Woo Shuen Yan / 0342415 / Bachelor's in Creative Media
Typography
Task 1
LECTURES
Week 1- The lecture this week was briefing about the module itself and all sorts of tasks and assignments we will be doing in this semester. We were told to create our own blog using blogger to post our assignments and we must follow the format that is given by the lecturer for the e-portfolio. Of course the lecture this week taught us how to create our own blogs with the accurate format briefly.
The lecture also contented the knowledges of what is typefaces itself and how to design it. We were told to choose 4 out of 7 words that we voted for the most to start designing our own typefaces. Start by sketching it out first then will be checked in the next week.
We were also told to watch the lectures on YouTube playlist that can be found on Facebook group after the class. The first lecture for the week was about the development of typography over a period of time. The development was focusing on the Phoenician to Roman.
Phoenician to Roman:
What we all come to know that is the tool we hold in our hands has important influence on type of writings that we create. For example:
Figure 0.1: Phoenician alphabet, 3 April 2021
After that, The Greek then developed a style of writing from left to right, which how it continued up until today ( as it used to write from right to left). It takes about nine hundred years for the development from Phoenician to Greek to Roman.
Nearest quarter century text types:
- Blackletter (1450)
- Oldstyle (1475)
- Italic (1500)
- Script (1550)
- Transitional (1750)
- Modern (1775)
- Square Serif/ Slab Serif (1825)
- Sans Serif (1900)
- Serif/ Sans Serif (1990)
Week 2- For this week, we submitted our sketches of the 4 words of choice on Facebook comment section. Submitting our works also counted as our attendance for classes. We also got some of our feedbacks for the sketches. After the feedback section is done, we were taught how to digitalized the typefaces using the Adobe Illustrator.
- Only use the 10 given fonts by lecturer to do the designs.
- Adobe Caslon Pro
- Bembo Std
- Bodoni Std
- Futura Std
- Gill Sans Std
- ITC Garamond Std
- ITC New Baskerville Std
- Janson Text LT Std
- Serifa Std
- Univers LT Std
The lecture on YouTube this week was about the basics of typography like:
Figure 0.2: Example of letterform, 3 April 2021
Week 3- We had to submit our digitalized attempt on the typefaces on Facebook again for attendance and reviews. Students got to receive specific feedbacks from grouping with random classmates from different people this week. After the specific feedbacks from classmates, lecturers also gave some thoughts on some of the works.
INSTRUCTIONS
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Task 1: Exercises- Type Expression
For Task 1, we were assigned to explore and make our very own designs with 4 out of 7 words that are given by lecturers/ tutors. This task will contain 3 main progression of designing the typefaces, which are sketching ideations, digitalized the final 4 chosen design of words and finally the animation part.
In this task we will learn things like:
Adapt and apply skills independently, ability, theory or methodology. There is a new one-to-one situation, solve puzzles or explore complex issues in primitive ways, demonstrate the displayed technical skills through excellent execution, strong ability to use related solutions bring good execution. Careful, neat practice effectively communicate design concepts and solutions.
PROGRESS
Week 1: Exploration sketches.
Figure 1.1: First round ideation of 4 words, 6 April 2021
After the lecture in week 1, we were supposed to do many exploration for the 4 chosen words out of 7 off of our liking, which are "slice, scream, wave, and eat". Then I decided to do 2 of each designs first which I had in mind shown in Figure 1.1. For the "scream", you can see that there is 3 designs, but when when you look at the first 2 of the typefaces I drew, it only had slight changes to it because I wanted to try making it look like a speaker for the second try.
Week 2: Feedback for sketches and more explorations.
More sketches of 4 words of choice:
Figure 1.3: More exploration to final idea of 4 chosen words, 12 April 2021
This time around, I decided to change the chosen word "eat" to "spin", as I had better ideation for spin.
Chosen words: Slice, Scream, Wave, Spin.
Week 3: Digitalized typefaces.
Figure 1.4: Digitalized typeface of 4 chosen words, 13 April 2021
This week we showed our first try on digitalized typefaces. Mine was Slice, Scream, Wave, and Spin. The fonts I have used was only Futura Std and Bodoni Std from the list of 10 fonts provided by lecturer.
Week 4: Digitalized animation.
This week I have made some changes to the final digitalized typefaces.
Figure1.5: Finalized typefaces of choice, 16 April 2021
Changes made:
- "WAVE" had been adjusted to more wavy effect.
- "SPIN" had changed some colors. (based on what lecturer suggested)
Figure 1.6: Animation artboard of "SPIN", 17 April 2021
For the digitalized animation typeface, I chose to animate the word "SPIN". This spinning effect was actually an idea from that spinning ballerina in the middle of music box in the first place, but, I decided to make the spin motion like how a coin moves while spinning it.
Figure 1.7: Export artboards in Photoshop, 17 April 2021
A total of 17 artboards used for this animation. I have also adjusted the speed of the 1st, 13th, and 14th in
Figure 1.8: First attempt of animation, 19 April 2021
Figure 1.9: Final animation, 19 April 2021
The changes of final animation was making the spinning motion smoother as my classmate gave the feedback about try adding more artboards to it that makes it spin smoothly. That said, it made it 19 artboards, 4 more artboards than before. Then, I have also adjusted the "S" to the right, more closer to the "P" so that it doesn't look so far away.
Task 1: Exercises, Text Formatting
In the end of this exercise, we are suppose to have our very own final text formatting layout using other App than just Adobe Illustration or Photoshop, we are told to use InDesign for this exercise.
Figure 2.0: First attempt of Layout, 25 April 2021
PDF
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FEEDBACKWeek 1:
Specific feedback: There is no specific feedback for the week.
General feedback: Create our own e-portfolio with accurate format provided.
Week 2:
Specific feedback: The lecturer stated that I have 3 designs of the word "scream", and he liked the third design which excellently expressed the meaning of the word by showing how abruptly the scream it is. Unlike the other 2 of the designs, scream, he said that those two looks too similar where it goes like "louder" gradually. It seems that even though it was actually quite a good design, but the word "scream" does not really happens gradually.
General feedback: We shouldn't contain visual graphics to design the typefaces. Do more exploration. My lecturer took mine as an example for evaluating in lecture of week 2, he gave some thoughts about my designs. The first thing the lecturer stated about my overall sketches was "insufficient exploration", which strikes me because I actually only realized that it is really lack of ideas when I took a look at other friends' works. I will make sure to explore more after.
Week 3:
Specific feedback: My classmates said about my designs were pretty good and nicely done overall. Besides, there was one design my friends couldn't really understand, which was "wave". One of my friend gave the opinion about the look of it does not really represents the meaning of the word. The other friend stated that it also kind of looks like "falling" more than "wave".
Surprisingly, my lecturer do like all of my designs, including the "wave". He actually said all of the designs excellently represented the meaning of the words. That said, I do still care about what my classmates commented about my "wave" design. I will make some changes still, to the wave, I probably will make the design more wavy in order to look more like wave.
He commented on the design of "spin". It was quite a good design and a little change on the color shade of the letter "P" would be better, he said. Perhaps, I could change the second right side-shade to black then will do the job.
General feedback: Try to avoid overly distorted designs, keep the original shape of the fonts. A little bit of distortion is fine. Lecturer said that the "scream" was a little bit overly distorted off of the liking of lecturer. But, it does makes strong impression of the scream. I will consider about whether if I want to change the design a bit or just leave the way it is.
Week 4:
Specific feedback: My classmates commented on my animation of the word "SPIN". Everyone agreed that it is well animated and creative but, it can be improve by making the motion more smooth by adding more artboards to it. Lecturer gave the opinion about the character "S" is a bit too far away to the "P". Other than that, it looked nice overall he said.
General feedback: Make sure your typefaces designs are really representing the meaning of the words well. Create something that makes people smile when looking at the design. Remember to only use the 10 fonts provided which can be found in Facebook group.
REFLECTIONS
Experience: When I first received this assignment and just knowing that I will create animation with text, I thought to myself that this should be easy and when we just have to symbolized the text and make it into animation. But, I was wrong, as I am working through this task, I found that professionally creating a typeface is not that easy, especially when we are not allowed to use visual graphics along with not just any type of fonts. I sure started to frustrate a bit when some things are limited, but it all makes sense if its about professionally creating a typeface. Of course it was not just struggle when there were tutors guiding us step by step, we technically just have to follow the instructions and do our job so it was quite a fun experience as well because I did learned something new.
Observation: I have observed that there are so many ideas creating typefaces and not using visual graphics at all, I have seen many of my classmates' works and it was just so mesmerizing to encounter so many different ideas from different people.
Findings: I have learned that it is not just all about joining the text with visual graphics to bring out the meaning of the words, we get to present the meaning well with just playing around with the text itself.
FURTHER READING
Figure 3.0: Book cover of "Why Fonts Matter", 2016
This is the book that I have done some readings for Typography, "Why Fonts Matter", by Sarah Hyndman, 2016. This book has 144 pages itself as being a short book to read, is was pretty convenient. So, the difference from the other books on the list is that these books focus on the psychological aspects of genre and how fonts affect consumers.
Fonts have different personalities that can build trust or distrust, give you confidence, make things look easier to do or make products better. The scientific basis for understanding how fonts affect reading content. They are hidden in clear sight and trigger memories, associations and multi-sensory experiences in your imagination.
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