Day 1:
My very first and
rough thoughts about “My little book of Good Typography”
-
readability (how can I aid it – design)
-
type, size + leading + line length (in a visual way)
I want my book to be interesting and fun. My aim is to demonstrate to readers various techniques to change the typography and how they can work in different spaces and with different readers. I would like to play with different ways of presenting my thoughts, but always keeping an
‘easy reading’ experience to the reader from a design point of view. I would like it to be easy to ‘scan’ for the
reader so he could get some information from it, therefore I will make the most
important words bigger and brighter so that we can remember them easily. This is how I will approach the readability.
I also know that the size is very important, however do I
want my font to be bigger or smaller but in a clear font? How about the leading? How much space do I want to have between one
line and another for them to be more interesting and visible? I will have to experiment with that a bit.
My very first and rough thoughts about “My Little Book of
Bad Typography “
This is going to be a quit challenge for me. I really
struggle with this part of my assignment. I will try not to just show the opposite of the 'good book', and try to bring a bit more original thought. I think I will use similar subject matter from the good book, however I will do it differently.
Looking at the two books side by side should be like black and white, like sweet and sour
or like day and night.
Day 2:
Working on the Good book is not as easy as I thought … and
I am not as good with Adobe In Design as I would like to be. However, I am
proud of myself as this is the first Assignment that I will do using this
software. I know it will take a few more days before I will get better with
this software.
Day 3:
What did I do today? I
was working on the subject matter of my both books using Microsoft Word typing
and gathering all my thoughts together. I
think I did well today, what I decided was, for each typographical area of study, to demonstrate it in a different context, such as using colour and size for a 'Half Price' sale poster, and using a script type face for a wedding invitation. Quite pleased with myself as I did 50% of my work .
Now what I have to do is to work on the visual side of my Assignment using
Adobe In Design for the next few days.
Day 4:
Working on the visual side of my Assignment is fun. I
managed to design only a cover for the Little Book of Good Typography. However
I do wonder if all my thoughts and ideas will be clear
enough for the reader to read and understand? Will I put the information that I
gained from this part of my course clear enough ? I really wish to do it well
this time .
I have to say it is hard to keep all my stages of my
assignment while they are in progress. This
takes a lot of my time to keep saving from one type of document to another,
from PDF to JPEG and I think I will post
only the last stage of my work . I will post only the finished page and make comments on how I made them.
Day 5
I think I should start from a research to have an idea about
the front covers before I design my own.
I had a look on the Amazon website to see the range of the
books about the typography they have. These
are three front covers I decided to place on my blog page as a research.
Typographic Design: Form and Communication by Rob Carter
Thinking with Type, 2nd revised and expanded edition: A Critical
Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton
Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and
Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston
It looks to me as the
market demands from the designers to produce very simply book cover that focus on the letters . I think my book cover
will have one big letter in different styles on a very simply background.
page 1
I am so pleased to say that I have benefited a lot from the
exercise number one: “ Type samples”. I
have used the knowledge about different typefaces to produce my book cover for
this assignment. I used different
typefaces mainly ‘serifs’ to produce the right part of the cover full of
letters ‘T’ that stands for typography. I
decided to use a ‘sans-serif’ to write my name and surname in the left bottom corner.
I have also used my skills gained from the
exercise number two: “Experimental typography “to be more playful with the
fonts and create and interesting composition.
I wanted to express meaning of the word ‘My’ to exaggerate
and put pressure on it as this is the most important part of this title. When
we say ‘My’ we always want to make a statement that something belongs to us and
is very important . I did play with the word little by using the small size of
the font. I think it looks good and reflects the meaning of the word. I wanted
the word Typography to look different and exciting to the viewer therefore I
have used different typefaces.
Day 6
I was thinking
about the page number 2 and the context
of it . What principle of the book design I could use? I thought that writing about
the context and the typeface that we use is very important and it should be
place on one of the first pages. I think The New Courier reflects
the short text that I decided to
place on the page number 2. To be honest, this page is perhaps quite safe as an option, the main idea for typeface and content came in for the 'bad book' which you will see below. For the good book, I just wanted to show that the tone of the typeface can inform the content.
page 2
Day 7
Today I managed to
design and work on two other pages number 3 and 4 .
Readability and
legibility are the section of my study that I decided to use in my little
booklet. I wanted to design text about the wedding and the way how I could
express the matter of the context. The best way to do this is by using nice
font like on a wedding invitation. Another way was to use one sentence per
line to make it more clear.
I designed page
number 4 as it was a shouting advert trying to sell me something. I used a big
bold font to that and a bright colour to make sure that everyone can read this
from the distance.
page 3
Here, taking the idea of content from the previous page, I have used a script font. However I understand that script fonts are not always appropriate and for best effect, they should have enough 'leading' so the lines aren't too close together. Also I find too much script typeface on a page difficult to read (we will see that when we come to the bad book)
page 4
Here I have played with adverts that use big, bold, colourful typefaces to attract attention and then try to hide away the terms and conditions with smaller sized text. While it is a bit cynical of advertising, it demonstrates how the different techniques attract the eyes to the 'important words'
Day 8
I am starting to
see the shape of my little booklet . However it is very far from finished. I
keep thinking about the other booklet that I can be more playful and fun, but
for now I need to focus on the proper good book of typography and follow the
rules .
page 5
Here I have used line lengh and columns to affect the reading pace. I have imagined I am writing a column in a newspaper for commuters.
page 6-7
this composition was designed to show the effect of the double page spread. I am happy with the overall lookand how the test balances with the image.
Page 8 treats about
the kerning that is the space between the on and the other letter. I thought
that I could just type the main words with the best amount the space for that.
I like the way how it looks as a final page.
page 8
My Little Book of Bad Typography
Day 9
My little book of
bad typography starts with the opposite cover design than the first one. I
wanted to create a book that doesn’t look as it treats about the typography at
all therefore I used my drawings of my face as a main part of the design. I also
wanted to use the word 'little' in the wrong way by using the big font for that. It does
not have any colours apart black and white therefore I do not think it would stand
out in the crowd of books about the typography.
page 1
Day 10
Today I finished
all my pages for this little booklet as I decided to work hard and finish my assignment.
It was not as that difficult as I was working using similar ideas from the
booklet number one however trying to make sure that all rules will not be obey.
I used my own drawings so there is no issue about the copyrights.
page2
This was the original idea for using the wrong typeface for a context. Here I have a necessarily formal, sombre context which should require a formal typeface, therefore a childish typeface is clearly inappropriate
page 3
Here I have played with the idea that script typefaces can make text look more personalised. However, eventually I find that too much text makes it difficult to read and just the style of the typeface can distract the reader form the words being used.
page 4
In comparison to the red poster style page in the good book, I have highlighted here the impact of using the same size font for a whole page, it means that the reader cannot focus on one area, and will therefore try to read it all as if it is one long piece of text (not what you want if you want to attract customers to a shop for a sale)
page 5
while in the good book, I used a shorter line length to demonstrate how newspapers can make it easier to digest information quickly, here I have gone to the extreme of even shorter lines. This means that most lines have only one or two words, making it quite hard to read.
page 6-7
In the bad book i wanted to also use a double page spread to show how typography can make it difficult to read a spread when the alignment and leading are not well thought out.
page 8
