Typography | Task 3 - Type Design & Communication
28/04/24 - 11/06/24 | Week 8 - Week 13
Nadia Chong Wen | 0355736
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Bachelor's of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Task 3 | Type Design & Communication
Table of Contents
I. Lecture Notes
Refer to Task 1 & Task 2 for lecture notes.
II. Instructions
III. Task 3 | Type Design & Communication
For this task, I am tasked to create a typeface that has the hallmarks of a good typeface; subtlety, character, presence, legibility and readability. I have been given these letters to design a typeface with: "o l e d s n c h t i g , . ! #". Upon completion of the font, I have to create a basic A4 size poster displaying the font.
3.1 Research
The first thing I did before I made sketches of my font was to study the type of a normal typeface. By deconstructing the typefaces, it made me realise the subtle differences that font makers use to make a typeface more appealing and look better. I also observed that the letters had varying sizes in certain areas,
3.2 Sketches
Our tutorial teacher, Mr. Vinod, recommended for us to make sketches on grid paper and buy pens that are big to make the fonts before digitization. I bought some round markers and a chisel type marker. This is for us to become familiar with writing with these tools, in a certain angle and pressure, so that the font produced will be logically consistent in stroke weights, angle, etc.
After getting feedback from Mr. Vinod that he likes the bolder slanted font on Figure 1.2's first sketch, he asked me to rewrite the B since it looks a bit off.
After this, I decided to write the letters given to us in the same style I did. I decided to go for lowercase letters since they seem to have more variety than the uppercase letters.
3.2 Digitization
I first started with the brush tool in Adobe Illustrator in order to see how my letters would look if I did it naturally since I was not familiar with the process of using the pen tool to make the letters.I drew the lines that would be baseline, x-height, ascender, and descender. This was prior to watching the videos and the feedback Mr. Vinod gave.
After the feedback Mr. Vinod has given as well as the knowledge on how to use the pen tool on this assignment, I started to fully digitize and correct some letters he suggest correcting like "s." Mr. Vinod suggested I use a normal "s" instead of a calligraphic "s" so I followed his advice. I also worked on spacing the of the ascender and descender since they shouldn't be too different from each other.
After more feedback from Mr. Vinod, He suggested adding a little space in between the forms that connect the letter of "l" and the outward curl that makes the letter "h" or "n" so it can look more dynamic.
Figure 1.6 | Digitization Process #2 / Week 11 (02/07/24)
He also suggested to change the . on top of "i" into a thicker line so it's more noticeable and use it for the period, comma, and exclamation mark dot.
Figure 1.6 | Digitization Process #3 / Week 11 (02/07/24)
Halfway through finalizing the typeface, I realized I forgot to include the "c" which was given to us to digitize. After researching the anatomy of the letter, I took the existing "e" and cut it and adjusted it in order to get a "c." With this, I was finished with the digitization.
Figure 1.7 | Typeface / Week 12 (09/07/24)3.3 Fontlab
After finishing the design in Illustrator, I began developing and exporting my font using Fontlab as instructed by Mr. Vinod.
There were initially some errors since I didn't adjust the preferences of the letters as recommended to the chart given to us by the tutors. After looking at the chart and improving the legibility of the work, especially the alignment.
3.4 Final Font & Poster
Download Font Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSlVNTo9XlrrdDKaWPHJZHRMJMkXNQhd/view?usp=sharing
Figure 2.5 | A4 poster (PDF) / Week 13 (14/07/24)
IV. Feedback
Week 9
General Feedback:
- Avoid drawing on the words
- Make sure to use the same stroke on every word
Specific Feedback:
- How to write Capital "B."
- Do not complete the middle part of writing B
Week 10
Specific Feedback:
- Use Pen tool.
- Change the calligraphic "s" into a normal "s."
- How to adjust the letters without shrinking it and losing form.
Week 11
Specific Feedback:
- Add a small space in between the connection points of "l" that makes the letter "h/n"
- Make the dot on "i" bigger and therefore make the period, comma, and exclamation mark dot bigger.
- Look at gothic font comma for reference.
Week 12
General Feedback:
- Follow the chart given by the lecturers to know how to kern and adjust the spacing of the letters.
V. Reflection
Experience
Before I made the sketches, I thought the process would be somewhat easy since it was writing at a certain angle consistently. However, I didn't realise I would be confused on how the structure of some of the letters would be written and I had to actually practice a bit more before even coming up with the sketch. I did not think this was a bad experience however, in fact, I had a lot of fun developing the fonts and was actually excited to receive feedback to improve my text before the digitisation.
Due to my unfamiliarity with how to use Adobe Illustrator effectively, I was very confused on how to start digitisation at first before the feedback session and demonstration with Mr. Vinod. After that, I just continued to enjoy making the font and was always pleasantly surprised to see how little changes could affect the letters as a whole. The only thing that frustrated me about this assignment was the downloading process of the font, but I managed to get past it.
Observations
This task was the highlight of this class to me. I managed to be motivated the whole way through this assignment and found myself wanting to learn more rather than to get it over with. Seeing everyone's own fonts did make me slightly insecure about my own font, however I managed to learn what to do and what not to do with their fonts and applied some of the feedback to my own. I never realised how many little details was needed on a letter in order to make it a proper typeface. It is very tedious, but the work is very rewarding.
Findings
I managed to learn about how to make a font and how letters are structured. I learned that the "o" letter is the base of many of the other letters and it would be better to focus on it first before cotinuing on to the other letters. Many of the letters are spaced with the letters "o" and "n" while a few are spaced by eye. And I found that slowly but surely, I did gain some observation skills since I started noticing some little details while looking at other fonts after making my own.
VI. Further Reading
For this task's further reading, I decided to read this book. I will summarize some of the parts of the chapter "Typographic Principles" since I found that they expand on what I have learned before and tell me new things as well.
Format - The Golden Section
The golden section refers to a ratio between two numbers: 1:1.618. It is also represented as a:b = b:(a+b). It has been apparently used since ancient times and can be even identified in Greek architecture and art. It is known to create a harmonius relationships between graphic elements placed on the page with the purpose of generating printed formats for books, posters, etc.
Typography Selection
Text Type
Use typefaces designed for the purpose of uninterrupted reading:
- Caslon
- Bembo
- Garamond
These typefaces work best for large areas of book text.
Times New Roman: Designed to function as a newspaper typeface and makes an adequete choice for book text too.
Typefaces that have clear readability:
- Clearface
- Centaur
- Sabon
Reading Direction and Scanning
Focal Points
Dynamic compositions emply a focal poin that does not allow a reader to scan starting with the top left corner. With this, the designer talls the reader what to read first on the format. It's usually used in posters, advertisements, packaging, etc.
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