GRAPHIC DESIGN NOTES 8/23 - C.R.A.P. (C= Contrast R=Repetition A=Alignment P=Proximity) Areas of Design World = Advertising, Editorial, Web, Mobile, Books, etc.
8/25 - Repetition: Good design practice, seeks to repeat some aspects of a design throughout a piece of work, be it for a simple or complex piece of work.
8/31 - Proximity: However simple or complex it's relationship or lack of relationship between shape that can trigger feelings, convey messages, engage an audience, add emphasis to a portion of a layout and create dynamics.
9/21 - STOP STEALING SHEEP -NOTES "Stealing Sheep?" Letter spacing lower case? Professionals in all trades, whether they be dentists, carpenters, or nuclear scientists, communicate in languages that seem secretive and incomprehensible to outsiders; type designers and typographers are no exception. Type terminology sounds cryptic ... with thousands of typefaces available for choosing the right one to express even the simplest ida is bewildering to mostly everyone but practiced professionals.
9/23 - Most people call it "print" and don't pay too much attention to typographic subtleties. You've probably never compared the small text typefaces in newspapers, but you do know that some papers are easier to read than others. A paper gets it's look from the typefaces used and the ways in which they are arranged on the page. We recognize them on the newsstand or website.
9/29- What might look obvious and normal to you when you read your daily paper is the result of careful planning and applied craft. Even newspapers and websites with pages that look messy are laid out following complex grids and strict hierachies. The artistry comes in offering the information in such a way that the reader doesn't get sidetracked into thinking about the fact that someone had to carefully prepare every line, paragraph, and column into structured pages. Design - in case at least - has to be "invisible." They have to look normal that you don't even notice you're reading them...
10/3 - The artistry comes in offering the information in such a way that the reader doesn't get sidetracked into thinking about the fact that someone had to carefully prepare every line, paragraph, and column into structured pages. Design - in this case at least - has to be invisible. Typefaces used for these hardworking tasks are therefore by definition "invisible." They have to look so normal that you don't even notice you're reading them. That's why designing type is such an obscure profession.
10/5 - If you think that the choice of typeface is something of little importance because nobody would know the difference anyway, you'll be surprised to hear that the experts spend an enormous amount of time and energy perfecting details that are unseen by the untrained eye.It is a bit like having been to a concert , thoroughly enjoying it, then reading in the paper the next morning that the conductor had been incompetent , the orchestra out of tune, and the piece of music not worth performing in the first place.*Type on food packages is often hand lettered because standard typefaces don't seem to be able to express the array of tastes and promises.
10/17 - While it may be fun to look at wine labels, chocolate boxes, or candy bars in order to stimulate one's appetite for food or fonts, most of us do not appreciate an equally prevalent kind of communication: forms. If you think about it, you'll have to admit that business forms process a lot of information that would be terribly boring to have to write fresh every time. While onscreen forms offer a very reduced palette of typographic choices, they at least provide some automatic features to help with the drudgery of repeatedly typing your credit card number.
10/19 - Every PC user today knows what a font is, calls at least some of them by their first name (Helvetica, Verdana, Times, etc.) and appreciates that typefaces convey different emotions. What we see on screen are actually unconnected little square dots that trick our eyes into seeing pleasant shapes, we now expect all type to look like "print". Be careful of the tendency to "overdesign" everything ... and push technology to do things it was never intended to do.
10/21 - Some of the most pervasive typographical messages have never really been designed, and neither have the typefaces they are set in. Some engineer, accountant, or administrator in some government department had to decide what the signs on our roads and freeways look like. You can bet there wasn't one typographer or graphic designer in the planning group, so the outcome shows no indication of any thought legibility, let alone communication or beauty. Letterforms on signs were made form simple geometric patterns rather than from written or drawn letterforms for re-creation.
10/25 - Ever since people have been writing things down, they have to consider their audience before actually putting pen to paper: letters would have to look different depending on whether they were read by many other people (in official docs or inscriptions) just one person (letter) or the writer (diary). Some of the first messages to be read by people were chiseled into monuments in ancient Rome. These were carefully planned letters into stone brushed on then chiseled... careful planning went into this application on slabs, marble, and granite.
10/27 - The official roman alphabet as a Trajan column never went out of style... Many digital typefaces evoke the timeless beauty of ancient inscriptions and early printing types. Trajan, created by Carol Twolmby in 1990 is a good example. Graphic design and typography are complicated activities, but even simple projects benefit from thinking about the problem, forming a mental picture of the solution and planning all the steps...
10/31 - Today we are supposed to write legibly, we're instructed to "print". While we might have a hard time reading something 200 years ago in what was then considered a very "good" hand, we have no problem reading writing from Roman times. Typefaces designed 500 years ago, shortly after printing with movable type was invented, still look familiar to us. We might not be using the exact same letters in the identical manner, but the basic shapes and proportions are still valid today.
11/2 - Some typefaces have stood the test of time and appear contemporary today as they did 500 years ago. Their modern digitized versions have a slight edge when it comes to clean outlines. Other typefaces were perfectly legible 500 years ago, but can hardly be read by anybody today. It has to do with cultural perceptions, not the physical properties of the typefaces.
11/8 - While the basic shapes of our letters haven't changed much in hundreds of years, there have been thousands of variations on the theme. People have designed alphabets fro human figures, architectural elements, flowers, trees, tools, and all sorts of everyday items, to be used as initials or typographic ornaments. Typefaces for reading are generally derived from handwriting. Gutenberg's type follows the form of the letters written by scribes in 15th century Germany.
11/15 - Over the centuries differences have been manifested in the way people write. Scribes in European courts created elaborate formal scripts. As literacy spread, people began to cate more about expressing their thoughts quickly, and less about style and legibility. Quills, fountain pens, pencils, and tip pens have all done their part to change the look of handwriting. The common denominator, The roman alphabet, has survived all these developments remarkably intact.
11/28 - Fashion has changed since the 1400s but people still wear shirts, trousers, socks and shoes. The process to manufacture them has changed but the materials such as wool, silk and leathers are still popular and often better than modern alternatives. Our view of things is still largely shaped by nature - plants, animals, weather, scenery. Most of what we perceive as harmonious and pleasing t the eye follows the rules of proportion that are derived from nature. Our classic typefaces also conform to these rules; if they don't, we regard them as strange or illegible.
12/2 - A color circle, based on red, yellow and blue, is traditional in the field of art. Sir Issac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colors in 1666. Since then, scientists and artists have studied and designed numerous variations of this concept. Differences of opinion about the validity of one format over another continue to provoke debate. In reality, any color circle or color wheel which presents a logically aranged sequence of pure hues has merit. Primary: Red, Blue, Yellow Secondary: Orange, Purple, Green Tertiary: Red-yellow, Red-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, purple Analogous- Analogous colors are groups of three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, with one being the dominant color, which tends to be a primary or secondary color, and a tertiary. Red, orange, and red-orange are examples. Complementary Colors- the colors opposite to a primary on the wheel that complement eachother. Such as red and green, or blue and orange, both of which are compliments of eachother.
12/6 - The first generation to grow up with a tv were those born in the 1950's. The genration that followed grew up with music videos, virtual reality and the internet. The manipulation of sounds and images, the invention of artificial realities, and the experience inside man-made surroundings to put to question our "natural" rules of perception. And as with every tech and cultural development in the last 2000 years, type and typography reflect this. If current trends are anything to go by, the look of typefaces is bound to change more by the year 2020 than it has in all the years since the 15th century...
1/10 - • HEADLINES: have to be big and at the top. • Type: is meant to show off the advantages of products inside the package it is printed on. • Type in books hasn't changed much over the last 500 years. Then again the process of reading hasn't either. We might have electric lights, reading glasses, and good chairs... chances are, the more you pay for a book, the closer its typefaces resemble good historical models going back to the renaissance (Caslon, Baskerville, Garamond, all legible typefaces).
1/12 - Newspaper typography has created some of the very worst typefaces, typesetting, and page layouts known to mankind. Yet we put up with bad line breaks, huge word spaces, and ugly type because that is what we are used to. After all, who keeps a newspaper longer than it takes to read? And if it looked any better, would we still trust it to be an objective.
1/17 - Graphic Designers, typesetters, editors, printers, and other communicators ate well advised to be aware of type limitations and expectations. Sometimes it is best to follow the rules , at other times the rules need to be broken to get the point across. Good designers learn all the rules before they start breaking them. (Picasso said this same thing about art...).
1/23 - Designing typefaces for particular purposes is more widespread than most people think. There is a special type for telephone books, small ads, newspapers and Bibles, and for the exclusive use of corporations. There are also typefaces made to comply with technical constraints, ie. Low resolution printers, screen displays, and optical character recognition. Most of all typefaces have tried to emulate historical models. Even bitmaps have become such a model.
1/25 - No one would use the same shoes to go dancing, run a mile, climb the north face of the Eiger, and walk to work - not many people anyway. While your feet may pretty much stay the same shape, they need different types of support, protection, or indeed enhance to perform all the above tasks and many others.... this also applies to type. Sometimes the letters have to work hard to get across straight facts or numbers or they may need to dress up the words a little to make them seem more pleasant, more comfortable or just pretty.
1/31 - Some words are much more fun to find an appropriate typographic equivalent for than others. It many be fairly difficult to find a majority agreement on the right typeface to spell "doubt" but this one shouldn't cause any problems. What's more unexpected, more surprising, than someone's handwriting? The best casual typefaces have always managed to carry some of the spontaneity of handwritten letters into the mechanical restrictions of typesetting. Even the names of some typefaces make you want to choose them. How about this one "mistral" - a cool wind blowing from the north into southern France, it seems to be the standard font for every shopfront and delivery van.
2/8 - The more characters in a word, the more chances there are to find the right letterforms to express its meaning. This word doesn't give us many changes, just three characters; j o y or JOY. Seeing that lowercase j and y looks so similar, an all-capital setting will work better with this one. All three typefaces here have a generous feel to them - open forms with confident strokes and a sense of movement.
2/10 - Anger, like doubt, can be described as a dark feeling that calls for a black, heavy typeface. Anger is not as narrow as doubt. It needs room to expand, sometimes to shout out loud. It helps if the letters are not perfectly worked out and closed in on themselves, but rather a little irregular, leaving room for our imaginations. A well-balanced Univers or Helvetics would not do.
Most really black typefaces have been overused because there aren't enough choices for the designers of the posters and newspapers...
2/22 - There are seven deadly sins, seven seas, an seventh sons of seventh sons, but thousands of typefaces. Someone had to come up with a system to classify them, since describing how different type designs express different emotions just isn't exact enough. There is not only one system, but quite a few, all of the too involved for anyone but the most devoted typomaniac. Adobe created an official type classification system ... SERIF, SANS SERIF, SCRIPT, DISPLAY, SYMBOLS, ETC.
3/6 - Scientists have not been content with just calling the human face "beautiful" if it meets certain ideals or 'ugly' if it doesn't. They had to go out and measure proportions of nose to jaw, forehead to chin, and so on, to establish why some faces are more appealing than others.
Typographers and graphic designers often choose typefaces for the very same reason they might fancy a person; they just like that person. For more scientifically minded people, however, there are specific measurements, components, details, and proportions to describe various parts of a letter. While those won't tell you what makes a typeface good, they will at least give you the right words to use when you discuss the benefits of a face.
3/8 - While the language of typography still adheres to some rules, there really aren't any standards for type designers to follow. Typographic features, such as large x-heights, wide counters, and exaggerated ascenders, are no less slaves to fashion than the perpetual changes in skirt lengths determined on the paris runways. Size of type in points: 12 points = 1 pica (6 picas = 1 inch)