Typography: Reflection

I was really thrilled to take this class, because when I used to design projects for people, I would always get lost in figuring out what makes a good typeface and a bad one.

What I learned, though, was much more than that. Not only did I learn what I wanted to learn, I learned about the characteristics and intentions of each font, what a ‘counter’ is, the differences and uses between a sans serif and a serif font, and how to fully incorporate text into design through leading, spacing, and alighment.

The class was still scary at times, though, especially at the thumbnail stage. Always afraid of my own skills, I dreaded walking into class with my thumbnails, fearing that they would be inferior to my classmates’ thumbnails.

But, overall, I guess I didn’t do too badly. I’m sure that fear will enjoy haunting me through Type 2 as well!

Type and Image Examples

Cover of Foto-Auge. 1929

The above design is by El Lissitzky. He seems to be a very early designer, having been involved in many genres of design. His impressive layering and positioning skills leave me wondering how in the heck he did that back then.

Japanese Cinema Expedition 1929

This one, by Lissitzky again, seems to be easier to execute. It does show good positioning again.

Josef Muller Brockmann

I especially enjoy the simplistic, perfectionist, yet clean style that complements the classical music’s behavior.

Armin Hofmann

Another music-related poster, the idea is easily interpreted and kept simple and clean by just sticking to black and white. I’m still not sure what the concept is behind the bass clef and the ear besides its similarity in looks, but you definitely need to have your ears ready for multiple listenings of this piece to fully absorb the epic quality of Carmina.

Lester Beall

I actually posted this, but didn’t really like it. The upper half is too busy, it looks very confused, and the concept almost gets lost. It almost feels like a cook book, that is.

Typography Project 4

Project 1: Environmental Lettering

My main computer is yet to have internet, making typing this on a laptop on an unreliable internet source my only option.

Anyway, we kicked off the semester in Typography I with a project known as Environmental Lettering where we were to cut out a word, place it in a location, and convey meaning to the composition through the use of the word, any objects in the picture, and the location where the picture was taken. I feel like I repeated what I just said. Anyway, here is what I came up with:

Just look at the picture for a bit without looking for the answer to this one.

Okay, since it was required for me to explain the artwork, I will.

The word HOPE is most commonly, in my opinion, a fragile, desperate word that takes a negative situation and tries to make it better. A starving child hopes for food, an abandoned puppy hopes for a new owner, a troubled country hopes for a leader to make it better.

The dark, gloomy road shows a single spilled glass. The water from the cup splatters across the road in a random fashion as it should. Hopefully it leaves the viewer wondering about WHY the water is spilled, or what else could possibly not be in the picture.

I wanted to emphasize the meaning of the glass itself, the reason its spilled, and why it’s on the road. The glass could represent the word HOPE itself and that it has been lost, forever spilled away onto the road. There are other possibilities of interpretation for the glass, such as an object that doesn’t belong on the road in the first place and ended up there anyway somehow, etc.