The assignment was to research your assigned design movement(for ex Dadaism, Pop art, etc) and analyze the typography used in the art pieces relevant to the movement. Based on our research we were supposed to create something in that particular style or inspired by that particular style and your artwork should have information about the assigned design movement.
I was assigned Russian Constructivism which started in 1915.
I was inspired by one of the most famous artworks by Alexander Rodchenko, a famous Constructivist artist; Books Please! In all branches of knowledge. Using the composition and colors I tried to concisely fit in the information about the design movement in the poster.
I was quite confused about the point of this assignment since it seemed pretty disconnected from the course of typography however after asking the faculty about it she explained how it was to move away from static layouts and explore more into dynamic mediums. With AR and metaverse being the upcoming trends in designing and honestly probably all aspects of human interaction.
Scanimation
Since my concept was perspective I was toying around with something related to an eye or an idea that could depict multiple perspectives.
This was the final result.
Here's it a bit slowed so you can see the frames a bit more clearly.
Total number of frames used: 36
Fonts used:
Franklin Gothic Heavy
Bauhaus 93
Cooper Black
Baskerville Old Face
Bodoni
Rockwell
I've tried to sort of show an evolution in fonts with the inclusion of slur, slab, san, and serif typefaces. The 'P' written in the font Bauhaus 93 eventually then turns into an eye representing the whole concept of perceiving of perspective and there being multiple of them.
Final Stuff
Previous iterations/Failures
Here the speed of the gif didn't convey the aspect of different perspectives as I had imagined it would. It just feels like a bland gif. The speed being too fast to actually comprehend anything.
Eventually I ended up scraping the idea of the 'P' in different fonts and used Bauhaus 93 only by converting it into an eye. However even this iteration seemed a little tasteless to me, there wasn't anything particularly catchy.
There was a bit more experimentation with the number of frames, speed and other miscellaneous factors.
18 total frames and then to loop the gif they are reversed so a total of 36 frames. I ended up choosing the amalgamation of the two concepts as my final one. The different Ps really drew attention and then eventually the eye gave a hint of the concept.
Augmented Reality
For the AR part of the assignment I had multiple ideas but I eventually ended up going with the one I had thought of first. There are multiple sculptures in real life where the sculpture only makes sense of through a particular angle. Through this concept I wanted to show that looking at a particular situation through different perspectives could really change our understanding of the situation itself.
Here as you can see a physical set up had been made and a 3D model had been created.
As you can see through a particular angle it forms the letter 'p'
While through the other angles it simply looks like random objects kept together.
View the 3D model here.
Magazine Spread
Based on our chosen topic we also had to do a magazine spread. So I went with a monochromatic theme.
The point of this assignment was exploration in layouts and having the liberty to play with image and text.
We had to write a poem for the text.
Forest Floor:
A hungry python slithers across the floor,
Moss and water making it desire for more,
Tired in its pilgrimage about to weep,
It sees a human’s eyes closed with sleep,
And devours it in a nature so crude,
An interstellar event occurring for food.
-4:41 PM | 5-08-2022
Spiral
This piece of work is supposed to represent what I imagine an anxiety spiral would feel like. So many thoughts spiraling out of this one trigger. Here the trigger is conveyed through the word anxious and the multitude of thoughts are on the side is the overthinking that comes along with it. The first version of the layout had an imbalance in the negative space which was rectified after a senior pointed it out. The black diagonal in the middle is actually the 's' of the anxious increased in size. It was placed diagonally to create a sense of divide that one feels with themselves while anxious.
Nosedive
Here the layout is carried by the poem and its semantics. It was inspired by the first line of the poem. The whole idea of the poem is that its supposed to feel like being captivated by the tales of the python, somewhat similar to the effect of 'Kaa' from The Jungle Book. Therefore the layout is also in a way that it pulls you into the poem.
Nokia
The layout is inspired by the snake in game in old phones like Nokia. The poem has been arranged in the form of the snake and the black square(pixel) is the food of the snake. The image of python has been used on the top right corner where the name of the game used to be. It was originally Forest Floor, however the essence of python was lost by adding the name of the poem so I added the image in the top right corner.
Venomous
Here the idea of the layout is loosely inspired by two mythological stories: one of the Sindhi snake god 'Gogro' and the other of the snake from the Garden of Eden. The python represents the tree trunk and the leaves is made out of the poem. The trees in the background are also made of type with the leaves being made of the number '3' and the trunk being the character '|' or the vertical bar. The decorative font used is Eveleth Light.
Encrypted
This one is more inspired by python as in the coding language. The font used is OCR A Extended. The angular design of the font gives it the feeling of a written program. However the default font used in python is Courier New but I disliked the layout with that font.
Failures:
And there were many more iterations for each of the layouts.
When you are anxious, you are all over the place with no coherent thought. That feeling of anxiousness is the inspiration behind this type where multiple fonts were used and tweaked to show disorganization. The diagonal of the 'x' was tweaked to extend further than it is meant to portray that spike of anxiety one feels.
Open Sans
Vivid italic
Essonnes Display Regular
Courier New
Verdana
Broadway
Sleep:
The lowercase 'e' was replaced by two closed eyes to represent sleep. The font used was Century Gothic which is a geometric sans. I wanted to create a subtle contrast by using a more angular and rigid font with the word sleep as you are supposed to be relaxed while sleeping.
Python:
A snake in general is a very elegant figure with smooth scales and a seductive quality. Therefore the usage of the script font BohemeFloral in which the letters flow in a very delicate yet meaningful rhythm.
First evidence of typography was found in cave paintings which eventually shifted to clay tablets where the tool used to write was reed. Ideograms or Egyptians hieroglyphs were the next signs of typography in history. There were 720 symbols. Cuneiforms came next with the number of symbols being cut down 560 and then came Phoenicians with the number being 28. Eventually as years passed and with more evolution came the roman lettering with 26 alphabets.
Serifs, sans serifs and everything in between:
Trajan:
Roman capitals(monumental typeface) tool used was chisel which created the serifs.
Uncials:
fewer strokes, rounded letters saved ink and page
Half-uncials:
again to save space, precursors to lowercase lettering
Carolingian minuscule:
Calligraphic standard so that the literate could easily recognize it from one region to another.
Blackletter/textura:
The styles of typography changed quite a lot throughout the years with the first typeface being founded by John Gutenberg(also considered the father of typography) who created the movable type(letter press printing) and blackletter. Blackletter was created to mimic the handwriting of monks who used to hand transcribe manuscripts before the inventions of printing press.
Humanist:
Eventually came the humanist style of type where the serifs, vertical stress and angles were designed in such a way that they replicated handwritten letters. Ex Jenson typeface by Nicholas Jenson
Old style/Gerald:
Little contrast between thick and thin strokes with serifs being bracketed, stress is diagonal. Italics were produced around this time as well, again to save money and space. Ex Garamond by Claude Garamond.
Transitional:
relatively higher contrast between thick and thin strokes but less than modern. Axis was almost vertical, bracketed serifs and round terminals. Ex Baskerville by John Baskerville
Modern/hairline serifs:
High contrast between thick and thin strokes, vertical axis non bracketed serifs. Ex Bodoni by Giambattista Bodoni
Slab serifs or Egyptian typeface:
industrial revolution; serifs got bolder with thick slab like styles, typefaces had low contrast Ex Rockwell
Sans serif:
grotesque. Serifs were considered beautiful and Caslon the fourth removed them to create sans serif. We have categories in sans serif as well with geometric sans, humanist sans, neo-grotesque, etc.
In a two-part series Fontfabric takes a closer look at the anatomy of typography, from Venetian serifs and lineals to Bauhaus and decorative
Spontaneous Activity
All of us were tired after taking in a bunch of history lessons so while taking a break we randomly started doing type by humans.
TYPE
MILLY
Senior Review!!!!
We had to bring all of our existing work to class to get feedback from our seniors who were a year ahead of us. I was majorly given feedback by Angel.
The feedback was insightful as it was from a third person's perspective and not just limited to the faculty and peers which already understood the essence of the assignments. This way we got an idea if a design was able to be independent of its explanation or not and whether it could stand alone.
Feedback:
AR/Scanimation:
look at other’s work if you are stuck somewhere. Research on topics other than yours and eventually get back or start fresh.
Design movement:
moodboard looks more like a poster, explore more compositions for it as well as constructive fonts to add relevant keywords in the moodboard
liked the outcome idea said could make a digital version as well
Word expressive art:
adjust spacing so that anxious is more readable and a comprehensive word.
Typography and senior review are daunting in different ways. With one being extensive history(I'm not too fond of it.) and the other having your work analyzed. However after writing down the History of Typography document, it become much more simpler and easier to remember. Senior review turned out to be very candid and helpful.
We were supposed to write poetry based on one of the expressive words that we had illustrated, so I chose python.
Forest Floor
A hungry python slithers across the floor,
Moss and water making it desire for more,
Tired in its pilgrimage about to weep,
It sees a human’s eyes closed with sleep,
And devours it in a nature so crude,
An interstellar event occurring for food.
-4:41 PM | 5-08-2022
Experimental Layouts
Now that we had our text and our image(word expressive art), we were to combine the two and create some funky layouts with a whole lot of explorations. Definitely had a lot of failures for this one.
Concept
Discussed our concept for AR and Scanimation after brainstorming quite a bit. Landed upon:
Perspective
After the discussion I was recommended by my faculty to research more into the topic and also look into Ways of Seeing by John Berger.
Constructivism
Moodboard making and discussion of outcomes for the Constructivism movement.
Constructivism was the last major art movement in Russia which was driven by political propaganda and inspired by cubism, suprematism and futurism while it influenced major art movements like Bauhaus and De Stijl.
The movement started after the World War I during 1915 by Vladmir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko and had ended in the 1930s.
It is abstract with usage of shapes and angles with the typography mainly being Sans Serif and occasionally Slab Serif.
Beat the Whites by El Lissitzky
Art by El Lissitzky
The type was also set at an angle in the layouts of the artworks of that art movement.
It had an inclusion of photographs and the posters were often systematically set collages of form, image and type.
Artwork by Rodchenko
The main color palette was red, white and black.
Vladmir Tatlin
He was inspired by Pablo Picasso's work during a trip to Paris in 1913. He often liked to question traditional concepts in art and made sculptures to portray that.
His rejection of detail oriented art gathered criticism.
"Either create functional houses and bridges or create pure art, not both." -Gabo
More research on Constructivism.
The research on design movements was quite an interesting process. Overall with the interconnection of so many movements I also ended up talking to the people assigned Bauhaus, Dadaism, Cubism, New Wave, etc about their movements to see if I could see any traces of Constructivism or vice versa. Making the moodboard was also a fun task.
Fourth day. It was a Saturday so our hearts and sleep was hurting a bit from being snatched away from us but as usual the class was enjoyable and slightly nerve wrecking.
Fonts being made fun of
The point of these videos at least according to my understanding was to develop a sense that all fonts have personalities and idiosyncrasies.
That we have to learn to distinguish between fonts by carefully observing them. (Disclaimer: Might look like a buffoon to non designers)
There was also a point of legibility and readability which sparked quite an interesting discussion in the class.
A font should be used mindfully.
We were asked to assign a font for ourselves and then assign a font to someone in the class. I had chosen Milly ma'am and given her the font Stencil because of her grunge look with a black t-shirt and camo pants.
This activity helped me understand the true essence that fonts have a personality.
I assigned Open Sans for myself as I found my outfit and overall vibe to be very basic. However, I was assigned a very funky font by Nitin: Hustle Bright.
I guess that also shows the difference in how we see ourselves and others perceive us.
Research on Type Designers
For the next activity, we were all assigned a famous and influential typographer or a type designer and we had to research and present their influence in the world of typography.
I was assgined
Zuzana Licko
A Slovak born American type designer who was known for rejecting the traditional type practices at that time. She worked in Emigre Magazine which was founded together by her husband.
It was quite interesting to see the inspiration behind one of Licko's most famous fonts being Baskerville. Mrs Eaves was Baskerville's mistress and the naming of the font was a tribute to her forgotten legacy.
Dumb Charades but Not Really
Next activity had us to somewhat of a dumb charades game where we had to choose a chit and make an outcome based on the work in the chit. My group had gotten AR and the other group had gotten Scanimation.
For AR we had decided to show the other group instagram filters with type in it.
The Scanimation group tried their best as well but the word Scanimation was unheard of until this activity.
Evidence of failure I would say
Eventually the assignment was to decide upon a concept of your choice and represent it in two outcomes:
AR
Scanimation
Tough shit.
And we ended the class with
More Chits
To be assigned the design movement and I got:
Constructivism.
This class was plenty eventful with a surprise presentation being dumped on us in the unholy hours of the morning. The AR and Scanimation activity brough upon a lot of confusion as well in regards to concepts and all that. But we eventually figured it out.
Third day we went back to our roots to learn the correct vocabulary to be used in regards of typography and we learnt do's and dont's for layouts.
11 pt size
Simply put: perfect
50-60
Generally the number of words that should be in a line
Contrast
Create it In terms of size, fonts and colors
Kerning
Adjusting the l e t t e r spacing
Tracking
Adjusting the word spacing
Leading
Adjusting the
line
space
Widows
The end of a paragraph(line of text containing one or more words) that appears at the top of the column
Orphan
Single word that is left out at the bottom of the paragraph
Ctrl C + Ctrl V
The class was divided into pairs and we were supposed to give peer feedback on our magazine layouts before getting feedback from the faculty.
This class really made me realize the importance of type vocabulary. It is necessary to know words like tracking, kerning, leading, etc specially in a professional environment. We also started using our newfound vocabulary in the peer review session for the magazine layouts.
Day two started off with Ted Talks and evolved to challenging word expressive art and the following happened on 4th August, 2022.
Shiva Nallaperumal
Admirable type designer I would say. Interesting tales related to his work and typefaces/fonts.
The video gave us a glimpse into the type industry with the introduction of Ink Traps and his fonts which included the Kufic lettering inspired Calcula. Again, pretty admirable work I must say.
What fascinated me was the intricacies of the type industry where so much work happens in point 11 size. And in that size is where the magic happens. For example ink traps to accommodate for ink bleeding in newspapers.
Word Expressive Art
We were without a warning of what was to come ahead asked to choose 5 keywords from the video. Lo and behold the assignment was to make word expressive art and I honestly salute the people who had taken words like Calcula or Kufic.
So, 5 words and 4 iterations which made 20 ideas in total. (AND WE WERE GIVEN ONLY 20 MINS + EXTRA TIME)
My words:
Anxious
Hungry
Sleep
Python
Interstellar
Brainstorming:
Ctrl C + Ctrl V
This assignment was a bit daunting at first because we had no idea of what to do with InDesign. We were thrown into the water without being given swimming lessons(sad to admit, it was beneficial for us).
From Vogue October 2015
These were the layouts that I had decided upon to replicate.
I definitely struggle with word expressive art, so this was quite an interesting challenge that I tried to accept with an open mind and zero prejudice. Surprisingly once I had accepted that brainstorming can also include failed ideas I ended up coming up with good stuff. Of course there is always room for improvement but at least the task did not feel daunting.
This is the record of our first day in our typography module dated 3rd August, 2022.
Handygloves
or Type Anatomy.
Earned a star for the color coding.
Font + Typefaces
A typeface is particular set of glyphs or characters whereas a font is a particular weight, size and style of a typeface. A typeface consists of a range of fonts that have similar characteristics.
For example: Helvetica would be a typeface and Helvetica Thin would be a font in that typeface.
Categorization
Serif:
serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts.
Sans serif
Sans is French for 'without', so pretty self explanatory post that point.
Slab serif:
The serifs are super thick and block like. Also called 'Egyptians'
Slur serif:
Has thicker serifs and more curves than normal serifs.
Hairline serif:
Hairline is the thin stroke common to serif typefaces and hairline serifs have high contrasts between thick and thin strokes.
Script:
Resemble cursive or handwriting typically used for displays
Decorative:
Funky fonts, mostly never used as body text and only used for headings.
Video of Learnings
To wrap up our learnings of the day, our assignment was to find examples of typography and type anatomy right in our campus and compile them into a short video.
PS: We did our best to make a video in 45 minutes so please do not judge the music choice.
We were all nervous yet excited students waiting for an introduction to the third semester not knowing that this one hell of a module was gonna be dropped upon us. Yet we absolutely enjoyed the day.
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
yousharknotpass