Typography / Task 3: Project 2A

October 12, 2020

Typography / Task 3: Project 2A

13.10.2020 - 20.10.2020 (week 7 - week 9)
Phoebie Ng / 0341172 / Bachelor of creative media
Typography
Project 2A (Font Design)

LECTURES

lecture notes on exercise post

INSTRUCTIONS

TASKS

In this project, we were asked to chose the font that we like the most from the typefaces that given by lecturers. We were asked to do letter dissection of 3 letters from 'a i m e p y t g d o b ! , .' to study the font by it's anatomic part.

After that, I had chosen ITC Garamond font to study.

fig.2.1 dissection of letter 'a' (13.10.2020)

fig.2.2 dissection of letter 'e' (13.10.2020)

fig.2.3 dissection of letter 'o' 13/10/2020

research

fig.2.4 argo typeface (13.10.2020)

fig.2.5 pelagia typeface (13.10.2020)

fig.2.6 Abril fatface typeface (13.10.2020)

I did some research on different typeface, I really like how Abril Fatface look like, the high contrast. I also type it beside when I was creating my typeface.

sketches

fig.2.7 sketches of font design (13.10.2020)

fig.2.8 sketches of font design (13.10.2020)

fig.2.9 sketches of font design (13.10.2020)

I did these three sketches by looking at the reference font ITC Garamond book. I notice that it is better to have certain consistence shape in the design, so I drew them beside my sketch.

digitalize

fig.2.10 reference (13.10.2020)

I made a reference guide by putting ITC Garamond font on the guideline. I had made my cap height 700,ascender height 725,x height 500, and decender height 225.

fig.2.11 first attempt font design (13.10.2020)

This is my first attempt for font design, I notice that the m, g and y is actually spending most of my time creating this design. I can know that it is not that good at this time and my strokes are not consistency.

adjustment after feedback

fig.2.12 correction for letter 'e' (13.10.2020)

I had changed a lot for my design after feedback. I also notice that it would look nicer if I curve my circle more. Instead of having the sharp tail, I changed it to a simple rectangle with the same horizontal stroke with the others.

fig.2.13 second attempt font design (13.10.2020)

This is my second attempt, but I don't think it is good enough so I had asked my friends' feedback on this. Most of them said that my g is still weird compare to others. So I rework on it by looking at the reference ITC Garamond typeface again.

fig.2.14 third attempt font design (13.10.2020)

This is the third attempt of my final design. I think it looks fine and I did some correction on the path.

final outcome for typeface character design

fig.2.15 final font design (13.10.2020)

This is the final outcome for my illustration type characters designs.

CREATING TYPEFACE

fig.2.16 screenshot for insert characters to template (20.10.2020)

After that, I proceed to use Calligraphr to build my typeface. I download template, insert my font and upload template as the lecture video teach.

fig.2.17 low quality for character (20.10.2020)

I realized that my vector design are at very low quality. Some of the strokes are not even. I was really trigged at this point.

fig.2.18 correction for character (20.10.2020)

I had use brush tool to make the corrections.

fig.2.19 mistake for baseline using Calligraphr (20.10.2020)

After the correction, I even realize that the baseline that I put my characters on is not on the baseline. I was really confused and I adjusted a lot of times and it didn't work for me.

fig.2.20 insert character in Fontlab (20.10.2020)

And I decided to use Fontlab instead. I wasn't using calligraphr at first becuase I don't have the access to Fontlab but I realize that it has 30 days free trial, so I downloaded Fontlab and used it. I copy and paste my characters as the lecture video teach.

fig.2.21 correcting character's mistake in Fontlab (20.10.2020)

Fontlab also show us the detail path, so I realize there's some mistake on my font and I corrected it with Fontlab.

fig.2.22 Metrix Window (20.10.2020)

I then open the Metrix window and type the sentence that Mr Vinod asked us to do for poster. I made the left column and right column 50 to make the letter stay at the center and I also did the kerning.

final outcome

fig.2.23 Poster design (20.10.2020)

After exporting my font, I did a simple A4 poster by using illustrator.

fig.2.24 Poster design in pdf 20/10/2020

FEEDBACK

week 7

Specific feedback : sketch 1 is acceptable and I should use Futura as my reference. After that, I had showed Mr. Vinod more sketches, he said that option 1 is better but my stroke consistency isn't correct. I should refer o a proper type to understand. Also it seems a little too ambitions.

week 8

General feedback : Most of the student did a decent job on the typeface design.

Specific feedback : Mr. Vinod said that I have a weird font design and I need to rework on my combinations. I should do more study. Mr. Shamsul said that I need to rework on my g and stroke is not consistency. My 'i' need to move a bit lower.

week 9

General feedback: when we upload the final, we need to export by 300 dpi black and white pdf

Specific feedback: Mr Vinod looked at my final outcome for type face design, and he said that my typeface is quite consistence, but the letter 'g' can be wider, the tail need to be better but it is getting there, the letter 't' need to be shorter. Other than that, I have good layout too. Good job!

REFLECTION

Experience : This is my first time doing my own typeface. I had an hard time because of I don't really know how does it consider good or bad typeface. I don't know how could I do research on. However, at the end I think I had good time designing my own typeface, and I really enjoy doing it, although it is not the best, but it still consider my first type child hahaha. And also, it is the first assignment that I work until 5am, and the next day when I showed it to Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul, they were not satisfy with my work. I almost have mental breakdown but haven't hahahaha. However, the next class after I did some improvement, Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul are happy with my work, at that time, I feel better than I win in any competition. When I put my font into Calligraphr and saw all my font that I designed being pixelized really triggered me, luckily I noticed that we could use Fontlab to make our typeface, I feel relief at that time.

Observation : One simple thing that I notice is that when we look at the typefaces, we will think that it looks easy to produce but NO, it is not. If you did studies on the typefaces, you will notice that there are some detail designs in each of the typeface. I found the letter 'g' is really hard to do, because I am doing serif and I did a lot of research on other serif g, it is so hard to maintain the stroke for me.

Finding : I found that my other friend that I never meet before because we are having online class, they actually produce really good typeface and I think I also learn a lot listening to the feedback that lecturers gave to them.

FURTHER READING :

week 7

The typography idea book

fig 3.1 the typography idea book 13/10/2020

I had found this book online in pdf form. There are a lot of pages in this book, but I only read some part of it because I don't have enough time.

fig 3.2 screenshot from the typography idea book 13/10/2020

I found this quite interesting. the book wrote that "today type can be made from a foot, a hand or just about any other natural, man made or fantastical object that seems somehow ripe for transformation."

fig 3.3 screenshot from the typography idea book 13/10/2020

Parole in liberta ( words in freedom) is the poetic term that Italian Futurists applied to noisy typography. Their type didn't actually make audible sounds, but when we read t the combination of words and letters would conjured the tenor and timbre of sounds such as the motor car, aero plane engines and all those.

week 8

an alphabet book

fig 3.4 an alphabet book 20/10/2020

I found this book online as well, but this time I am not focusing on the book content itself but the layout and the type expression in the book are really interesting.

fig 3.5 screenshot from an alphabet book 20/10/2020

fig 3.6 screenshot from an alphabet book 20/10/2020

fig 3.7 screenshot from an alphabet book 20/10/2020

Search This Blog

Phoebie Ng (0341172)