Design Principles: Type Journal 5 - Fonts

This type is called Canter. It is a simple san serif font with its main feature being the low x height. Because of this it means the bowls and counters have been extended on certain letters to create more negative space. With the Capitals they are all in a set space. Every crossbar is at the same height so this means there appears to be a line going through all the letters. You can see this in the top image on the words "Before Break".

The thing that appeals to me about this font is how it is all regimented and equal. It looks neat and formal. It is a thin font, even the bold looks thin or an average line weight. This works in its favour because if it was any thicker it would over complicate and crowd the page. 

Brief 1 - Frame (Photoshop): Thumbnail sketches for Idea 3

My third idea was to have black and white images of natural frames found in the city. This would show how we see frames in everything. Looking into photography advice a photo looks better when it has something framing it, this is because it makes your eyes follow it round and leads it to a central point of focus. Below are some examples:

This tree naturally frames the picture. Your eye follows up the bark and into the pink blossom and when it reaches the end it finishes nicely with the white decking. This kind of photo would work well in a photo frame because it is ascetically pleasing - its a 'nice' photo but it also works within a frame, it is an image that you would want to frame anyway.

Archways and bridges work great when it comes to naturally framing something because the bridge itself tends to be darker so it focuses the attention onto the back or middle ground.

Brief 1 - Frame (Photoshop): Development of Leaves

This was the outcome for the leaf painting. Very little has been done to the painting. The curve levels have been adjusted so the colour is stronger and the dark is more prominent and the reds and browns look richer. The off grey colour has been kept around the edge because when it was cut neatly it looked bazar as it is a watercolour painting so the edges aren't meant to be neat. Its better this way because the paint that has run can fade off the page rather than being cut off or rounded off. If the edges were to be neatened then it would ruin the painting. The font is called "throw my hands up in the air" it is a hand rendered script font. It was chosen because its cursive soft lines fit in well with the leaf. It makes it feel hand made and put together rather than mass produced. The light brown colour which is chosen from the stem of the leaf means that the type not only matches into the leaf but is gentle on the eye apposed to black or a harsher colour. I am still unsure on the typeface but this is perhaps because it is out of my comfort zone as I am used to using san serif gothic fonts. 

Brief 1 - Frame (Photoshop): Experimenting with Numbers

After doing research into how numbers can be used to create a piece of design I began playing around with the number 4 and 6 in a 4"x 6" page. My initial idea was to join them together and create a shape. However after exploring this they are not easy numbers to join together and they don't look aesthetically pleasing. On the left you can see a first attempt at creating this. Afterwards the focus shifted on to not having the whole number on the page so that it created negative space and shapes but was still legible as a number. First on illustrator the 6 was placed over a black background and then the layers were linked together so it divided it down into shapes. As you can see from the first screen shot certain sections have been moved away. Initial thoughts were to have it all white bar the circle and top right corner but this didn't work as well as I had intended as it doesn't look like a 6 and it doesn't leave much room for the 4 or for information. 

I then began playing around with keeping the black background and layering it up. The 6 is in negative because it has a better impact than just normal black on white print. Im not too sure on the inches being where they are but this is something that can be sorted out on the crit. After a rough layout was formed I was able to begin playing with colour. The colour swatch that was originally chosen and can be seen below is #218276. This colour was chosen because its light and airy, its not to heavy and removes some of the impact from the harsh contrast of white on black.  It is suitable for both genders and children alike and could be seen in any room in the house as the colour is very neutral.

This was the first attempt, The turquoise background fits well with the white as there is enough of a contrast but it is not as heavy as the black on the white. The bowl of the 6 and stem leave the page which makes it look like a shape rather than a solid number 6. 

This was a slight variation playing around with the colour and composition of the type. The white is subtle but perhaps now the 4" looks to bold on the background. The type looks best on the top half of the page as otherwise it takes away from the perfect circle in the bottom middle. Because the circle is quite large if the text was at the bottom then it would make the piece very bottom heavy rather than spreading the text equally.

This piece was a happy accident, by creating a second '6' layer and lowering the opacity to 60. It has created a lighter blue/grey around certain areas of the 6. This is the extra aspect that this piece needs to make it stand out and I will experiment with this idea further.

Maybe the black was too black. Here the 4" has been changed to be the same colour as the background. This gives the affect of a cutout on the 6. This looks okay but not amazing, the colours are now all merging to one and there doesn't seem to be that bauhaus look that there was before.

Combining The previous happy accident so that it fitted in. However this is too much of the same thing. It is very much of a case of too much of a good thing. 

Here I tried to keep the movement idea with the 4 but although it is better it was better plain black.

 

These are the two final ideas that I am happy with the design of. The only difference is the positioning of the text. The text has been made smaller compared to the last experiments so that now it is the same size as the cross bar of the 4. The black looks a lot better as from a distance it attracts your eye. The smaller text is better now as before it was distracting from the piece of graphics but now its there and its readable but its not a distraction.

Now I will look into layering the numbers and adjusting the opacity because this idea has worked well in this attempt.

Brief 1 - Frame (Photoshop): Experimenting with Leaves

After researching artists who use watercolour to paint leaves I decided to have a go myself to see what kind of things I could produce. The first thing that I did was collect leaves so that I had something real to paint from.

This was my first leaf painting where the smaller on eon the left was playing around with tonal range and blending lightly from yellowy greens through to more browny reds. The larger leaf really captures the essence of the leaf. The edges are crisp and un-neat almost like its curled back on itself. This style could work well on a smaller scale and repeated in a natural frame. 

This was another experimentation with colour. The plan for this is to draw with a black pen over the top to get the out lines and use white to highlight the leafs skeleton. As a base colour this works well however if it was to be left as just paint this would work as well as it doesn't look finished and it has nothing on the top one. 

This was a leaf collage made with a paper maché style. This is something that may make a good back drop when edited in photoshop.  

These three little leaves were looking at a previous idea of having the repeat pattern. However after doing this it became clear that it would be easier to replicate with use of a stamp.

Potato stamping seemed like the obvious solution to get quick stamps as its easily accessible and can produce many prints. The work doesn't take long to dry and multiple stamps are cheap and quick to make.

The first print was not recognisable as a leaf but once some of the paint had been removed some lovely prints were formed. The nice thing about this method is that white speckles where the ink hadn't touched were left so the paper showed through. Once this has ben repeated a few times it looks like a set without all looking identical this really makes the frame seem more individual like time has been put into producing the artwork.

 

 
Above are the rest of the leaf photos which may be used for backing or just as a reference.

Design Principles: Type Hierarchy

In todays lecture we began by looking at the 'the quick brown fox' that we experimented with over the week and noticed that it doesn't have to be in order for it to read correctly. Equally certain pieces of type caught your eye first. We began to play around with this when looking at newspaper typography and how the layout draws your eye to certain aspects first.



The example to the right shows how your eyes follow a path. First thing you see is the title "food allergies 'kill fewer people than murderers'" then your eye is attracted down to the image. After that it is led across to the small story on the right. This leads nicely onto the cleverly placed advert where the cheapest British Gas deal is placed. As your eye follows it to the left it gets more expensive but ends on the larger word "FREE" which cancels out the worry of the cost. Then before you can find out about the costs in the small print your eye is dragged up to the small story in the top left corner.









Below shows the deconstructing of a newspaper page, removing what catches your one at a time. However the images shouldn't have been included but this brings up the dilemma that images are the first think you look at. Below shows the 6 steps and the order in which everything is viewed. Interestingly the bulk copy is last which implies everything else makes up your mind about whether you want to read the story rather than the story itself.

Here shows the order (left down, then right down) to how it was read. As you can see  images and text which is more spread attracts the eye first because it is easier to read and grasp an idea of what the story is about without having to actually read it.

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I tried to do the same thing again but including the adverts and imagery. The thing I liked about this page spread was the clever title paired with the car advert. 

Here is the final order of the advert. The first thing that caught my eye was the title which then led me to the image, I automatically skipped to the advert. When I read the text the first thing that stood out was bold 3rd column of questions and answers. The rest of the body text followed. None of it stood out.


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When I first looked at this page spread I was overwhelmed with information, my eyes automatically went to the title in the bold impact title. After this they went straight to the image that was actually part of a different story. From this they followed down to the brightly coloured advert and then to the text.

Brief 3 - Alphabet Soup/Typeface: Last Modifications

After the crit it was useful to reflect on the feedback given. One of the main things that became apparent is that the new letter forms should be working around the basis of the chosen font. For this reason some of the ideas were scrapped and four were kept and adapted to the silhouette of Briem Akademi (STD Condensed).

The two preferable outcomes from the ideas shown above are the 'A' and the 'D' as both of these portray his character best.  The final alphabet and glyphs will be hand rendered onto tracing paper which will show how Johnathan's hand made style of work. 

The 'A' will probably work best because it shows the idea of being busy but from afar looking neat and organised.

The next step (shown above) is to format a grid that fits in a 4 by 8 ratio with all the letters in and 6 chosen glyphs. This will then make the process of hand rendering it a lot easier and quicker.

Design Principles: The Readability of Type Order

Today was looking at how readable type is in different categories. Whilst still looking at the 4 main categories of Gothic, Block, Roman and Script the first sentence was cut out so each word was individual and now movable.

The type was then arranged so that each sentence was constructed from one different type category. The first thing that is noticeable is how the sentence does not read in order. For example the second sentence reads 'brown the fox quick' and the fourth 'quick brown fox the'. This shows off perfectly what was realised earlier: that script and roman are harder to read compared to gothic and block.

Now the task will be to use the order of these sentences and change the position and scale of the words to make them read in the correct order. Each of the fours sentences will be attempted and played around with to see how far type can be pushed and still be readable.

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An interesting thing that was noticed was how the position doesn't overly matter it is more the size and how the next word links on to it. Below show three examples where the words aren't in the correct order but still read 'the quick brown fox'.

The words work down the page and the sentence decreases in size. All is in the correct order minus fox which is slightly out to the left. Because it is not inline with any words it doesn't read in the same sentence but it read afterwards.

Even working backwards the words still become readable as a sentence because the sizing and linking between words is correct. If the brown was situated next to the quick on the right then it would read as a sentence increasing in size. But because it is jumbled your eye is attracted to the the and then follows the sizing pattern.

Working clockwise round the 'the' has worked very well in leading your eye in the correct direction. Even though the 'brown' is bigger than the 'quick' it doesn't appear to matter as the 'quick' is a more legible typeface on screen and from a distance because it has no serifs.



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This works down the sentence in the correct order. The 'fox' has been made even smaller so that it is not the first thing that catches the eye.

This works equally well by decreasing in size but also varying it from left to right. Having the 'fox' written vertically downwards means your eye doesn't necessarily recognise it as a word or not at least a word that jumps out so it reads it last.

This one was being slightly more adventurous in the idea of having 'the'  and 'brown' together on the same line of text but underneath having the word 'quick' larger so that the eye automatically jumps there first.

Once again playing around with the idea of the sentence being backwards but still reading from right to left clearly because of sizing and the base line.

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Interestingly having the fox higher up but smaller and coming off of the quick still makes it read last. This is because the 'brown' is easier to read and stands clearer than the 'fox'.

This one works the best because it is neat and straight to the point. It reads in the correct order and looks the nicest and least complicated.

This works well as the size is varied so that the words stand out in the correct order. 

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The two starting words are the harder ones to make noticeable so  here show  how they are bigger than the ending san serifs. This way they grab attention and hold more of the focus.

Playing around with a similar idea as before of having the end words vertical so that the eye doesn't register them as quickly. This one may work better if the 'brown' is below the 'k' flick and inline with 'fox'.

A simple but probably the most readable given the set order of the typefaces.



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This exercise has been very useful as it has shown that if different types of type are in the same point size and  rest on the same base line some will stick out more than others. It has also shown that they don't necessarily need to be in the right order to read correctly.