typographygra

typophygra

hello.You have successfully found my book on type, so con-gratulations to you, my friend. In this book I will walk you through a few basics of type, by using artwork I have pro-duced. I hope you learn a few things! Before we get started I would like to give you a few background details to why I constructed this book and what it is about. So, I am a Digital Arts and Multimedia Design major, and when I was informed I would have to take a class on typography, my reaction was along the lines of ‘say what?’ A class on type? How much could there be to talk about, and why would I even want to talk about it to begin with? Well, I was in for a rude awakening as I truly began to open my eyes and understand how important and crucial type is in everyone’s life, but especially mine as a potential designer. So please follow me as I brief you on a few things I have learned. I promise I will try to make it worth your while.

peacePeace

PEACE

typographygra

typophygra

In this assignment, we had to choose a word and then use that word to express different variations of the meaning, and figure out what type would work best to illustrate the mean-ing. So I opted to choose the word peace. In the photograph with the baby, peace is a word mean-ing content and happy, and I choose the font as I felt that font best illustrated that message. The font is script like, and very elegant and angelic, which I personally associate with sleep-ing babies. In the next photo is a hippie, in which peace means searching for meaning and value, giving and receiving love, and pondering the meaning of the universe. I chose a font that reminded me of the 70’s, as hippies are most often as-sociated with this generation, and it is also a font that I feel helps demonstrate hippie’s ideals. And finally, the last picture is of a gun bent at the ends, making it useless, which demonstrates peace in the ‘no war’, nonviolence sense. I chose a bold font that was powerful, as I feel speakers of peace should be powerful and that the ab-sence of violence is a huge message in itself. Also, please not that by chancing the words into all uppercase it makes the message stronger and more impactive, forcing the reader to have to slow down in order to comprehend the capitalization.

typographygra

typophygra

Type is found everywhere, and it is amazing what type of pic-tures you can construct just by using letters as words. Take the picture on the right for example, Susie. Susie is constructed only of letters, and although she not even close to being a mas-ter piece work of art, we can all look at the image and under-stand what it is. Everything in this picture is letters. Susie’s hair is made up of Gs. Her nose is a huge J, and her lips are a M and a V stacked on top of one another. Her eyebrows and ears are numbers 1 and 3. Her earrings are Cs, and her eyes are Os. Her face is outlined with parathetis, and her neck line is con-structed with Ls. I encourage you to try your own. I believe it is well worth the time to see how letters can be used as illustrations. Letters orginated as pictures back when writing was just being devel-oped. It is important to note this fact and to see letters as indi-viidual images. Yes, together they form communication, but as their own part they are a design and a symbol that everyone in that given speaking language can comprehend.

((

mv

jl l o oo o

3 3

gg gg

ggg gggggg

g ggg

gg

ggg g

gII

c c

A VrL LLL L

A VrLc

LLL L

A VL

c

LLL Lr

typographygra

typophygra

Going off a few things I mentioned on the previous page, we now go to organic images that hold letters. We were assigned to take an organic image found in nature, and to find as many letters as we could in the photograph. In the picture on the left you can see I used a picture of a river running through a rock to show how letters and type can be found anywhere, as long as you care enough to look. Letters can be found in trees, flowers, animals, and almost anything if you look hard enough. Because we recognize type so fast and quickly, as we use it nearly everyday, it is not hard to find out there in the real world. We use our language everyday, whether it be checking the time when you wake up, ready to start your day, and then going to check the morning paper. Language is very im-portant, and one of our biggest form of communicators. Can you image where we would be today if typography didn’t exist? Yeah, me either. The point I am trying to make is that you can find type anywhere, at anyplace, and at anytime. It is very im-portant and such a huge part of our everyday life that it is important to understand the basics of typography.

typographygra

typophygra

Now we head on to the idea of negative space and our abil-ity to comphrend. In this assignment we were told to take as much of a letter away as possible, but make it still compre-hendable. I opted to use a quote from the movie The Beach. I now challenge you to try and read what this quote says, and then take a deeper look and see how much of the words and letters I actually took away. I was very suprised to see how much of a letter I could actually take away and someone could still make out my message I was trying to communicate. It was a really weird realization for me. And it follows that god-aweful cliche of ‘less-is-more”. This project goes along with the previous point I tried to make on the last page that type is a huge part of our everyday life. Because we view type so often, it does not take much for us to be able to recongnize a letter. We have these awesome chemicals and wheels in our head that piece togeth-er the missing puzzle pieces for us. Go brain! Alright, if you have given up trying to read the quote, it reads: never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamilar, never fail to be poliet, and never outstay the welcome. just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. and if it hurts? it’s probably worth it.

never refuse an invitation.never resist the unfam

ilar.never fail to be polite& n

ever o

utsta

y the

welc

ome

just keep your mind openand suck in the experienceand if it hurts? it.

it’s probably worth

s rEXrt oVcarefree

ERt

amie

sue marie brittle

typographygra

typophygra

Oh, the beauty of words and their meanings. This image is suppose to be ‘me in a nutshell’ using words to describe myself. Using 3 adjectives, I attempted to construct an im-age that was descriptive, visually pleasing, and processed the design element of unity. The three words I chose to use were absurd, extrovert, and carefree. I tried to make the visual elements and placements of everything fit me personally as well. My favorite part of this project is the word ‘extrovert’. I like the way it moves across the page, and the fact that the audience (meaning you) has to alter their perception and come out of their comfort zone a tad bit to decipher what that word is. I feel that the sentence I used to describe ‘ex-trovert’ would also be the way I would describe myself, me being a relatively awkward person :). I also used darker colors throughout the piece for contrast among the individual components. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I decided to make this page a focus on design elements to help illustrate their importance when us-ing type, especially when you are designing a particular im-age and trying to convey a particular message. I hope I was successful.

swimmingtwo lost soulsin a fi

sh

bowl

typographygra

typophygra

Ah, Pink Floyd. Will I ever grow tired of this magnificent song? You’ve never let me down yet. This was an assigment designed to have us illustrate song lyrics in a comprehend-able and fashionable manner. Using just words, I was able to construct an image that constitutes movement, unity, texture, value, size, balance, contrast, and harmony, all of which are elements and principle of design. I figured I’d go into a little more detail on this page about these character-ist, as they are the foundation upon which most typography lies. The elements and principles of design are the build-ing blocks used to create a work of art. The elements of design can be thought of as the things that make up a paint-ing, drawing, design etc. Good or bad - all pieces of art will contain most of if not all, the seven elements of design. The Principles of design can be thought of as what we do to the elements of design. How we apply the Principles of design determines how successful we are in creating a work of art. So if you are not familiar with these elements, get familar with them. They are very important and definently deserve your time and concentration. Oh, and if you’ve never heard the song ‘Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, go listen to it as soon as you finish this sentence. Now.

swimmingtwo lost soulsin a fi

sh

bowl

DIGITAL CENTER FOR

EXPERIENCES

digital&multimediadesign

arts

o oone

typographygra

typophygra

Nike. McDonald. Verizon. Disney. Coca-Cola. What comes to your mind when I mention these corporations? Please tell me it was their logos, as that is the point I am trying to make. If not, I have failed you and I sincerely apologize. I am hoping you know and recognize these companies’ lo-gos, and they have helped to ‘brand’ their company. Lo-gos make them easily recognizable and stands as a sort of symbol for their company or product. In the long run, it is nearly impossible to describe the power a simple logo or logo design has. What exactly is a logo? Well, a logo is a graphical ele-ment (ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon, sign) that, togeth-er with its logotype (a uniquely set and arranged typeface) form a trademark or commercial brand. Logos are often used to brand things, so they do not need to be overly de-tailed. However, they should stand out as unique and hold design elements within itself. In this assignment, I was asked to develop 3 logos for organizations around our campus. I attempted to add an unique vibe to eat one, while having them remained rela-tively simple and easy to read.

typographygra

typophygra

Keeping the ideas of logos we just did metion, another fasi-nating aspect of typography and it’s powers are signs. We pass many signs everyday (ok, I don’t really know you so maybe I shouldn’t generalize, but most of us do), and we are likely to filter them out or read them absent mindly. So what do we do to stop this? Cause a scene by being obscence. Basically, there is so much information out there for all of us, so we are likely to filter out much of it. So how do we, as designers, prevent this from happening? Well, this is just one way, a very clever way I might add, by using typog-raphy and images to add a new edge to a virtually edgeless aspect of type. People expect norms out of the everyday normali-ties of life, so an image like this is most likely going to turn heads. So basically utlize type, and utlize in the way in which you confront and face it everyday. Do not be afraid to be bold or different. Bold and different are good. Can you image seeing this on a cage at a zoo? I just hope people would relieze it was someone being clever, and would still feed their kids lunch.

typographygra

typophygra

warning

don’t feed the children

May the wind alwaysbe on your

BACKandthe

sun upon your face andmay the winds

of destiny carry you aloft todancewith the

stars

I’m shy, paranoid,

whatever theWORD

you want to use

I hatefame

I’ve done everything I can

TOadv

oidit

ifthere is anyme ssa geto mywork, it is ultimently

that it is ok to be differentthat GOODto be different,

question ourselves

it is that we shouldbeforewe pass

JUDGEMENT

who looks on someone

different, behaves different,

talks different, is a different COLOR. the thing to do

is toENJOYthe ride

whileyou’re on it.

I Think

there are four

questionsOF VALUE

inmy life....what is sacred?

of what is the

spiritmade?whatisworthliving

forandwhatis worthDYING

for?theanswerto

is the same.

it is goodto experienceHOLLYWOOD

inshortburst

i guess.

littlesnippets

i dontthinki can

handlebeing

hereALLthe

time, itspretty nu

ttyidont regretany of the things

i didntdo

and icertainly don’t

regretany

typographygra

typophygra

Instructions: create a portrait out of type, be creative and have fun. My reaction: WHATTT?! So I have already constructed an image with type, and found type in everyday objects, but now I have to construct a portrait with type? I just want to let you know how unexcited I was about this assignment. I had no idea where to begin, but I decided that since I was going to have to use type, that I was going to convey a message to share with whomever viewed the portrait. And since I have always been a big Johnny Depp fan, I decided that I would use quotes he, himself, said, as long with characters in his movies. This project is noteworthy as it demonstrates that, not only can you use type to develop an image, but you can also use it to convey a message, such I did here on the left. The contrast in the sizing of the words and the placement, I be-lieve, add up to make an interesting imaging, and it is not like reading a sentence across a page. Although a message is de-livered here, it is turned from words into a piece of art itself. This is important to realize as it shows that one should and could utilize this whenever possible to create interest among the viewer. We have all been reading sentences in straight lines from left to right our whole lives, so mix it up whenever you can!

typographygra

typophygra

This assignment was probably my favorite, and I believe that is because if you look in any notebook I have ever had for any class in my life, the subject is written in fancy writing on the top for everyday I take notes. Of course I switch it up day to day, class to class, but lets just say that I’ve ‘designed’ a lot of different fonts in my classes. So the real challenge for me was which one to choose. I decided on a bubbly-multicolored font, as it fits my personality pretty well. I also did not concentrate on perfection what-so-ever. I am a huge believer in the beauty of imperfec-tion, and wanted that to come through in my font. Some lines were actually too straight for me, so I had to skew them off a bit. I like the childish look it has to it, and feels it fits the sort of ‘indie’ vibe that is so popular and wide spread in today’s age (2009..ahaha). The one thing that bothers me the most about this font would be when two letters line up next to one another and are the same color, however, like I mentioned before, imperfection is beautiful and the same colors next to one another shows the randomness of my font and the imperfection it processes. Oh yeah, it is entitled “Good Feeling” , as I hope that is the mood it conveys.

typographygra

typophygra

goodbye.Well, there ya have it folks. Typography in a nutshell. Well, in my nutshell. I hope you learned a thing or two and I want to thank you for stopping by. I would also like to thank Mr. Conrad Gleber, who made this whole book possible, stirring my ship into the world of type (he’s my teacher for those of you that didn’t get that one). I would also like to thank my class for accom-panying me on the journey. I would also like to thank my family and loved ones, as that seems appropriate as that is usually what people do. You guys are awesome and you are my oxygen. Ok, this is really corny and I feel like I just won an Oscar or something, so I should be going. Close the book in 3...2...1...