artoftypographyprogress

[artoftypographyprogress]

Social Type

In this assignment we needed to create a project about a social issue. it could be any issue that we desired and we could use and method of media to show our message. The desire was to create a response versus a reaction to the issue.

In the beginning I kinda struggled with this assignment. I could think of several things that I was passionate about but struggled to figure out a way to communicate in a cohesive way, what was in my head.

My first idea was exploring the issue of immigration detention and the way that people are treated while detained.

I went online and read some articles and took some notes and sat on the idea for a little while and eventually decided this is not what I wanted to pursue.

Around the same time it was very close to Black Friday and I decided to explore the idea of "buy nothing day" to go against consumerism.. Again after some internet searching and exploring the topic and taking a few notes, I decided not to pursue this topic.

After some time and ideas I thought about and discarded about 100 times, I decided that I was very passionate about mental health, specifically in youth, which is something I am personally affected by. I had found my topic but was struggling to come up with a way to communicate my idea. I was sitting on my couch talking with my daughter and her friend that she was on the phone with. My daughter is on meds for anxiety and her friend had asked her if she had taken her therapy yet. The first thing I thought of was Got Milk? and thus my idea was born.

The idea that kids refer to pills as therapy is kind of scary and I feel like children are more likely to be prescribed pills than they are to get therapy. Now that I had an idea that clicked, it went very quickly from here. I decided to communicate this in a poster. I found a typeface that was similar to the typeface used in the Got milk campaign, and asked the question Got Therapy with a glass full of pills instead of milk.

My first poster was made up of a drawn glass with happy face pills I drew in Adobe illustrator using the same typface for the entirety of the poster. After our class critique, where it was mentioned that I should use real pills and a real glass to communicate the message more clearly with more urgency, and to change the smaller typography to a more legible one for its size. I went back to the proverbial drawing board. I really wanted to keep the happy face pills representing the idea that "happy pills" do not fix the problem and only help with the symptoms. After finding the real pills and glass and making my little pills using clipping masks and changing the typeface for the smaller type from Futura condensed to Helvetica, I was able to apply it to a new poster.

It took some time to reach this point but with some typography and a little bit of sarcasm, I was able to effectively communicate a topic that I feel passionately about.

[artoftypographyprogress]

Cliff Sands Serif

In this assignment we were asked to create a type face inspired by the city of our city. We were required to either rework an existing type face or one from scratch. This type face could include all lowercase, all uppercase , or a combination of the two. I chose to do the lowercase alphabet. The second part of the assignment includes a type specimen to showcase the created typeface along with a pangram to show how the typeface will look in use.

In the beginning I was unsure of what my inspiration would be until I looked out my window at the cliff faces surrounding the river valley. in those cliff faces, I started to see letters in the crevices that are naturally formed there. From this ideas started to take shape as to what characteristics my new typeface was going to form. I was reminded of an assignment I did in Typography 1, where I wrote out the alphabet with a calligraphy pen and specifically the letter I thought of was the lowercase m.

This letter contained a form that was a little bit compressed with a little bit taller x-height, thick and thin strokes, and curve in the humps that I instantly connected to the river cliff. Using this m as a starting point I started to develop my typeface. I researched information in textbooks to learn point sizes, x-heights, ascender and descender heights and legibility distances and different point sizes

It began with a blank piece of paper and the information I learned. I started with a 1 cm x 1 cm square where I recreated the m from my type 1 assignment. I already decided by this point that I wanted all my letters to be made up of thin, medium and thick strokes mimicking the crevices of the river cliffs. I wanted consistency across all the letter formations and decided to make them the strokes thin on the left of letter, medium in the middle and thick on the right side of the letter. Here on this paper I applied this to the m, o, n and e in the 1cm x 1cm square.

At this time I also started to plan ahead for how I was going to present the finished typeface specimen. It did not take me long to come up with presenting it on sandpaper as the cliffs are made of sandstone right? As per the suggestion of my professor I did research to find out for sure what the cliffs were made of and discovered they are made of siltstone, a finer grained sandstone, so the sandpaper was perfect. I also knew right away that I wanted to recreate the crevices in the sandpaper once the typeface was on added to the surface. This resulted in a sandpaper that was in a 3.5 inch by 25 foot roll, allowing me to create the crevices easily through while allowing the sandpaper to stand on its edge mimicking the cliff faces in the same manner you view them in nature.

Next came size. This time I sized up my letters to see how they would look at a large point size along with the kind of spacing I might need in between the letter. I wanted to do an approximate size of 72 point type which gave ma a measurement of 1 inch x 1 inch with a 0.5 inch of space between the letters. My size had been determined!

But how does on draw letters on sandpaper you might ask...

Well... the answer is using an abundance of supplies. Turns out sandpaper very quickly wares down pencil, fine tip micron pens and sharpies all the same without discrimination. This proved very difficult as the pencil would not stay sharp for more than 3 seconds and the micron pen lasted about 4. Coupling that with the fact that pencil does not stick to sandpaper, the drawn lines were constantly disappearing and had to be redrawn at the smallest breath. I started with a baseline and measured my 1 inch to create the x-height , drawing that line, followed by measuring 1 inch for my width. all the letters fit inside this box.

It was time to bring my typeface to life. First I tried India ink and found that it was to thin. I sat on top of the surface versus soaking in and when the paper was moved it ran and bled everywhere. Next I tried my calligraphy pen. It was ok in the beginning but it was hard to control the flow of ink for consistency. The sound of the metal pen tip on sandpaper?? not good! 10/10 do NOT recommend. I then tested micron pens and sharpies and this gave me more control but they did not last long. I decided sketching the letter on first to get the letterform down before committing in ink was the way to go. I worked letter by letter; first in pencil followed by a large number of micron pens. 16 in all.

As I was going and starting to run out of pens...I realized I had to find another way to fill in the wider parts of the letters. India ink was to thin and gouache was to thick. I added water to the paint but again lacked control in finding the necessary consistency needed and then it hit me... mix the ink with the gouache. it worked perfectly and was able to paint with a small brush the thickness of the letters.

Once the letters were on and the pangram added, all that remained was to add the crevices and the other hierarchal type.

I enjoyed this assignment and learned how to problem solve while experimenting with different materials and mediums .