Speak with your Type

Typography is something that all designers use to help communicate ideas in not only a legible and approachable manner, but also to help convey meaning. Whether it is the typeface that communicates that feeling, or even the small details such as spaces, punctuation, placement, and character choice. Designers have more control that someone may realize over the voice of a piece of work, simply through the typography. Display fonts are usually used for headings and may consist of more personality. However, these fonts can sometimes be less readable, and may not pertain to all the type rules. This does not mean they should not be used, since they can easily bring the desired meaning into your work, just in small doses. When it comes to body text however, justification (how paragraphs are aligned), leading (horizontal spacing between lines of type), kerning (the adjustment of space between letters), tracking (the space between words), and other variables, are all very important in making sure the text flows and reads well. The general rules that designers go by started in the 1700’s when the first typefaces were beginning to be created. Whether the typeface chosen is humanistic old-style, transitional, modern, slab serif, or a sans serif can make the world of a difference when readers are interpreting the piece of writing being presented. Minor details may seem small enough to be easily forgotten in the overall read of one’s typography, but in reality: every space, punctuation mark, capital letter, and font choice can lead to a new read.

(Graphic Design School. By: Dabner, Stweart, and Zempol)

In an article in Smashing Magazine called “What Font Should I Us?: Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces, Dan Mayer compares choosing fonts to choosing clothes. I love this comparison because it allows you to take the characters of the letter and understand them in a more humanized manner. When Mayer spoke about how a nice pair of your favorite jeans can be dressed up or down, it made understanding fonts much easier. A font is just a different style of particular typeface— bold, italic, light, condensed, etc. These options make it much easier to develop hierarchy and contrast while still allowing there to be room for cohesiveness within the writing. I also love the way Mayer chose to decipher different kinds of typefaces by relating them to feeling. A geometric typeface is “like a beautifully designed airport: it’s impressive, modern and useful, but we have to think twice about whether or not we’d like to live there.” Whereas humanistic typefaces can give a more empathetic feel, Old Styles are well, old style, Modern and transitional types are stylish, and Slab Serifs are expressive (in many different ways).

 

(http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-i-use-five-principles-for-choosing-and-using-typefaces/)

This geometric typeface adds a bit of an impression and some structure to the very mystical dreamy photograph it lies on top of. The lack of serifs allows the piece to look more clean and strong. 

(Designspiration.net)

This slab serif font is used in an elegant and almost romantic manner. The placement of the R makes this look more like lettering rather than a full typeface. Nevertheless, its combination of character and structure make for a beautiful display type. 

(Designspiration.net)

This combination of letterforms (or number forms in this case) create a lot of visual interest. Particularly in the negative space, the shapes that are made in the spaces between the numbers, is quite beautiful, and gives off a swift, modern, elegant feeling.

(Designspiration.net)

The distortion of this type, especially on a sans serif font, allows for a sense of movement and interest. I love that the paper makes the type look as if its waving and yet you gain a sense of sturdiness because of the thickness of the lines. 

(Designspiration.net)

Running with the Renaissance

During the Renaissance period, amongst the paintings of Boticelli and Carvaggio, was another artist, by the name of Nicolas Jenson. His type began as a roman type design used in Evangelical Preparation, which was a roman typeface. His use of the shapes in the spaces between the letters, are what make his type so beautiful, and remembered today. In the later years of his life, Jenson made Greek and Gothic fonts, and from the words of Philip B. Meggs, his “fonts aligned more perfectly than those of any other printer of his time.” His font was beautiful, but above all, it was legible; and this is what helped him succeed. Along with exquisite type, the Renaissance artists and type designers loved nature, and flowers in particular. A decoration that was printed excessively, the designs were embraced because of their organic look that came with the humanistic approach of renaissance design and beliefs. These flowers were eventually led into the type, and along came ornaments. Though they may seem outdated, and maybe only used in letters or small ending marks to old books, ornaments are actually very well known among type designers. An extension and more “authentic” take on Jenson’s type was taken on by Aldus Manutius and the typeface designer, Griffo. This text face remains today, and is known as “Bembo”. Italics then stemmed off of this typeface, creating the slanted letters we commonly use for emphasis or in names/titles. “Small caps” accompanied this slanted type that Manutius was also working on perfecting up until his death in 1515.

Once the typography boom stopped thriving in Italy, it moved to France. Lead by the French language and the exquisite design influence of the renaissance, Geoffery Tory developed a Renaissance school of book design and illustration. His letterforms (consisting of very long ascenders and descenders), can be found in a 1506 manuscript called The Hours of Jean Lallemant. In a book made later on, called Champ Fleury, Tory created thirteen alphabets in the back of the book. One quirky, creative font consisted of letterforms made of tools. Meanwhile, Claude Garamond was creating a beautiful lighter roman typeface, which went beautifully with the Roman capital initials that Geoffrey Tory continued to make. Garamond was hired on as a punch cutter under a man by the name of Antoine Augereau. Once the combination of legibility and beauty was understood in regards to type, Garamond, Tory, and Augereau all continued to complete beautiful roman fonts.

Eventually, the fall of Garamond’s fonts occurred because of the popularity of metal type book making in place of the humanistic approach to letterforms that Garamond possessed. However, despite the desire to have less hand lettering, the shift to French printing did allow for a broader amount of typefaces and designs in books. From a more diverse use of caps and italics, to more than just one line weight in the design techniques, in less than 200 years the spectrum of type usage was broadening. Many printers, typographers, and illustrators flourished as the need for book printing (especially with this new and beautiful, unique style) emerged. In particular, Basel (a city in Switzerland), and Lyons in France, became the graphic design centers because of their printers, and prestigious schooling. Painters, illustrators, and type designers alike took on a morbid style during this time, because of the plague, and skeletons and graves became the go-to trend.

Throughout the Renaissance, type was not only developed, but argued about and then improved on. Whether you call the improvements stealing of previous styles or add-ons is a matter of opinion. But to give credit where credit is due, I believe all of the designers and printers of this time period deserve complete admiration from current designers who use ornaments and lettering as daily inspiration.

Meggs, Philip B. “The Prolouge to Graphic Design.” A History of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. 4+. Print.

 

Fundamentals of Composition

In Graphic Design School by David Dabner, Sandra Stewart and Eric Zempol, the fundamentals of composition are discussed in a detailed manner. Though I had heard about the basic composition elements before (balance, consistency, contrast, proximity, repetition and white space), it was interesting to see how these things played into the photography, illustration, symbolism, grids, and overall layout of various arrangements. Because there are so many different ways you can use different elements to represent different moods or ideas that you want your piece to represent, you need to consider what forms will influence those choices. In this unit of Graphic Design School, I certainly appreciated how instead of just explaining what symmetry, contrast, etc. are, the mood and reasoning behind using these techniques is expanded on. For example, when discussing symmetry, the book suggests “a symmetrical composition makes for a calmer more peaceful work, while something more dynamic can be achieved if the elements are arranged asymmetrically.” These sort of tips for using the techniques in diverse layouts and various compositions, along with the picture examples that are given are very helpful. I also really enjoyed reading about pace and contrast in this chapter. The explanation helped me differentiate between rhythm and pace, and added to the understanding of capturing and keeping the reader’s attention in my design. (Graphic Design School. By: Dabner, Stweart, and Zempol)

In a blog written by William Bleachy, all of the design principles are explained, and composition is used as the last step. However, Bleachy even states in his last post on composition, that it is the first thing you should be thinking about. Making everything come together to create a visually interesting piece does entail contrast, hierarchy, balance, repetition, movement, etc. However, before any of these ideas can come together, the overall idea usually has to be understood first. In this blog post, I found it helpful to hear that the research part of the composition had to do with the branding and budget which was touched on in Graphic Design School, but not talked about in the perspective of a designer with perhaps, a low budget client. I liked how Bleachy showed that his process could sometimes be something as simple as sketching out an idea, using his composition and layout rules as he goes, but making sure his research is relative to the clients previous style or work. Bleachy also mentions looking at the history of the project/idea, which related back to the mention of style interpretation in unit two of Graphic Design School. (http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/rule-composition-putting/)

 

(Castle Cafe- found on desginworklife.com)
This image shows symbolism at it’s finest. Though the imagery may be sort of repetitive of the name, each icon is placed inside a grid so that your eye flows easily around the page. The contrast in the color choice allows for a dynamic and interesting composition.

(Reed Danziger, Works on Paper) The balance, symmetry, and movement in this image is simply intriguing. The overall composition includes a large amount of negative space, but this I believe, makes the focus and movement of the painting even more prevalent.

(http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2013/03/winters-wedding-invitation.php) The branding of this wedding invitation has a constant style. The colors and line weight in the different elements make for an interesting and dynamic layout, that still has a very elegant and distinct brand.

(http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2013/10/yearbook-of-type-i.php) The symmetry in this piece is slightly off center, but the balance of the thick and thin line weight type, along with the flow that the gradient gives, makes this composition draw you in, and want more.

From watermarks to Gutenberg

Once letterforms and language existed, it was easy for people to communicate: to write things down, to understand each other not only through voice, but also through writings in history. Ink and handwriting made this reproduction of language beautiful, but not exactly easy- especially when it came to mass production. Once writing was established in Europe, libraries were able to start forming collections (if you consider 122 books at most a library). A book as brief as two hundred pages could take up to 5 months of labor by a scribe, and was worth as much as a Vineyard because of its effort and the paper making. If you think of it this way, you could either buy a farm for your family to live on or a single short book. Once papermaking made its way to Europe from Asia, the expensive sheepskin paper process was eliminated, and the Chinese flax and hemp paper replaced it. The first printing process known to us is the watermark. Though it was not used for writing at first, and mostly used for trademarks, it was a translucent reproduction that began the “reprinting” idea. After watermarks, came the early European block printing, which was originally used for mostly, playing cards. Some text, but mostly just pictures were used in these instances. The earliest block prints that were used for communication purposes were actually religious prints of saints. Image and lettering was engraved in the wood and then made into block books. Almost like comic strips, these books had little writing, and were image based. Nevertheless, they told short religious stories, which communicated strong messages.

After the spread of paper and wood blocking invention took over Europe, the demand for books continued to grow. Mechanized production of writings through “moveable type” was desired throughout. After many attempts by others, Johann Gutenberg, an apprenticed goldsmith, developed a way of printing. Gutenberg formed a partnership with two others and together they began to create a letterpress system involving movable metal pieces. After many years, Gutenberg finally was able to bring together enough production pieces to create the first typographic printed book: the Forty-Two-Line bible. Though block printing was the last step in printing we know of before the mechanical letterpress, one would assume, it developed from the wood. However, wood was too fragile and did not play a part in the letterpress casting. Instead, a system similar to presses used for making wine, cheese, and paper was crafted. The type that went into this press was made of carefully molded and aligned lead pieces that were the exact same height. Gutenberg would set as many as fifty thousand separate parts of type at a time, and then use a thin tacky ink to daub onto the sets.

Just before Gutenberg finished his forty-two-line bible, he was forced to leave his shop because of the debt he owed in materials. Though all of this would have been repaid once his bible was created, he was out of time. The person to whom he owed money (Fust) and a man by the name of Peter Schoeffer took over his business, produced the bible, and also began to create colored manuscript pages, which transferred two colors. They became a world-renown production firm that continued in printing, and eventually publishing, for a hundred years. Eventually, Gutenberg was given financial support and was able to open a printing shop in which he made another shorter version of his original bible and then, an in-depth dictionary.

The invention of printing changed the world, as we know it. It made reproduction possible and most importantly made communication, history, and written language available to all.

 

Meggs, Philip B. “The Prolouge to Graphic Design.” A History of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. 4+. Print.

Research & Concepts

The fact that this reading starts out encouraging diversity in learning about design was refreshing. I have always found drawing and planning out my ideas before executing them to be so much more helpful in the long run, and that is just what this book suggests. Exploring different ways to sharpen your creative abilities is crucial in expanding your knowledge in not only creating, but also in general global learning. I also found the concept of “drawing to document” vs. “non-observational” drawing very stimulating.   I find myself using the design techniques that I have been taught to decipher almost every piece I either view or create. However, I miss the non-observational/abstract filter that I use to have, and that my non-design/art friends use when viewing and making art.

This concept of drawing out ideas and recognizing form first in order to solve design problems encourages me to keep my initial thoughts on paper. I so appreciate that this book starts out talking about the importance of drawing by hand and what segments of the creative process are important to do digitally vs. on paper. The research process is also so important in your making sure your audience, concept, and mood are addressed in a strategic matter. (Graphic Design School. By: Dabner, Stweart, and Zempol)

After reading the first chapter of Graphic Design School, I watched several videos on not only the creative process of designers and artists, but of other the progressions other creative individuals take. I watched one video in particular which went behind the scenes of the creative process students went through in making video called “16^th street,” which paired music and dance. It was so fascinating to me how similar the processes of design were to the steps these students took in creating the mood and feeling of their dance video. They talked about how the history and space of the building they chose gave a certain mood to the video, and how it was inspiring enough to shoot their dance in. They also talked about wanting melody and rhythm in the same ways designers crave those things in their work. The movement and collaboration of their “characters” in this video are things that designers and artists think about in their creative developments as well. The students discuss how acts 1,2, 3, etc. are planned out beforehand, but how the video really unfolds as its being shot. I find this to be so true in all aspects of design, and it is encouraging and overall inspiring to see how artists in all form take on creation in this way. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFtHAHARbJA)

 

 

 

(by Ramotion from dribbble.com) These concept sketches show the process of creating what looks like an icon system. These ideas are illustrated in different lights, giving a variation of moods and positions.

(Danish brand designed by DDB Denmark (thedieline.com)) This “tempt” packaging not only makes you curious, but it makes an impression on its viewer. The naked woman around the illustration cleverly implies the “tempt” name.

This image is incredibly poetic. The lines imitate each other and bring you around the page, so that your eye understands the mood that is set along with the imagery itself. – “Sunset” Erika Pochybova-Johnson (found on pinterest)

( tauron nowa muzyka | posters by Dawid Ryski, via Behance) This poster, in terms of mood and matter, uses proportion sizes to suggest importance and balance. Of course, the spotlights create some initial emphasis, but the size of the woman’s coat in relation to her body and the objects is an interesting scaling technique.

 

Where type comes from

Printing, ink, and variations of beautiful type definitely exemplify the early movements for why designers today are so obsessed with typography and lettering. However, before any thought about printing aesthetics even began, the simple desire to communicate through writing was the only concern of our ancestral designers. Over 200,000 years ago, cave paintings of animals began. From there, more abstract signs and symbols started to come into play, and the elementary pictographs represented things that were happening in that region (whether it was warning future visitors about hunting, or telling stories which happened in their lifetime). These images then, became the beginning of the spoken languages in some way or another. Over several centuries these small simple drawings became more abstract, and represented syllables. This kind of writing/ language was called Cuneiform, in its most developed stage. The scribes who were chosen (before the age of 10, mind you) to write in this demanding form had very important jobs reserved for them and magical ceremonies even took place with this type of writing. With the discovery of cuneiform, there was an information bang, to say the least. Tablets filled with information about history, religion, math, etc. and from this stemmed society, as we know it. Laws could be written, and stability within cultures began.

Eventually, the Egyptians took over the writing reigns as hieroglyphics became more flexible in the way it was written. The advantages of hieroglyphics begun with the different languages they could be presented in, the direction in which they could be read, and of course the giant step forward with the invention of papyrus paper. The development of hieroglyphics and paper alone lead Egyptians to a diverse combination of both pictures AND words, which was revolutionary in Visual Communications. Once communicating in written form was invented, the Asian culture not only created a language method, they beautified it. Calligraphy: the merely graphical language fashioned by the Chinese, was achieved with a brush and ink on either paper or silk. Because of the scope of design possibilities, it was rightfully considered the highest art from in China. The beginnings of the design principles that we as graphic designers have in the forefront of our minds today are displayed in this early kind of communicating art form. From the structure of each letter, to the shape, the negative space around the figures, the thickness of the strokes, the relationship from one line to the next, and the arrangement of the writing as a whole, the designer mindfully considers every element.

And then came the one invention that could make all that time, energy, and focus useless – printing. When the Chinese invented printing, a stamp was the initial form. It made the calligraphy form much easier to reproduce. However, this definitely took away from the aesthetically though-out handmade beauty that went into it.

The history of the written language and the evolutionary steps it has taken, has not only shaped how people design today but also how people communicate and view the world. I believe in order to become a great designer, one must not only follow the trends of the present-day, but also look into the roots of type and language. New and innovative concepts are always going to be essential to designing well, but looking back at the raw discoveries of where it all came from is key.

Meggs, Philip B. “The Prolouge to Graphic Design.” A History of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. 4+. Print.