{Typography}
Rachel Lauren Adams
Š 2013 Rachel Adams www.rlaurendesign.com
Typo graphy is what
language looks.. like..
{ellen lupton}
{hello.} This is a book about typography. So what does that mean? According to dictionary.com, typography is: 1. the art or process of printing with type. 2. the work of setting and arranging types and of printing from them. 3. the general character or appearance of printed matter. In this book, I am going to take you with me on my journey to learn more about typography. Together we will progress through the different composions I have made in attempts to learn about typography in a traditional sense. But keep in mind, many rules are made to be broken.
{History of typography}
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. . . . .
{anatomy of type} arm
spine the curve in capital and lowercase s
ascender
the horizontal stroke such as in E, T, F
the part of the letter that rises above its body or the x-height
EQdpAS beak
stem the vertical stroke in a character
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apex
tail
descender
crossbar
spur
also the diagonal stroke on K, k, and R
goes below the baseline
the hoizontal stroke that connects two vertical strokes
the finish on the top or bottom of S or C
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. 1500s Garamond .
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adapted from www.counterspace.us/typography
stroke
bowl
a straight, diagonal part of a letter
the curved part of a character that encloses the counter
cross-stroke the horizontal stroke crossing a vertical stroke
NBgetx ear
cap height x-height
base line
descender depth
serif the terminal counterstroke at the end of a main stroke
link
counter
connects two parts
the enclosed or partially enclosed area in a characeter
loop
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bracket the curve that connects the stem to the serif
finial
. Late 1700s Baskerville .
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{what’s in a name?} The first assignment I had to do was to create a name portrait that included my name and three adjectives describing myself. To start off, I needed to think of more than three adjectives. (I didn’t want to limit myself to using “characterless” as the third adjective.) I came up with two versions of my name portrait (on the left), and I decided that I liked the format of the second one the best. The main problem with this, though, was that all the personality traits were in the same font. In particular, this did not work for “non-conformist” since all the words were restricted to a very rigid style. To create the final name portrait, I added variation to the adjectives so that the fonts were more expressive of the adjectives they represented. I used a font that reflects the style of the DIsney logo to show “creativity” and a more rigid font to depict “stubborn.” Since previously, the word “non-conformist” had been the least descript in form, I changed the font and also made the text a different color to make it stand out even further.
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. Early 1800s Fat Face
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{type and form} How much form do we need read text? In this project, I wanted to experiment with just how much form is required for something to be legible. Even though the letters in this image are not complete, most are able to read it fairly easily. This is because the brain takes the information from the eye and fills in the missing pieces in order to create something familiar from the unfamiliar. In this case, the fact that the phrase, “let it be� is well-known is advantageous when it comes to filling in the gaps.
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I found that this piece was successful in several aspects. First of all, for most people, the phrase is generally easy to understand within seconds of viewing the composition. The other successful aspect of the piece is the overall feeling that the viewer gets when they see it. The texture of the brush, horizontal and centered text, and white space all contribute to a feeling of peace and serenity.
. 1901 Copperplate Gothic .
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. 1925 Bauhaus .
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{type in our world}
Typography is more prevalent than we may think. For this assignment, I had to look for type forms in nature as well as in man-made objects. It is surprising how many letters one can find when looking for them. To create the actual composition, I juxtaposed the original image with the same image overlaid with letters. The third image varies from the others in that instead of laying letters over the image, I added elements to the image in order to create letterforms. Since the manipulated image was very similar to the original, I thought that it would look too repetitive next to the manipulated image. Instead of using the original image in the third set, I used a related image the complimented the manipulated image.
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. 1927 Futura
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{type and image} For this assignment, we were given simple guidelines: pick an image, and incorporate text into the image. Initially, this was difficult for me, because I generally do not like text on top of an image because it often makes for a busy composition. In order to combat this, I decided to take a photograph in which I would have a background for my text. The black shirt in the photograph works well for this purpose. I took the photo with the sun in the background so that the rays of light would add an interesting element to the photograph (compared to just a plain black shirt). Like the “let it be.� piece, I wanted this composition to give the viewer a sense of peace and tranqulity.
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I used all lowecase letters to make the message less formal. The font that I chose communicates a type of certainty because of its boldness, but at the same time the shape of the letters is more casual and comforting. The period at the end of the statement also gives a comforting certainty to the message. I wrote each word on a different line because the weight of the three smaller words balances out the weight of the longer word at the top.
. 1932 Times Roman
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. period font
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{font portrait} For this assignment, I wanted to create a portrait of my friend, Amy Boshnaugle. First of all, I chose a monochromatic color scheme of teal, because it is her favorite color. I then used her name repeatedly throughout the image in a wide variety of font styles and sizes. To add another element to the image, I took a facebook conversation between the two of us and converted it to a symbol font. I overlaid the original text (her name) with this encrypted conversation.
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. 1962 Eurostyle .
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. period font
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“Lemonade” Rachel Adams 2013
abcdefghijk abcdefghij lmnopqrs klmnopqrs tuvwxyz
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tuvwxyz 0123456789 ?!., “” ‘’ {}@#$%&*() 0123456789 .
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. 1909 Trajan .
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“Lemona Rachel Ad 2
{my font}
abcdefghij klmnopqrs tuvwxyz 0123456789
The culmination in working with typography was creating my own font. I wanted to create a serif font, but I wanted it to look less rigid and formal. I created the letters using only the brush tool in Illustrator to give the font a hand-written feeling. This method of creating each character individually makes for a more interesting font with variations in each letter. This font is available to download at www.fontspace.com/rlaurendesign/lemonade
{about}
This book was created as a final assignment for a typography class at La Salle Univeristy. My hope is that by this point in your reading, you have come to learn more about typography, its uses and misuses, and the ways in which it can be manipulated to add to the message of a composition. Typography is everywhere. Take time to really see it.
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{resources} Typography history adapted from: http://papress.com/thinkingwithtype/teachers/type_lecture/Type_Lecture.pdf
http://www.counterspace.us/typography/timeline/ http://www.creativebloq.com/typography/biggest-type-design-trends-2012-812539/page-3
http://www.counterspace.us/typography/timeline/
Fonts used: http://www.dafont.com/gara.font
http://www.fontspace.com/dieter-steffmann/blackletter http://www.fontpalace.com/font-download/Fat+Face+Regular/