Typography - Exercise

05/04/19 – 04/05/19 (Week 1- Week 5)
Qaezie Ayeman Ramlan (0332981)
Typography -
Exercise

Lecture Notes

Lecture 1 _ Briefing & Introduction to the module

Week 1 (5/4/19)

Unfortunately, i was not able to attend the class. But based on friends that attended, Mr.Vinod & Mr.Shamsul generally briefed them on the MIB, how the classes are gonna go down, groups we have to join, signing up for wordpress, setting up the website etc. And the start to exercise 1.

Lecture 2 _ Introduction To Typography
Week 2 (12/4/19)

8.30PM sharp Mr.Vinod started the class with slides ready & went on asking us "What is Typography to you?". Randomly he picks, "A message", "An art", one even said "A megaphone".

In the first half of the lecture we essentially covered a little of its history, origins, importance in society & how the art of typography holds an ethical changing power even. We can safely say that Typography plays a very big roll in the universe.

After a 15min break he quickly goes onto prepping us with what areas we gonna cover this semester and how things are going to be done in class. For starters we are to know our typography terms like Logo Type (when a logo only consists of letters), the differences between Type Font, Type Family & Type Face, we even have to take note of big names like Paul Rand. And through out this semester we will be practicing & mastering Type Creation, Type Expression & Type Arrangement.

Figure 1.0 Extracted from Mr.Vinods Slides

Figure 1.1 Extracted from Mr.Vinods Slides

Figure 1.2 Extracted from Mr.Vinods Slides

And then came the time to work on exercise 1.

Lecture 3 _ Basic/Describing Letterforms.
Week 3 (19/4/19)

Unfortunately I was away, and was not able to attend the lecture. But based on friends that did the main lecture covered on the terminologies to describe the anatomy of type.

Figure 1.0 Term Chart

There are 10 fonts that we will be using a-lot in this semester and that is Garamond, Janson, Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, Serifa, Futura, Gill Sans & Univers.

We were given 7 words and we are to pick 6 of them and use the fonts given to animate it. Freeze, Faint, Loop, Hungry, Angry, Bounce & Levitate.

Lecture 4 _ Development of Timeline.
Week 4 (26/4/19)

Today starting the class, Mr. Vinod got his slides up showing us how far type has come. Starting of he clarified that, whatever was to be presented that day were written from the perspective of the type world. Which tends to over look the inventions or innovations in Asia.

Early Letter form : Phoenician to Roman

Figure 1.0 Evolution from Phoenician letter.

Starting all the way from just scratching marks on wet clay for 2000 years, Uppercase letter forms can be seen to have evolved along with the tools and instruments of that time.

Instructions

Exercise

Lettering (Week 1 - Week 4)

Week 1 (5/4/19)

I was not able to attend the class. But based on friends that attended, we are to pick a 'personality' and work around it. And decided to work around simple, minimal and basic. Be ready with 10 different sketches of your name in different fonts that fit the said 'personality' and Mr.Vinod & Mr.Shamsul will then go around the room, giving their two-cents. Mine was simple and minimal.

Figure 1.0 Sketches of my name with the personality Simple.

Figure 1.1 My Final Sketch of my name with the personality Simple.

Week 2
(12/4/19)

Its week two & moving forward after they approve of your design, you then have to digitise it on illustrator.

Figure 1.2 Screenshot of digitising process on Ai.

Week 3
(19/4/19)

Here is my final gif, the personality I chose was simple. It might be too simple but thats the main feel I wanted to portray literally and metaphorically. Literally because thats the type of person that i am, simple and easy to please. The simple animation is to teach people the spelling of my complicated name, that is actually, simple.

Gif 1.0 Gif of my name with the personality Simple.

Week 4
(26/4/19)

Figure 1.1 First Attempt.

Video 1.0 A screen recording of my First Attempt process.

After the first phase of critiquing i was to do amendments on Faint, Angry & Bounce.

Figure 1.2 Bounce Second Attempt.

Figure 1.3 Faint Second Attempt.

Figure 1.4 Angry Second Attempt.

Figure 1.4 Final Submission

After finishing up your designs you were then asked to pick one to animate and I chose Angry.

GIF 1.0 ANGRY First Attempt

The idea was to make it trippy, as i imagine someone angry would not have their composure.

GIF 1.1 ANGRY Second Attempt

Unfortunately this turned out cute. Rather then Angry

GIF 1.3 HUNGRY Final

Instead i finally chose Hungry to be my final submission.

Feedback

Week 1 (5/4/19)

Non we're given.

Week 2 (12/4/19)

After showing them their sketches, they Mr.Vinod & Mr.Shamsul asked for me to whip something up quickly as my lettering were too close to real everyday fonts. After looking around I realised i had to catch up and continued on to digitising it, i managed to get one design out.

Week 3 (19/4/19)

Unfortunately I was not around for this class, but i manage to to learn how to make a gif through internet sources & no feed back were given yet for this particular exercise.

Week 4 (26/4/19)

Todays lecture was a productive one. It took 4 different stages of meeting them to get to the end result. The first time they came around Loop, Hungry & Freeze were good to go. The only once that needed editing was Bounce, Faint and Angry.

The 1st phase of getting feedback, they commented on
BOUNCE : To make-sure the arrangement of the letters are still readable and take note of the flow of the word, as people are always drawn to reading thing from left to right. And add some strokes to give the letters bouncing like motion.
FAINT: Mr.Vinod reckon i use a San Serif font instead, so the portrayal of the word not only looks Faint but also the feel. I dont know if im saying it correctly, but i understood what he was trying to say. & lastly,
ANGRY : It was just not angry enough, Mr, Shamsul described the composition to be as too balanced for angry.

After doing the necessary amendments, 2nd phase of critiquing

BOUNCE: Thin out the ‘bouncing’ strokes and lower down the opacity as well. The arrangement was fine
ANGRY: This time to sill work on the letter placement cuz its still well balanced and maybe add more angry associated symbols like !@#*.
FAINT: I changed the font to Gil Sans std, Light Shadow, and that quickly got a positive remark. “Yes, better.” they said.

Last (3rd phase) few feedbacks were on my GIF. I chose ANGRY and Mr.Vinod told me to delay it a little and maybe not pay too much attention to the secondary design elements and focus on the word ANGRY instead. After a few more tries, i ended up with cute looking ANGRY instead and Mr.Vinod agreed. I then decide to change to Hungry, but was not able to show to Mr. Vinod and Mr.Shamsul as class ended.

Week 5 (26/4/19)

No feedback were specifically given but one thing Mr.Vinod kept on stressing on was we are designers, not decorators. There's a big difference. And that got me thinking alot, wondering if im doing too much or if im doing enough?

Reflection

Week 1 (5/4/19)
Its the first typography class of the semester and feeling quite excited.

Week 2 (12/4/19)
Its week two and things are starting to move faster. Im realising theres really no room for slacking.

Week 3 (19/4/19)
Absent.

Week 4 (26/4/19)
Todays lecture was a productive one. It took 4 different stages of meeting them to get to the end result. Mr.Vinod explained to us as how our exercises are going to come to an end and for what is to come. It felt, intimidating for a moment, but all will be well.
Week 5 (26/4/19)

Mr.Vinod kept on stressing on was we are designers, not decorators. And that really got me thinking alot on whether I am thinking hard enough or am thinking too hard.