Experiments & Compositions Book

EXPERIMENTS &COMPOSITIONS Designed By Huei-Tai Chen, Cooperated with Classmates of Typography (1) And Professor Tom Dolle In Pratt Intitute, 2013 Fall

EXPERIMENTS &COMPOSITIONS Designed By Huei-Tai Chen, Cooperated with Classmates of Typography (1) And Professor Tom Dolle In Pratt Intitute, 2013 Fall

Information Chen,Huei-Tai Pratt Graduate School Of Communication Issuu.com/kenivsky

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Inroduction As part of the Pratt Institute Graduate Communications Design program, this Typography I class was an introduction to the concrete and conceptual aspects of typography as a visual medium.

The first part of the semester was a review of the technical requirements of typography. The second part was an exploration of the abstract compositional uses for typography, integrating hand skills and the computer as a way to render type. Historical and current forms of alphabetic communications were also explored, along with the relationship to modern image-based communications.

This book was the final assignment, and incorporates the steps taken in the process of composition exploration, while the book format functions as an introduction to the complexities of editorial design.

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Introduction materials gallery

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NYC’s Neighborhoods walk around the city

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Composition (1) letterforms

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Composition (2) letterforms and words

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Composition (3) letterforms, words and text

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Composition (4) letters, words, text, graphic elements and patterns

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Composition (5) together with image

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Summary learn from process

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NEIGHBORHOODS NYC’s Neighborhoods The neighborhoods of New York are diverse and rich with character. This character can be seen in the buildings, the shops and restaurants, the public space and the people who make the neighborhood what it is. In this assignment, I explored four neighborhoods: Times Square, Central Park, Soho and Williamsburg (Brooklyn). I made observations about the mood, pulse, visual attributes and overall impressions of each area.

Once the essence of the neighborhood was captured, I documented examples of common typographic letterforms that represent the qualities of that neighborhood. The letterforms convey the aspects I have identified through their visual attributes alone--this isn't about words, but merely letterforms and the feelings they evoke.

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Williamsburg Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick and Ridgewood, Queens to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the New York Police Department (NYPD)'s 90th Precinct. In the City Council, the western and southern part of the neighborhood is represented by the 33rd District; and the eastern part of the neighborhood is represented by the 34th District.

Williamsburg is an influential hub for indie rock, hipster culture, and the local art community. Many ethnic groups also have enclaves within Williamsburg, including Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans. The neighborhood is being redefined by a growing population and the rapid development of housing and retail space particularly catered to a wealthy population that has been historically foreign to the neighborhood.

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SOHO SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socio-economic, cultural, political and architectural developments.

The name "SoHo" refers to the area being "SOuth of HOuston (Street)", and was also a reference to the London district of Soho. It was coined by Chester Rapkin, an urban planner who was the author of the "South Houston Industrial Area" study, also known as the "Rapkin Report".

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Time Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection and a neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway (now converted into a pedestrian plaza) and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square – iconified as "The Crossroads of the World", "The Center of the Universe", and the "The Great White Way" – is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.

According to Travel + Leisure magazine's October 2011 survey, Times Square is the world's most visited tourist attraction, hosting over 39 million visitors annually.[16] Approximately a third of a million people pass through Times Square daily, many of whom are either tourists or people working in the area.

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Central Park Central Park is a public park at the center of Manhattan in New York City. The park initially opened in 1857, on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land (it is 840 acres today). In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan.

Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War, and was completed in 1873. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States.

Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, the park is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the city government. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 83.5% of Central Park's $37.5 million annual budget, and employs 80.7% of the park's maintenance staff.

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COMPOSITIONS Compositions Composition is the organization or grouping of the different parts of a work of art or design to achieve a unified whole. Even we never try on this before.

Although typographic composition utilizes the same basic compositional concepts that are part of all visual arts, there are unique ways that typography relates to each of these concepts. By forming relationships between the elements, and incorporating visual concepts in abstract ways, a new and more open relationship with typography is achieved for a long long time ago.

Shown on the following pages, the exploration of typographic composition started with simple elements--three letterforms--and became a process of identifying abstract concepts as they became visualized.

Additional elements were added each week, and new relationships evolved as we explored positive/negative, texture and image use.

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Letterforms These compositions feature three letters from the alphabet, set in any of the following typefaces: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Garamond, Times Roman, Century, Baskerville and/or Bodoni. By using size, scale, spacial relationships, bleeds and positioning as the variables, I created six compositions using only the three letterforms. The final compositions are 8.5"x 8.5" (standard format throughout).

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Letterforms and Words Keeping the three letters from the previous assignment, I have now included word elements. The words, although specific to a title, are not meant to be illustrated or have any meaning in the composition, other than as a typographic element. Each letter and word is set in one of the following typefaces: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Garamond, Times Roman, Century, and/or Bodoni. Using only the three letters and words, I created the following compositions.

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Letterforms, Words And Text With Graphic Elements These compositions feature three letters from the alphabet, set in any of the following typefaces: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Garamond, Times Roman, Century, Baskerville and/or Bodoni. By using size, scale, spacial relationships, bleeds and positioning as the variables, I created six compositions using only the three letterforms. The final compositions are 8.5"x 8.5" (standard format throughout).

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Texture and Positive/Negative Positive/negative is the relationship between figure and ground. Are there black elements on a white ground, or white elements on a black ground?

Does the ground interchange from black to white? Just making a composition negative does not deal with those issues.

Texture is the ability to render type in ways other than just hard edge black and white. Combining hand effects (drawing, painting), machined effects (photocopying, scanning), computer effects (PhotoShop, Illustrator) and/or accidental effects (spills, crumples, rips) allows one to define type in unusual and unique ways-challenging you to see it differently.

Typography exists in our world in many forms - this was an opportunity to explore non-traditional representations of typographic form.

Starting with the same three levels of typography used in the last assignments, I incorporated positive/negative and texture as major design components. Graphic elements were optional.

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Image The final addition to the compositional process was the incorporation of an image. With the same three levels of typography--letters, words and text--an image of a simple object was introduced to the mix. The image could be cropped, silhouetted, texturized or changed in other ways in the course of creating the compositions. Texture could now be a part of the image, or continue as a separate element. Positive/negative, graphic elements and structure could be incorporated as needed.

The resulting compositions are still abstract, but hint at the richness that can be incorporated into even the simplest realistic project. The complex relationships between typographic elements and the concepts of scale, balance, focus, etc. are all exhibited in these engaging works that become expressive works of art and communicate on multiple levels.

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SUMMARY Learning From Experiments At the very beginning, this experiment and practice is so though to me. I can’t catch the sprit of this work accurately. Fortunately, I understood the meaning of this practice, and started to enjoy it. I kept searching possibilities of compositions. It was my first time to realize and know how to appreciate the beauty of letter fonts. With different match styles, they shown a lot lovely faces to me. I love mountain-like curve of lowercase “g”, radical slopes at the center part of capital “M” and smooth right curve of lowercase “f”.

They are all rich in their pure beauties. I wish that I could have more time work on them. I really enjoyed this experiment and process.

Hope that you can enjoy reading this book.

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GOODBYE AND SEE YOU NEXT TIME

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Although typographic composition utilizes the same basic compositional concepts that are part of all visual arts, there are unique ways that typography relates to each of these concepts. By forming relationships between the elements, and incorporating visual concepts in abstract ways, a new and more open relationship with typography is achieved.

Shown on the following pages, the exploration of typographic composition started with simple elements--three letterforms--and became a process of identifying abstract concepts as they became visualized. Additional elements were added each week, and new relationships evolved as we explored positive/negative, texture and image use.