DESIGN PRINCIPLES - VISUAL LITERACY

In today’s seminar, Fred introduced us to the anatomy of type.

We first were introduced to the different materials used to generate type, some of the materials are old and have been used for centuries, others are new production techniques that have been introduced to the design industry in the last twenty years.

Stone

Sable

Bone

Wood

Lead

Silicone

Next we looked at the dictionary definition of typography to give us a clear understanding of the word.

ty·pog·ra·phy/ tīˈpägrəfē/

Noun:	1.      The art or process of setting and arranging types and printing from them. 2.      The style and appearance of printed matter.
Synonyms:	Printing

After this we were split into groups, we had previously been set a task to collect examples of five alphabets, each with a different characteristic. The task required us to sort the fonts into five groups defined by type characteristic. We had to think of the defining characteristics of each font, this formed our five groups that were;

Serif

Sans Serif

Bold

Light

Script

Upon completing this, each group had to read out how they had categorised their fonts, this formed a large group list of type characteristics;

Calligraphy

Script

Basic

Block

Modern

Roman

Classical

Bold

Cropped

Archaic

Retro

Futuristic

Divided

Free

Ridged

Rounded

Playful

With this list we have a range of visual references and ways to define and describe text.

Next, we were requested to rearrange our letterforms into groups that we believed to be their origin, using the list of production methods as reference.  Due to the crossovers between type style and production method this was a hard task, as methods such as wood and lead production share many of the same fonts.

Finally, we were handed an informative sheet that shows and explains different terms, and rules that are used within typography. 

Finally, at the end of the session we received some additional work. We swapped our five fonts that we previously collected, with the person sat on our left. The task required us to identify the five typefaces using our new knowledge of type characteristics to help us. Additionally, we then had to collect detailed research on one of the fonts.

FONT 1 - GILL SANS

Designer: Eric Gill Year: 1928-32 Copyright: Monotype Classic Fonts Publishers: Adobe and Monotype

FONT 2 - AG BOOK BQ

Designer: Günter Gerhard Lange

Year: 1980

Publisher: Berthold

FONT 3 - VAG rounded black

Designer: Unknown Year: 1979 Publisher: Adobe

FONT 4 - Nimbus Roman

Publisher: URW++

FONT 5 - COMPACTA (LETRASET) 

Designer: Fred Lambert

Year: 1963

Publisher: Letraset

Influence on:

Smart Sans

Despite the outcomes of the website, I believe some fonts are wrong, such as Compacta. I think that this font shares more similarities with the bold display font 'Impact', due to the letter width.

Moreover, we had to select one font that we would then research into further. I chose to research into Gill Sans.

Gill sans is an adaptation of a font called ‘Johnston Sans’ originally designed by Edward Johnston. Eric Gill was Johnston’s apprentice at the time and helped create the iconic typeface that was designed for the London Underground. However, Gill was not happy with the finished typeface, claiming that some letters could be more legible. Therefore, Gill produced a new font that used Johnstons original as a base font.

When finished the typeface became increasingly popular, in 1929 it became the standard typeface for the London North Eastern Railway and was used on the trains as well as for signage. The usage and popularity continued to grow and the font can now be found being used on corporate branding, on book covers and posters.