Thursday, January 31, 2013

chapters 1,3,6 and type anatomy write up


Chapter 1

 This chapter is discussing the history of text. It talks about how font and type have evolved over the past 5,000 years. It starts with writing on clay tablets all the way to magazines and books today. I thought this was a really cool chapter to read. The timeline approach makes it much more interesting, and then seeing the pictures alongside of it really helped understand each step. It is something that I never really think to much about, but text is everywhere and it’s nice to see the progression of it and how that came to be.

Chapter 3

This chapter is talking about syntax and communication and how they are necessary in understanding typography. “Syntax is the manner in which words are combined to form phrases or sentences”, basically meaning that in order to even begin to read something you are taking in the syntax automatically. There are many different ways you can put letters together, and depending on how you decide to arrange them you are creating a certain feeling or message with your design. The rest of the chapter talks about different ways you can arrange the letters and the importance organization and balance as well as lines.

Chapter 6

This chapter talks about different typographic messages and how getting your point across through type can happen in various ways. We see type everywhere so it is important when creating something with type that you are doing it in a way that will stand out. This chapter talks about the a few of the different ways to achieve this such as placement of letters, inserting images with text, using different fonts, and colors and contrasts.

Type anatomy

The two fonts I decided to write about are Opus Chords Sans and Hoefler Text for my serif. I chose these fonts because they had a very clean and legible look. The Opus chords reminds me of my text font that I have on my IPhone when I am tpying text messages. All of the uppercase letters look exactly the same. Then when I did the lowercase letters I found that there were a few surprises. The lowercase b and the lowercase x definitely standout among the others and they don’t look like they belong. Playing off of the word “chords” from the font title, the b reminds be of a music note, a b flat to be exact. And then the x to me resembles a snowflake form. I do enjoy when a text does something different, but I would prefer them to be consistent throughout. If all of the lower case letters had something quirky about them I would enjoy this text more, but right now it just seems random and out of place.
            For my other font, Hoefler Text, I wanted to find a text that reminded me of the alphabet letters my elementary school teachers would have around the room. I am a nanny for two elementary school aged kids and this font reminded me of just that, elementary school. The uppercase letters look like the letters the kids practice writing on their dotted line paper. This is a comforting font for me because of this resemblance, and it brings me back to learning how to write. The lowercase letters are also a great example of learning how to write the basic letters. Although the a and the g are not the way we would learn how to write them in grade school, they are a bit more intricate, the rest of them look like a very simple alphabet with no unexpected surprises.  

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