Typography - Project 2

May 23, 2019

Typography - Project 2

17/5/2019 - 31/5/2019 (week 7 - 9)
Chan Qian Hui 0334447
Typography
Project 2 - Font Design

LECTURE NOTES

Lecture 7 : Text / Tracking : Kerning, letterspacing
17/5/2019 (week 7)
Kerning is often mistaken as letter spacing, but they are not the same. Letter spacing means to add space between the letters. The removal of spacing between letters is called kerning. When you are formatting your body text on left alignment, the right hand side going to make raging and if it is too much, we need to make kerning and letterspacing.

Text formatting :

Flush left: This format most closely mirrors the asymmetrical experience of handwriting.
Centered: This format imposes symmetry upon the text, assigning equal value and weight to both ends of any line.
Flush right: This format places emphasis on the end of a line as opposed to its start.
Justified: Like centering, this format imposes a symmetrical shape on the text.\

Designers tend to set type one way or another depending upon several factors, personal preference, prevailing culture and the need to express play important roles. However, when setting the field of type, keep in mind the typographer’s first job—clear, appropriate presentation of the author’s message.

Lecture 8 : No Lecture
24/5/2019 (week 8)
no lecture was conducted for this week.

INSTRUCTION

PROJECT 2 - FONT DESIGN

For this Project, we were required to design our own fonts. We are required to choose an existing font design that adheres to the direction that we would like to head in, dissect and analyze it, and then create our own font design.

Dissection of Letter :

In the beginning, we were tasked to dissect 5 letters from a single typeface.
I chose typeface Garamond Regular and letters C, O, R, S, U to dissect and analyze their characteristics.

Fig 1.0 Dissection of typeface Garamond letter C

Fig 1.1 Dissection of typeface Garamond letter O

Fig 1.2 Dissection of typeface Garamond letter R

Fig 1.3 Dissection of typeface Garamond letter S

Fig 1.4 Dissection of typeface Garamond letter U

After Dissecting and understanding the design of the fonts. I moved on to sketching my ideas for font design.

Sketches :

Fig 1.5 Sketches for Font Design

After showing Mr Vinod my sketches, he told me to move on to digitizing my work. Initially, I started with tracing my sketches with pen tool.

Fig 1.6 Initial Digitization of letters

Then Mr Vinod corrected me and said I should start by creating the basic shape for my fonts and then further adjust it using outline stroke and guides. He also told me to start with letter "O" and keep each part of the font as it may be used again for other letters.

Fig 1.7 Digitization of letter O using strokes(left) and convert into outline stroke and adjust (right)

I started by creating the base of my fonts using strokes. I adjusted the fonts using guides so they look similar visually in size.

Fig 1.8 Base shape of letters (strokes)

Then I altered the shape of the strokes into the characteristic and design I wanted in my font design. I also made 2 versions for my font design, one with serif and one is san serif.

Fig 1.9 Digitization of font design (san serif)

Fig 1.10 Digitization of font design (serif)

I chose the design with serif as my final chosen design because the contrast were more consistent and the serifs creates an end point which balances out the really thin strokes of the letters. It also adds visual weight to the fonts.

Final font digitized design :

Fig 1.11 Final digitization of font design

After completing the design of my font in Adobe Illustrator, I transferred the work to Font Lab version 5.

Fig 1.12 Progress of transferring letters into Font Lab

Then, I adjusted the x-height, kerning between letters, and ensured that the letters are consistent and aligned.

Fig 1.13 Progress of adjusting kerning of letters in Font Lab

Fig 1.14 Final letters with base line

Fig 1.15 Final font design

FEEDBACK

Week 7 :
Feedback was provided for project 1.

Week 8 :
General Feedback :
Mr Vinod told us that we should digitise our work before coming to class because 80% of the work is in the digital version and he could give us feedback during class so we can improvise straight away. Mr Vinod also reminded us to convert our work to outline strokes and check whether if all the lines are joint before moving it to Font Lab.

Specific feedback :
Mr Vinod said my shape is too irregular in the beginning and I should draw the font as strokes, not shapes. Mr Vinod also told me to make the base shape of the font first for one round then only adjust and convert to the design I wanted to go for.

Week 9 :
General feedback :
Mr Vinod told us to reflect properly for each project and exercise and we as designers should always reflect to improve. He also told us to make sure that we don't use screenshots for the project works and we should make sure that the layout is next to each other as it is how it's supposed to be read.

Specific feedback :
Mr Vinod said that my fonts have consistency but it looks unconventional because of the stresses that is different than normal typeface design. Mr Vinod also said I could keep it like the way it is or change it.

REFLECTION

Week 7 :

Experience - I really enjoyed the dissection process of the letters. It really helped me to understand the design of the typeface. But when we were asked to sketch out for our own font design, I was quite lost because I didn't really knew how to design a letter. I was clueless until I started researching more on the web and reading through books. The examples and books guided me through the design process of my font.
Observation - I noticed that most of my classmates chose the typeface Futura to dissect. I also noticed that my classmates were mostly copying the original design of the typeface they chose, and altering the shape of the typeface only.
Findings - I found out that dissection is important so that we could analyze and understand more in detail about the design of the typeface. I also found out that my classmates altered from the original typeface because they did not knew how to design a font from scratch so they could only copy and try to alter from it.

Week 8:

Experience - I was struggling to digitize my font in the beginning because I was doing it wrongly by tracing the outline of my sketches. After knowing what I should do, the digitization process of my letters became much faster,neater and more consistent as well. I was worried because most of my friends were already working fast in digitizing their font and I was still doubting in my own font design.
Observation - I realized that my skills are using Adobe illustrator is getting better and faster. I also realized that my digitized font looked quite different compared to my initial sketches of my font design. I noticed that my classmates emphasized on wanting a really unique and different design for their typeface and not focusing much on the consistency of the lettters.
Findings - I found out that alignment is really important and we should always make use of the guides to ensure that our font is consistent. I also found out that it is important to keep all the different parts when designing a letter because it could be reapplied into the next letter. This allows the letters to be more consistent and also saves the time to redesign the same part again and again.

Week 9:

Experience - I was surprised when Mr Vinod said my font was consistent and I really felt glad about it. But I was still concerned about the design of the letters because certain curves felt too thin and I was not confident enough in my own design. I was really worried when my typeface could not be generated because I was using the Demo version of Font Lab version 5.
Observation - I realized that most of my friends had to fix a lot of small details that made our fonts inconsistent. I also noticed that Mr Vinod is very strict about the fonts being consistent and checking at all the small details in our fonts. I also noticed that when you transfer your digitized letters to Font Lab, you will notice a lot of minor details and differences between letter which we need to fix and adjust.
Findings - I found out that a good design for font design is just as important as keeping the letters consistent in size. The kernings are different for each pair of letters, thus it is important to make sure that we test as many words as possible to adjust and check on it. Besides that, I found out that when you generated your font and start to type it out, you wold see the visual weight and characteristics of your own font more clearly compared to when we are designing it.

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