Question 1

Written assignment (observation and analysis) (4 hrs)

• Define the term “typography” in your own words
• Write a few sentences explaining what typography is not

Find a case study on typeface development on the Internet (similar to the ones in Addendum A). Explain which medium (small format printing, large format printing, mobile devices, etc.) the font developed is best suited for and why. Keep legibility, size and style in mind.

TYPOGRAPHY

Typography is a visual form of art and is the foundation of good design. In essence, typography is the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the copy legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader. Typography involves font style, appearance, and structure, which aims to elicit certain emotions and convey specific messages. It is really what brings the text to life.

The main purpose of typography is to convey information and to make content easy to read; it should not hinder the user.  It is also important for typography to feel appropriate to the message. So, when working with typography you have to keep the content and the context of the text in mind.

WHAT TYPOGRAPHY IS NOT

Typography does not involve producing letters uniquely and one-by-one by hand or by tool.
Typography is not handwriting, lettering, carving letters into stone or wood by hand, sign-writing, graffite or building letters out of matchsticks. But it does not mean that the above ways of creating letters cannot lead to typography.

TYPEFACE FUTURA

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.

Renner’s design rejected the approach of most previous sans-serif designs (now often called grotesques), which were based on the models of signpainting, condensed lettering and nineteenth-century serif typefaces, in favour of simple geometric forms: near-perfect circles, triangles and squares. It is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line, and uses nearly-circular, single-story forms for the “a” and “g”, the former previously more common in handwriting than in printed text. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals. The original metal type showed extensive adaptation of the design to individual sizes, and several divergent digitisations have been released by different companies.

Futura remains an important typeface family and is used on a daily basis for print and digital purposes as both a headline and body font. The font is also used extensively in advertisements and logos, notably by IKEA (until 2010), Supreme, Party City, Volkswagen, Royal Dutch Shell, Crayola, Swissair, FremantleMedia (until 2018), Absolut and HP in their print ads.

Particularly until the 1950s it was used extensively by the publishing industry as a general-purpose font.

Question 2

Research and written assignment  (observation and analysis) (1,5 days)

• Document one day of your life acting as an observer of typographic design. Produce a comprehensive diary of the typographic experience of your day from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.
• Keep this diary within a research folder or sketchbook. You should be prepared to use photography, photocopying and other means where necessary to evidence what you find, as well as collecting first-hand examples of typographic design.
• Make notes or comments to reflect on what you have collected and documented. Your notes should help you to consider what kind of design it is that you are recording. For example, a cereal packet may have some large obvious lettering / typographic device on the front of the box, but there will also be typography in the form of information design within a “nutritional information” table on the packaging. So are you looking at promotional design/branding or information design? Or are you looking at typography? Is it lettering?

So as an online student, I am usally at home, and doesn’t explore much on the outside. Specially now that covid 19 is bullying us, I am trying to stay at home as much as I can. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see any designs or typography during the day. During this day I looked at a few designs with typography where all of them has a uniqe approach and own identity.

Healthy or not, these are the designs I have looked at.

1. My juice for my wape/el-smoke, which has an interesting and temting design, as flavour is an important thing to communicate, and I think it works well. The logo has a rounded font while works well, while the word “hard” has a bit more sharp edges. The word “apple” is in a handwritten/decorative font and green that represents the nature and apple. I think it works, but as a mom and an adult, I have experienced my kids asking if this is candy, so the target group should be more considered in the design, and the use of such products, but that’s another issue.
2. Cheerios has a lot of typography and play around with it very much. Engaging and good use of fonts. The message is clearly conveys through the typography.
3. Old El Paso spice mix for tacos, is commonly used in our home because we love tacos! They want to show it’s origin which is Mexico, and I think the manage to do that in a good way through the typefaces.
4. Raisins (rosiner in Norwegian”) is Rema 1000’s (norwegian grocery store) own product. This is something my 5 year old wants in her lunch box when going on a hike with the kindergarten. It says “rett i matpakka mi” (straight in my lunch box) and the typography for “matpakka” is fun and effective, as you see the two K’s is just put down between the two A’s. Good play with the fonts.
5. Birthdays and christmas gives us packaging with toys. This one my son got for christmas, and as I was cleaning (he got two, so this is not opened) I found the other one. I found this as more of lettering, the text in mainly information. The have som text placed on a path, men other wice it’s the logo I have looked at. It’s a robot that drives the path you control, and the font is suited for this purpose, as you feeel the letters are rounded like a road or path, and plays with the letter A regarding to the symbol of the robot.
6. Gutta i trehuset med 13 etasjer is my sons favorite book. Well, it’s a series of books but this started his interest in these books, in english “the boys in the treehouse with 13 floors”. The font is a playful font that really suits the purpose. The secondary font is a kind of handwritten font which is familiar to kids and youth redaing these books. I think it suits well with the illustrations, and I must say these books are fun 😉

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Choose two examples of design that you have collected that you consider to have either good or bad qualities. Try to analyse these further in terms of their typography. Can you identify the typefaces being used? Does the typography communicate successfully? If so, why? If not, why not?

I have chosen the cheerios packaging and the raisins for the consideration of good or bad design.

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The raisin package I think is simple, but effective. This is a product and brand made by the grocery store’s chain, and their own brand. I believe the typeface used for the title and “rett i” and “mi” is maybe Rockwell Regular, which is a simple font, but works for this purpose.

The “matpakka” I don’t know, it could be custimized which is likely they made for this packaging. I think the typography for this works well, and the “word “matpakka” (lunch box) is highlighted for the purpose of conveying the massage that it suits to put in your lunch box. It’s playful, and hits the target group which is kids. I like it, because its simple and effective.

Question 3

Practical assignment (2 days)

• Complete the exercise files that came with the LinkedIn video Indesign Typography. Upload them to WordPress. ( I have seen the video and followed along and done this many times in assignments, so I have not uploaded the evidence of it for this week, I have prioritized the other work tasks. This is simply because my kid is in quarantine from school and I have to tutor him every day this week. So the time is limited and therefor I have done it like this. ) You can see below that I have seen it.

• Use your design software to design a newspaper front page. Pay special attention to typography (size, leading, column width, etc.).
  I was inspired by the year 2020 and all the fuzz about covid 19 😛

• Use your design software to design a double-page spread (DPS) for your favourite magazine (look at an example of a DPS here
  
  One of the magazines I have read the most, is a magazine called Foreldre & barn. So I made a double spread page in their style with a typical beginning of an article.