Learning Log

Rhys Williams' Learning Log for OCA Graphic Design 1: Core Concepts

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Land's end: multiple exposures of the wild Cornish coast

A series of multiple-exposures created on the coastline of north Cornwall during lockdown 3.0.

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Margaret Drabble on Fay Godwin

Throughout her long career, Fay Godwin – with her portraits of authors, bleak landscapes and scenes of urban dereliction – was the most poetic of photographers, writes Margaret Drabble

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We are conditioned to understand that a photograph is an honest record of an object, time, and place.

photography

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Blind - INSIDE THE FRAME - With the back of a spoon

This short article provides an interesting summary of Tosani’s approach to creating a series, in which the everyday objects he photographs are reinvented each time they are photographed by elements such as the play of light on the surface of a spoon. The author of the article places this is a artistic tradition stretching back to the impressionists in which multiple viewpoints of the same objects or scene are presented at different times and in different conditions to demonstrate the effect of light, the passing of time and the subjectivity of the observing eye. 

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Streets ahead: The explosive New York scene that changed photography - in pictures

Between 1935 and 1965, New York was the epicentre of a revolutionary new style of photography. A new exhibition captures its energy

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'Art is not a spectator sport': the confounding work of Victor Burgin – in pictures

The British artist’s groundbreaking 1986 book Between was inspired by psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and a rejection of art as mere commerce. Yet it contains themes common to us all

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Jan Tschichold's Penguin Books Redesign

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The evolution of the Penguin Books logo design.

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A useful article about Jan Tschichold's 1948 redesign of the Penguin Book cover.

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A short video about the graphic design approach to designing the initial series of Penguin paperback books.

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Website Rebranding — Bellweather Agency

Bellweather Agency gave a top cultural institution an unparalleled new brand. This overhaul increased engagement at every point of entry.

I found this interesting article on the aperture website indentity and website rebrand while looking at the magazine redesign.

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A2-TYPE is a new type foundry set up by the London based design studio A2/SW/HK.

This is the san serif typeface that A2/SW/HK used for magazine title, short articles, introductory paragraphs, subheadings, captions and footer information.

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A2-TYPE is a new type foundry set up by the London based design studio A2/SW/HK.

While carrying out research on Aperture Magazine’s layout, I also researched the fonts that are used. This page is for the font Register*, which was designed by A2-TYPE foundry set up by the studio that carried out the redesign of the magazine.

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INTERVIEW: Scott Williams of A2/SW/HK

The London-based graphic design studio A2/SW/HK (Scott Williams and Henrik Kubel) is responsible for Aperture magazine’s dramatic redesign.

While looking at the layout of Aperture Magazine, I found this article - an interview with design studio A2/SW/HK) on a redesign of the magazine that took place in 2013.

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Aperture at Sixty from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

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TYPE BY Quadraat is Fred Smeijers first commercially released typeface (FF 1992). Originally designed for the eponymous Dutch design company Smeijers was a co-founding member of (currently name “het Lab”), Quadraat combines Renaissance elegance with contemporary ideas on construction and form. Over the past two and a half decades, several versions have been designed: Quadraat Serif, Sans, Mono, Display, and Headliner. The Quadraat fonts carry vibrant, powerful outlines, but they aren’t of the loud-mouthed, fun-font variety. Equally Quadraat didn’t fall prey to stiffly dated feel or outlines. Quadraat strives for a sort of understated noticeability we don’t see much anymore. The TYPE BY Quadraat Sans follows a trend which was originated by Jan van Krimpen who designed Romulus, a classical typeface and to which he added some sans serif variations. It was not until the late eighties that this idea became more popular. The well known designs from our days are ITC Stone or ff Scala for example. Both typefaces give designers the opportunity to make use of well adapted sans serif variations. Quadraat which started with a serif version follows this young tradition. Sans serif typefaces can look very much alike, especially in the bolder variations. This is certainly not the case with Quadraat Sans. Quadraat Sans is like its serif companion a typeface with a rather strong character of its own. Thus, it was not that easy for the designer Fred Smeijers to make a gesture as strong as its serif companion without neglecting traditional proportions. But he obviously succeeded in giving the sans version a lively and humane character. This can be most clearly seen in big word images and is still there in text sizes, although in a more discreet way. So Quadraat Sans has display qualities, is an efficient typeface and suitable for longer texts at the same time. The TYPE BY Quadraat fonts were fully remastered in 2019 and had been re-hinted to meet the demands of the current digital technology. Quadraat serif fonts consist of five weights of roman and italic designs, available in one, normal, width. Its character set includes small caps, stylistic alternates, and multiple figure sets. Additional features include small cap, lining and old style figures (each in tabular and proportional widths); fractions; comprehensive superiors, inferiors, numerators and denominators; case sensitive punctuation sets; mathematical and monetary symbols; arrows; standard and discretionary ligatures (with their stylistic alternates); and a complete range of accents for all Western, Central and East European languages based on the Latin script. Quadraat fonts are available in OTF CFF, TTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 formats.

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From Caslon to Quadraat: A history of the LRB in fonts and covers

While looking at the London Review of Books layout for the Lorem Ipsum exercise, I found this interesting video, which talk about the move from Caslon to Quadraat and the implications of digital developments on type usage in the publishing industry.