Pilcrow is a symbol used to show the end of a paragraph. In ancient times, a new paragraph can start right away without any paragraph spacing if a pilcrow is present to signify the end of a paragraph.

Tip: If line space is 12 ft, then paragraph space should also be 12 ft, this ensures cross-alignment, this is because these two factors control vertical spacing.

Widows and Orphans

Widows - a short line of text (usually 1 to 2 words) left alone at the end of a column of text. 
Orphans - a short line of text left alone at the start of a new column.

It is best to avoid Widows and Orphans in text. 


Week 2: During week 2, I was still sick with covid so I couldn't attend the physical session. On ZOOM, I took the feedback given to students and use them as general feedback for things I can improve upon with my own type expressions. 

Week 3: From the lecture recording : Typo_Ex Type Expression Animation - Basic, I learned the method to

create GIF animations. 

1. Create a text box and input text with desired font.
   
2. Access artboards with Shift + O, then Alt + mouse to drag to duplicate the artboard.
3. Select parts of the text to be edited and apply the transform effect on it.
   (For this case I used "rotate")
4. Repeat the process to create multiple frames using the artboards.
   
5. Export the files and open it in Photoshop to create a GIF animation, able to edit time delay between frames.
   

Week 4: Text Formatting exercise was introduced this week. With the 4 part lecture about text formatting, we had to create a suitable layout in InDesign. A few things to keep in mind is the design shouldn't be too complex or empty, do not use italic or compressed fonts and don't mix serifs with san-serifs. Readability is the top priority. The lecture recording taught me the definition of font, type size, leading, paragraph spacing, characters per line, alignment, margins, column, gutter and how to utilize them properly. 

Week 5: Progress was shown for Text Formatting exercises and feedback was given in return.

I used the feedback, both specific and general to improve upon the layout. This will be the last
week of Task 1: Exercises. 

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INSTRUCTIONS


<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jnZU-vDz6zcPKPNAe8TqkVh2IIPNYjcq/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>

Task 1: Exercises - Type Expression

Fig 1.1 - Slam ideas (1/9/2022)

Fig 1.2 - Sticky ideas (1/9/2022)

Fig 1.3 - Pain ideas (2/9/2022)

Fig 1.4 - Tired ideas (2/9/2022)

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Fig 1.5 - AI artwork progress (12/9/2022)

Given feedback to use 1 distortion for slam, emphasize expression for sticky and a sharp font for pain.

Fig 1.6 - AI Artwork Final (17/9/2022)

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Fig 1.7 - Animation Frames (15/9/2022)

Frames for the letter "t' being rotated to show falling

Fig 1.8 - Delay between frames  (15/9/2022)

Tired GIF (15/9/2022)

The letter "t" slowly falls down to express it's tiredness

Fig 1.9 - Animation Frames updated (19/9/2022)

Doubled frames with further rotations of letter "t" to smoothen the animation

Fig 2.0 - Delay between frames updated (19/9/2022)

Adjusted delay between frames to make the fall faster

Tired GIF Final (19/9/2022)

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Text Formatting

Fig 2.1 - Before Kerning (24/9/2022)

Fig 2.2 -  After Kerning (24/9/2022)

Kerning practice to learn how to kern or track certain fonts.

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Fig 2.3 - Text Formatting (Before Cross Alignment) (24/9/2022)

Fig 2.4 - Text Formatting (After Cross Alignment) (24/9/2022)

Fig 2.5 - First Layout (24/9/2022)

Went for a "lightning shaped" layout

Fig 2.6 - Second Layout (26/9/2022)

Improved from feedback, adjusted the text to align with the baseline of headline, brought overall text lower and added a picture to fill the empty space.

Fig 2.7 - JPEG with grids Final (29/9/2022)

Further adjustments to make the text and image aligned with each other.

Fig 2.8 - JPEG without grids Final (29/9/2022)

 

Fig 2.9 - PDF with grids Final (29/9/2022)

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i6rwkD50zPioQmblwKrBn_RCd8klnWhW/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>



Fig 3.0 - PDF without grids Final (29/9/2022)

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F9UYsZv3fzEH_7fi_BqRLI0zN-kdsBTg/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>


Layout details

• Font - Heading: Bodoni Std Bold
          - Sub-heading and text: Univers LT Std 55 Roman
  
  
• Type Size - Heading: 36 pt, Sub-heading: 14 pt, Text: 9 pt
  
  
• Leading - Heading: 22 pt, Sub-heading: 16 pt, Text: 11 pt
  
  
• Paragraph spacing: 3.881mm
  
  
• Characters per line: Average 50-60
  
  
• Alignment - Text: Left alignment, Heading and sub-heading: Right alignment
  
  
• Margins: All 12.7mm except for bottom 100mm
  
  
• Column: 4
  
  
• Gutter: 5mm

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FEEDBACK

Week 2
Specific Feedback: Absent
General Feedback: Absent

Week 3
Specific Feedback: For Slam, limit to only 1 distortion and express it in a different way. For Sticky, work on the stickiness aspect. For Pain, change to a suitable typeface.

General Feedback: Limited distortion is key to emphasize the expression while keeping the whole text simple.

Week 4
Specific Feedback: Double the frames of the gif animation, blur certain frames to indicate slowly falling from tiredness.
General Feedback: For smoothness of animation, apply more frames to it and add effects to enhance the expression. Update e-portfolio with lecture reviews and captions for images.

Week 5

Specific Feedback: Align start of body text with X-height of headline or its baseline. Align picture to a text. Can adjust overall text slightly lower.
General Feedback: Bodoni is not a good font for large amounts of text. Format can lead viewer's eyes towards a certain direction for reading.

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REFLECTIONS

Experience

Typography is a brand new field of design that I had no idea about. Without knowing anything means I got to learn from scratch. Sometimes I am not sure if I'm doing certain tasks correctly, but that is part of learning. Mr. Vinod's way of teaching is frightening at first, but over time I came to appreciate that he gives feedback without sugarcoating to ultimately help students with a clear direction or to encourage exploration to improve their work.

Observations

Over the course of these few weeks, there had been an abundance of new information entering into my mind. I tend to forget things easily, so I developed a habit of writing new things down in my notebook. This helps me to recall things I had forgotten or key information needed for the tasks. 

Findings

I am fascinated by how text can be expressed in a variety of ways to bring out a certain emotion. I never thought about how good layout of texts allows for better readability but it makes a lot of sense. Changes in fonts can help text represent a theme, while kerning and tracking as well as cross-alignment helps in the micro side of creating an overall improvement to the work.

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 FURTHER READING

Fig 3.1 - The Vignelli Canon by Massimo Vignelli (2010)

Fig 3.2 - The Vignelli Canon, Page 10

Semantics:the meaning behind something. This page taught me that to design with meaning is able to express a designer's intentions. This can be accomplished through research into a design's culture, who is the final user of a design, a design for a company or the product itself and the meaning it gives.

Fig 3.3 - The Vignelli Canon, Page 14

In this page, I learned that a design with structure but no soul will not be appreciated. A design's value is can be correlated to whether people understood the design at the end-product. Complex and easy to understand designs are preferred but complicated and unclear designs leads to confusion of the intention a design brings. Design to be bold, design to be expressive, design to be unique, design to be a classic.