TYPOGRAPHY - FINAL PROJECT

TYPOGRAPHY - FINAL PROJECT

Farissa Eryna Sham (0336814)

Final Project

30/10/19 - 00/00/00 (Week 10 - Week x)

                                                                                                                                                                    
LECTURE NOTES
Week 10
(30/10/19)

Week 11
(06/10/19) 
                                                                                                                                                                        
INSTRUCTIONS

For our final project, we were told to express typographically a social message. We were also told to bring a few materials (A2 board, black ink) in order to produce our own placard/ protest board. We had to come up with a message about society and design. 

To start off with this project, I wrote down ideas for my manifesto. 

Fig 1.1 Ideas for manifesto

After writing down a few ideas for my manifesto, I asked for Mr Vinod and Mr Sam's approval. They both liked "do good design for good people' but Mr Vinod told me to shorten it to "design for good (people)". 

Fig 1.2 Approved idea

After getting the approval, I started doing the protest board. I sketched out my composition for it as well. Here are pictures of my sketches.

Fig 1.3 Composition ideas

It was sort of a struggle to decide where to place the word 'people' as if I put it too far at the bottom it will look like the whole message is written by 'people'. So it was quite challenging for me to come up with a good simple composition. Mr Vinod told me to place it under the word good and put it in the middle. 

Fig 1.4 'people'

After I have finalized my composition, I started my progress on the protest board. I used a cardboard, black ink, paint brush and pencil. 

Fig 1.5 Filling in the letters

Fig 1.6 Picture of the board

Then we had to place a wooden stick at the back of the board. I scanned the board as well. Here is the picture of the scanned version. 

Fig 1.7 Scanned

Fig 1.8 Picture of me and the board

Next, as we were done with the protest board, we had to digitize the design in Adobe Illustrator. Mr Vinod told us that we could change the composition of our design and add colours to it if we'd like to. However, if the new composition is not as nice as the one on the board then we should probably just go with the first composition. 

I wanted to try out other compositions and designs using more colour so I did it in Adobe Illustrator. 

 Fig 1.9 Different compositions

Fig 1.10 More different compositions

After showing all of these designs to Mr Vinod and Mr Sam, they said I should use the composition that I did on the protest board as it was good enough and looks better. So I digitized it.

 Fig 1.11 Process

Fig 1.12 Process 2 

After we have finalized our design, we need to create a GIF for the finalized design. I started off with planning on what to animate in my design. I was kind of struggling because there is not much to express except for the word 'good' and 'people'. However, Mr Sam said I could do something really subtle and it does not have to have alot of movements. 

I used Adobe Illustrator to create different movements in each artboard. I started out by duplicating the artboards and then change the position of the hand in each artboard.

 Fig 1.14 Process 

 Fig 1.15 Process of animating 

Mr Sam told me to just animate the word 'people' and make the hands wave. So I changed the position of the hand in each artboard to make it look like the stick man is waving. 

 Fig 1.16 Animating the 'wave'

Fig 1.17 Process 

In total, I had 10 artboards. I exported the file as JPEG and imported it into Photoshop to turn it into a GIF. 

I had a tough time trying to align the letters and the border. For each artboard, the placement of the border was not the same as the others. 

 Fig 1.18 Border is not aligned at the right position

In fig 1.18, I can tell the placement of the artboard is not correct as there is a white line at the right side. To fix this, I had to change it in Adobe Illustrator again. 

Fig 1.19 Process

I made the GIF into a loop by selecting 'forever' and I kicked in '0.17 seconds' as well.

Fig 1.20 Total amount of layers

After I am satisfied with the animation, I exported it as GIF. Here is my finalized GIF and static design for this project.

             

Fig 1.21 Static design (JPEG)

Here is the PDF file for this project.

GIF for 'Design for good (people)

Fig 1.22 Framed picture

                                                                                                                                                                         

FEEDBACK

WEEK 11;  Specific feedback: My design could have a better composition and I should be careful of the white space in my design.

General feedback: Mr. Vinod told us to view our blog in incognito mode to make sure our PDF files are public.

WEEK 12; Specific feedback: Use the same composition as the one on the protest board and add colours for my design.

General feedback: Mr. Vinod said that we should do the animation on A4 size, and print out our poster and frame it by next week
 
REFLECTIONS

Experience.
Week 11; It was quite fun to sketch out ideas that I had for my manifesto.

Week 12: Animating the design was quite challenging

Observations.
Week 11; I realized that sometimes simplicity is more.

Week 12; Creating a GIF is quite fun and satisfying.

Findings.
Week 11; I should sketch out any ideas that I have in mind so I would not forget about it.

Week 12; Making the GIF really smooth is quite tough.
                                                                                                                                                                

FURTHER READING

Combining typefaces by Tim Brown

I read about why we should combine typefaces and why anyone would even bother doing that. The author said "The act of bringing different typefaces together to convey a message is challenging, inspiring and fun. And it gets the job done—finding good type combinations can give form to our emotional goals and serve the practical needs of our compositions in ways that sticking with a single typeface cannot. Plus, learning to combine typefaces is one of the best investments a designer can make: it teaches you how to be selective, patient and reasonable about design decisions.". I find this true as different typefaces convey different messages. The type of typeface we use is extremely important in my opinion.  The author also states that doing all of these requires a lot of practice and knowledge. 

Fig 2.1 One of the pages

In the next chapter, the author talked about the anatomy of a typeface. Parts of typefaces have names. Knowing how to describe the forms and features of a typeface helps you identify it, notice relationships between it and other fonts, articulate your criticism, associate adjectives with the face, and zoom in on small details. 

From this book, I also learned that different typefaces do different jobs. It’s tempting to use any font at any size, in any context, but we can better understand typefaces’ strengths and weaknesses by considering how they were made to be used.