C U Letter

IED Barcelona TYPOTYPE } lettering course 2009-2010

Anna Kizub Bruno Alpi Caroline Huettinger Eduardo Contreras Eleonora Speca Eva Rogeau Francisco García Hande Kucukunsal Jorge Luís Garavito Olga Riebeling Petra Smirova Randall Barriga Sandra Espersen Simona Bunardzhieva Stephanie Preagel Teresa Ribas Ying-li Peng Zhamilya Dosmailova } 1st year advertising art direction

Luca Bendandi Matteo Cossu } shs publishing

blog exercices lectures slides } typotype.tumblr.com

lettering typography

SEE YOU LET TER ffi ☟• ,.:; Aa :‒) ↝ ♡

TYPOTYPE

lettering & typography

•

IED Barcelona 2009-2010

x-height is the height of the main body of the lowercase letter (or the height of a lowercase x), excluding its ascenders and descenders.

The bigger the x-height is in relation to the cap height, the bigger the letters will look.

project: Simona Hristoforova Bunardzhieva

ascenders (b-d-f-h-k-l-t)

x-height (a-c-e-i-m-n-o-r-s-u-v-w-x-z)

descenders (g-j-p-q-y)

A human-size scale, where people can measure their “letter height”. As a consequence, each one is assigned to a letter-height group:

Because everyone has a purpose, even the minions, but we’ll scratch away to find the ideal height.

Biffy Clyro

baseline is the stablest axis along a line of text. The curves at the bottom of letters such as “a” or “c” hang slightly below the baseline. Commas and semicolons also cross the baseline. If a typeface were not positioned this way, it would appear to teeter precariously, lacking a sense of physical grounding.

descender is the portion of a letter, in the latin alphabet, that extends below the baseline. project: Eleonora Speca

This project was visualized taking a cue from an Arctic Monkeys’ song-lyric:

“When the sun goes down”.

Sequential frames were cut out of photographed letters set in Futura Bold.

To start off, all necessary sentence letters were printed in a big format.

Consequently, these were placed on a white surface.

To represent the horizon—or baseline—, smaller pointsize letters were used.

In this typographical metaphore the frames represent the sun’s path from sunrise to sunset. When the sun—represented by an “o”—, approaches the baseline (horizon line), it turns into a “g” dropping the descender loop below.

cap height x-height

baseline stem

bowl

descender

serif

ligature

ascender

finial

Thanks to the words we have been able to rise above the brutes

Aldous Huxley

ascender In typography, an ascender is the portion of a lower case letter in the Latin alphabet that extends above the x- height.

ascender

project: Anna Kizub

Exercise I - Shape between letters

A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own

M.Antonioni

shape between letters

A character is not defined only by its form but also by the space around it.

The shape between letters give rhythm and structure to a font. These shapes help improve significantly the legibility and readability of text.

project: Francisco Garcia

size In typography, a point is the smallest unit of measure, being a subdivision of the larger pica.

It is commonly abbreviated as pt.

Today, the traditional point has been replaced by the desktop publishing point (also called the PostScript point), which has been rounded to an even 72 points to the inch (1 point = 127⁄360 mm ≈ 0.353 mm).

The point system, used to measure the height of a letter as well as the space between lines ( leading ), is the standard measurement for type. project: Jorge Carvito

How to represent size in typography?

Historically the metal cast determined the size of the letters. Buildings are massive structures that could efficiently portray what size means and give the viewer a proper idea of what size means in typography. How about letters between buildings composing the cityscape? Maybe some quotes around the city representing conversations within the city explaining what size means could reinforce the message. If the letters compose the cityscape and they are measured in point size, buildings’ height could also be transformed into point size measures. The results is a simple image of Barcelona’s cityscape with the buildings’ height represented in point size and the letters next to them as buildings.

sans-serif A sans-serif typeface does not have the small features called serifs at the end of stokes.

The term comes from the latin word sans, meaning without. Serifs originated with the chiseled guides made by ancient stone cutters as they lettered monuments. Serif designs are also traced back to characteristics of hand calligraphy. Can sans-serif letterfaces be therefore seen as an evolution?

This project affirms so representing the evolution of human being and font design as a parallel, where a sans-serif font represents the last stage of evolution. project: Caroline Huettinger

project: Ying-Li, Peng

serif A slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter.

project: Ying-Li, Peng

Serifs make a line of text look straight, seemingly they aid letters to stand. In Chinese, serifs are referred to as “letter’s leg”. Thus the decision to make a sans-serif letter and see if it can stand on its own.

The projec also included other sequence pictures, which relate to the song I found, to show how letters can’t satnd without serifs.

set-width is the horizontal dimension of a letter. The set width is the body of the letter plus a sliver of space that protects it from other letters. The width of a letter is intrinsic to the proportion of the typeface.

Typefaces have a very large range of possible set-widths.

Don’t change the set width of a letter by cheating with its horizontal or vertical scale. This distorts the proportion of the typeface, forcing heavy elements to become thin, and thin elements to become thick. Choose a typeface with the proportions you need, such as condensed, compressed, or extended.

Type families such as Helvetica, Univers, and Interstate include a variety of widths.

THE LETTER THAT WOULD’T GET IT’S OWN SPACE

project: Teresa Ribas

In the corner of the morning in the past I would sit and blame the master first and last All roads were straight and narrow And all players small and yellou And the rumour spread tha I was aging fast Then I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree.

JUST LIKE PEOPLE, LETTERS NEED THEIR OWN SPACE

“The width of a Circle” David Bowie

HE TRIED, HE REALLY DID.

BUT SPACE WAS SOMETHING THE OTHER LETTERS WEREN’T PREPARED TO GIVE.

BUT WASN’T SUCCESSFULL.

UNTILL ONE DAY.

Just like people, letters need their own space; The project combines the story of the song, sing a person as a metaphore for a letter. The underlined words enhance the meaning and explain the concept of set-width.

The set-width is the body of the letter plus the space beside it .

The letters in the condensed version of a typeface have a narrower set-width

SO NOW, HE CAN TAKE ALL THE ADVANTAGE OF HIS NEW SPACE.

Slide next to me; Melt the iron bars, Let your shoulder caress my eye To build a shorter path.

kerning The term kerning refers to the adjustment of the space between two letters. If it isn’t used a typeface will form a variable and unattractive pattern. Gaps occur, around letters whose form angles outward or frame an open space (W, Y, V, T, L). The space between letters is controlled by a table of kerning pairs, which specify spaces between different letter combinations. project: Olga Riebeling

Kerning was first implemented when letters were made out of iron blocks and used in mobile printers; this created a blank space between the letter’s silhouette and the border of the box.

That was remedied by taking off the extra distance. This way, when letters were printed into a word, they could be read better. Kerning is also an action that can be applied to life; by kerning two letters they come closer together, erasing the space that was separating them, by taking off the “iron boxes” that we use to protect ourselves, we allow others to enter our space creating better-suited pairs of people.

That is why the representation of the concept is made by an interactive representation of two people that can be brought closer together.

tracking In typography, letter-spacing, also called tracking, refers to the amount of space between a group of letters to affect density in a line or block of text.

Tracking can be confused with kerning.

Letter-spacing refers to the overall spacing of a word or block of text affecting its overall density and texture.

Kerning is a term applied specifically to the adjustment of spacing of two particular characters to correct visually uneven spacing.

leading

project: Petra Smirova

the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type.

The word comes from lead strips that were put between set lines. When type was set by hand in printing presses, slugs or strips of lead (reglets) of appropriate thicknesses were inserted between lines of type to add vertical space, to fill available space on the page.

The lack of correct leading causes the ascenders to touch the descenders from the previous line.

The lack of white space between lines also makes it difficult for the eye to track from one line to the next, thus hampering readability.

TYP-OGALACTIC*

(Are you aware that you have only 2.5 years ‘til the end of time?)

The project plays with leading, pushing its limits and creating visual effects in words that affect their aspect and meaning.

alignment

project: Hande Kucukunsal

is the organization of text into columns with hard or soft edges.

3

EARTH

Earth (or the Earth) is the third planet from the Sun, and the fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest, most massive, and densest of the Solar System's four terrestrial (or rocky) planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet, or Terra.

VENUS

MARS Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere.

Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never appears to venture far from the Sun.

things may be like this now, but it won’t stay forever.

SUN The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Sun has a diameter of about 1,392,000 kilometres (865,000 mi) (about 109 Earths), and by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass; the remainder consists of the planets (including Earth), asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and dust in orbit.

MERCURY Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about the axis for every two orbits.

JUPITER

* "Be really whole and all things will come to you."

- Lao-Tzu

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System.

It is a gas giant with a mass slightly less than one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all of the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

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The four basic styles of alignment define the fundamental architecture of typographic layout.

1 Justified 2 Flush left 3 Flush right 4 Centered 1

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2

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4

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stacked letters Roman letters are designed to sit side by side, not on top of one another. Uppercase letters form more stable stacks than lowercase letters.

Centering the column helps to even out the differences in width—the letter I is a perennial problem. Stacks of lowercase letters are especially awkward because the ascenders and descenders make the vertical spacing appear uneven, and the varied width of the characters makes the stacks look precarious.

hierarchy in typography, expresses an organizational system for content, emphasizing some data and diminishing others: the use of size, weight, placement, and spacing to express the parts of a page or document and their relative importance.

A hierarchy helps readers scan a text, knowing where to enter and exit and how to pick and choose among its offerings. Each level of the hierarchy should be signaled by one or more cues, applied consistently across a body of text. A cue can be spatial (indent, line spacing, placement on page) or graphic (size, style, color of typeface). Infinite variations are possible.

project: Sandra Espersen

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence

Dr.Laurence J.Peter

project: Zhamilya Dosmailova

project: Eva Rogeau

And that’s a self-portrait of himself, by himself

Richard Madeley

redundancy redundancy in literature, is usually avoided, as in the expressions “future plans” or “past history.”

In typography, redundancy is acceptable, even recommended.

For example, paragraphs are traditionally marked with a line break and an indent, a redundancy that has proven quite practical, as each signal provides backup for the other.

Nevertheless to create an elegant economy of signals, try using no more than three cues for each level or break in a document.

punctuation punctuation marks are different symbols that help us to structure and organize our written language.

In written English, punctuation is very important to put it right, if not it cant change the meaning of sentences. For example, «woman, without her man, is nothing,» and «woman: without her, man is nothing» have greatly different meanings, as do «eats shoots and leaves» and «eats,shoots and leaves.”» project: Eduardo Contreras

woman, without her man, is nothing. woman: without her, man is nothing.

Exercise III - Pixel font

Exercise II - Font my house

Exercise IV - Word project

module modularity in design is an approach that subdivides a system into smaller parts (modules). These can be independently created and then used to achieve various effects and to make the manufacturing process more flexible.

Modular design is an attempt to combine the advantages of standardization with those of customization.

Modular repetition in typography can be used in font design (i.e. pixel fonts) or in lay-out (i.e. modular grids).

The repetition is everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.

Johann W. Von Goethe

project: Stephanie Praegel

To represent the concept of module it is essential to illustrate the concept of repetition of an object. In this project the

module is a beer bottle repeated to create the word ‘module’. The same exercise has been repeated creating a font out of caps.

grid A typographic grid is a two-dimensional structure made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes used to structure content.

The grid serves as an armature on which a designer can organize text and images in a rational, easy to absorb manner.

Common to every book design is the underlying grid that devides the page into area that serve different purpose: columns of text, marginal comments, footnotes, caption, illustrations.

project: Randall Barriga

first drafts:

FRAME EVERY

MOST

THE

OF

CONSISTS

PICTURE BEAUTIFUL OF

IS PART

LIMITATION.

GRID

THE ART

final project The project's goal is to show how a grid is used to structure contents. Using a three-dimentional system creates depth and changes the visualization of the quote:

Art consists of limitation.

The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

G. K.Chesterton

this publication has been set with: Verlag

by Hoefler and Frere Jones Fedra serif A

by Peter Biľak and Nikola Djurek in the month of January of 2009 in Barcelona, Spain

by Luca Bendandi and Matteo Cossu of SHS publishing www.shspublishing.com for IED Istituto Europeo di Design Barcelona printed at Artyplan

bibliography Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works Erik Spiekermann & E.M.Ginger El libro de la tipografía Adrian Frutiger Tipografía Ambrose, Harris Il particolare nella progettazione grafica Jost Hochuli Thinking With Type Ellen Lupton

CU