Typography - Project 2B

20.10.20 - 10.11.20 (Week 9 - Week 12)

Sajiya Mir (0340836)

Typography

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Project 2B

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Lecture

Week 9  
This week we were briefed on the project 2B, where we had to design an A3 poster with the tagline of our choosing. After that, we were instructed to express the tagline through type expression. To begin Mr. Vinod suggested we start by sketching out our ideas and choose a good tagline that can be expressed. We were also advised to focus on the poster first and think about the animation later. 

Week 10 - 12 
We were given feedback on our posters by Mr. Vinod and Mr. Shamsul. 

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Instructions

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Progress

Fig.1 Inspiration

I started off by sketching a few ideas using the inspiration picture (Fig.1) as a reference. The tagline I came up with was "Design For Humanity" 

Fig1.2 Sketch 

First, I started by making all the columns and the margins. Then I made the whole page black using the Rectangle tool (m). Then I wrote my letters all in the different text boxes and used Gill San at 38pt. 

Fig.1.3 Progress

Then I added the circles for circles just as a design. I repeated these circles throughout the design to have a sense of unity. 

Fig.1.4 Progress

I wrote the words 'Humanity' using Universe Lt Std bold at 116 pts. I tried calling the text and then added a frame around the word to give it more emphasis. 

Fig.1.5 Progress

I played around with different textures for the background. On I really like was the texture of an old film, it gave a nice effect on the words humanity so I decided to use that. 

Fig.1.6 Progress 

I tried designing another poster, this time I used ITC Baskerville for the typeface, and once again I kept the emphasis on the word 'Humanity'. The design element that I added to this design was the lines connecting the words. This was to help the viewer eye find the correct order of the words and also there is movement from the top of the design throughout. I made a difference in the point size of the words 'Humanity' and 'Design for' to have some visual hierarchy. 

Fig.1.7 Progress

Fig.1.8 Design 1 First draft 

Fig.1.9 Design 2 First draft 

Fig.2.0 Design 3 First draft

After getting the feedback I made all the dots random sizes and removed the square around the word 'Humanity' and replaced it with two lines above and below the words. I also used photoshop to remove the specks in the background and the lighter color that was in the lower right-hand corner.  

Fig.2.1 Design 1 Reworked

After further feedback, I changed the color of the lines to white instead of yellow, and this time I worked on photoshop to create a thinner uneven textured line. 

Fig.2.2 Design 1 Reworked 2 

To make the GIF I started with making all the artboards in Illustrator because my idea was stars and galaxy I wanted to give flickering effects to my text. So I started with showing only a few words and dots at a random sequence, then I repeated that in another artboard each time showing different words and different sizes of the dots. Another effect I wanted to give was to the word 'HUMA'. I wanted to give the effect of lights turning off one by one, so I removed the words one by one till you only see the word 'U'. 

Fig.2.3 Progress

After finishing all the words I exported to Photoshop where I used a timeline to make the GIF. 

Fig.2.3. Progress

Fig.2.4 Gif 

After receiving the feedback I tried to do more research on the way others animate their typography. I found a great one with similar blinking effects as I wanted to portray. So I tried to use that as a reference. 

Fig.2.5 gif reference

This time I decided to use After Effects instead of photoshop to animate as I felt I could do much more on after effects.

Fig.2.6 Progress

Fig.2.7 Final poster pdf 

Fig.2.8 Final poster jpg

Fig.2.9 Final Gif

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Feedback 

[week 10]: 

General Feedback: Make sure the poster is both dynamic and impactful.

Specific Feedback: Try to make the circles random and try to add more circles between the words 'T' and 'Y'. Instead of the box, instead, try adding the two lines on the top and the bottom. 

[week 11]:
General Feedback: Use your knowledge from previous assignments to help you in the final project.
Specific Feedback: Make the lines white instead of yellow and make it thinner.

[week 12]: 

General Feedback: In a repeating loop have a pause so that the viewers are able to look at the things that are happening. Always test out your design on others and see their reactions. Composition and communication in design are key.  
Specific Feedback: Make it slower and a bit more subtle. 

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Reflection 

[week 9]:  

Experience: I enjoyed doing this project the most because it was relatively easy and involved the type of design I like to do. Even though there were some limitations to the visual elements we were allowed to use, I got to be more creative with this assignment. 

Observations: Looking at a typography poster on Pinterest, I realized how the word doesn't necessarily have to be in one line. You can play around with the spacing and the letter's composition, keeping in mind the readability. 

Findings: Looking at the examples that Mr. Vinod shared during class, I was able to see how we can contribute texture in the background or to the letters to make the poster more dynamic. 

[week 10]:  

Experience: This week, we just had to fix the poster had to remove a lot of the aspect I previously thought I like, but; I did agree with Mr.Vinod that they didn't go with the poster. I was also worried that my expression of the word 'humanity' was not the best.

Observations: When designing, consider if you want you to design to be inside the margin or slightly outside; think about the alignment and combinations of the typefaces you can use. 

Findings: Visual impact can be carried out in two ways; either the words can be really big or really small to create contrast. Too many words being expressed takes away from the message you are trying to relay. 

[week 11]:  

Experience: The process of making the GIF ended up being quite frustrating because my photoshop couldn't save my work. Initially, I wanted to make a couple of different transitions, but because I spend most of my time trying to fix photoshop, I only had time to make one. 

Observations: The timing in making the GIF is really important; just increasing the time by 0.2 seconds allows the viewer to focus on a certain element before moving away. This could also give a smooth transition between effects. 

Findings: Photoshop can't export as GIF if the artboards from Illustrator are saves as PNG. I learned this the hard way; I save all my artboards as PNG to convert to PSD, and then when I tried to export, it kept crashing; after some research on google, I figured out that I just needed to save it as JPG. 

[week 12]:  

Experience: After Effect definitely can do much more in terms of animations than photoshop however it is also much more time consuming and a bit tedious. Because I had a lot of circles that were to represent blinking star I ended up with 32 layers and my after-effect kept crashing because of that. 

Observations: One observation I made while researching a few ways to animate, is that the designers don't necessarily isolate an element to give it more emphasis instead emphasis is introduced by a change in scale or small movements. 

Findings: After Effects can export animated gif with the use of Media Encoder. After finishing the animation, we just add it to the media encoder queue and that would able us to export as a gif. 

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Further Reading

• Art Nouveau, from 1890 to 1914, sought to incorporate decorative design into visual arts and architecture. During this period, Type was often highly decorated, with designers making new styles that had a high contrast to its metal type. Type now had a more organic appearance, most of which were influenced by nature.
• Dadaism used type to make bold claims about World War I. It used to type in abstract and expressionistic styles where the type is accompanied by pictures. The style was used in forward, backward, and angled manners with no concern about the flow or continuity. Dadaism came up with the concept that the type could be art.
• Bauhaus adopted the 'less is more' ideals, where the type was more simple, clean, and in concise layout. If the words needed to be emphasized with color it was limited to primary colors.
• Then, in the age of constructivism, a bolder style was used. Red and black colors were often used, and the style was bold and authoritative.
• In the 1950s, the Swiss typographical style launched a new movement, minimalism. The typography used was mainly san-serif and grid formats. The Swiss-style has also introduced Helvetica that well, like for its clean look.

Without Hierarchy, the design has no focus and no visual interest. Hierarchy is fundamental in typing. The rank text by importance. This determines what audiences will see first, second, third, and so on. Hierarchy allows designers to set a type with intent. Some of the elements lead; others support. The type will engage viewers and guide them to where to go and in what order. Designers execute hierarchies of typographic, spatial, and graphical variables that give infinite variations to achieve variety and emphasis. Too few typographical do not differentiate between them; too many makes it complicated. When applied, repetitive elements guides viewers through projects.

•  Sometimes the best way to emphasize the content visually is with invisible typography.  This can be accomplished in various ways: selecting a typeface with a thin stroke width or keeping contrast to a minimum. Another strategy for "invisible" typography is to use a small point size, but note that legibility can be compromised if these techniques are not properly performed.
• In the world of typography, color represents something completely different. It is the density of the text type's tonal weight, as a grey texture on the paper. Keeping a smooth texture is important in typography. No text areas should stand out, either because they are too loose or too thick. Typographic color irregularities can occur due to long words within a line, line lengths that are too narrow, or any combination of both.