Type Designer

Adrian Frutiger is a type designer from Switzerland. His career started at the young age of sixteen, working as a printer’s apprentice. Here he also learned woodcutting, engraving, and calligraphy. After studying at the Zurich school of Arts and Crafts, he was recruited by Charles Peignot to create typefaces for a new phototypesetting process. He was also requested to design a font family with different weights. It was at this time in his career where he started creating the typeface, Univers. The descriptions he used for each twenty-one variations was revolutionary for that time. Frutiger also started the trend of a higher x-height with the typeface Univers. It was a change that was not seen during that period. Throughout his career he has worked with many different forms of creating type including, hot metal, phototype setting, and digital typesetting. Frutiger is a designer known for influencing digital typography.   

Music Poster Final - Fernando Pena

Melissa Roels- A Case of You

Music Poster Final Submission-Veronica Perez

I was having problems turning the tears and water from a weird purple, to blue, so here is my actual final project.

Chapter Review Posts 1-7

Chapter 1

This chapter goes through the different textual designs of types through the ages beginning in Egypt. It gives four distinct timelines of text evolution and the different types of styles they are. It also covers the radical approaches to text design as well as using text as a design it and of itself. The different forms of text go across a wide range of styles and have their own personal traits. They fall into two general categories; serif and sans serif.

 

Chapter 2

This chapter deconstructs the anatomy of typography. It goes over the various parts of letterforms as well as explains how each of these parts contributes to the text as a whole.  It also describes certain discrepancies that can go along with trying to explain and justify the different parts. It continues on to give examples of various type faces and some of their history. The chapter ends with the explanation of how to measure metal type and measuring the spatial intervals.

Chapter 3

It goes over the syntax element of typographic design. How artist use space along with the text in order to convey a visual message that aptly described the content. The form of the text and the relationships between the word and the typeface. Designers use these relationships to form inter letter relationships with the words across the page, engaging in space. The type on the page can be defined by the lines, grids, columns, margins, and geometric configurations, which can include the use of negative and positive space as well as visual arrangement.

Chapter 4

Legibility in typography is important due to the fact that if the viewer can’t read it, the design or the text isn’t conveying the message clearly. It goes through how to distinguish letters and use those qualities in appropriate design structure. Type size, interline spacing, stroke weight and line length are just a few factors one needs to consider when designing with type. The type must fit the design and vice versa to have a natural aesthetic in the over all image. Color is also important as it can change the feel of a type drastically as opposed to it being only in black and white. The manipulation of design is also growing more and more popular due to the evolution in technology and designing by computer.

Chapter 5

The grid can be one of the most helpful tools in laying down text in space or even creating it. Using a graph we are able to utilize the space needed to convey the designer’s meassage clearly so that everything on the page fits. With grids we can create page layouts for books, articles, pamphlets, etc.  And we can keep the text and the images used in a more structured straightforward way.

 

Chapter 6

Text is virtually everywhere. The design is street signs and logos and the like.  The visual concept of the image is important because it has to say what the text alone cant. Such devices as stroke weight, position play, visibility, and the use of a picture to replace text are just a few devices used when designing in order to say a specific message.

Chapter 7

This chapter talks about the growth of typography from hand to computer. The machines used to create and make each specific letterform   are the linotype, monotype, and Ludlow. There is also phototypesetting, and keyboard phototypesetters. From these machines designer started scanning their images of text to then using various forms of software in order to manipulate the type. These kinds of designs and techniques are now used widely and offer an ease of the mind in creating a piece. But at the same time it lacks certain challenges that artists before them had to endure which was what made their design so interesting and sometimes ingenious.

 

Cassata-Final Music Type

Cotton-7 Deadly Sins Exhibition

            For my blog post I will be writing about the 7 Deadly Sins exhibition that was held at the CDM critique space in late February. At first entering the room it was clear that were a lot of diverse styles and approaches to the project. Some were very literal in spelling out which each sin was like the Kill Bill series and other had to be implied like the Dr. Suess spin off designs of his most famous works. Not that one design was more creative than the other; it was just different ways to present the idea of each sin. There was also a series of Gameboy colors each with Pokémon displayed on the screen, with each Pokémon being a different sin. The use of type in all these compositions was also very interesting. Some used the type in a very plain and open fashion because they wanted the forms to be seen, the viewer could make out each and every letter that made up a form, like in the Gameboy Pokémon designs. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum were the designs like the Kill Bill series that hid the letter forms and had type so tightly placed and overlapped that the type stop being type and started to look more like a texture, with multiple color fills and intersecting sections. Another very interesting piece within the show were the giant candy skulls. Comprised entirely of type they were a happy in between of the recognizable forms and well-created textures of overlapping text. The skulls were well composed and highly detailed using the sin within the design to convey which sin it was as well as changing the skulls facial expression for each one. Each one was unique and could stand alone on its own, but was even better when held together in a series centered around sin. My favorite would have to be the Kill Bill series. Not only because it was a Tarantino film and he is the man, but because of the way they were made. I could tell the amount of time and effort that went into each one in order for the series to move smoothly and work together as a whole.