CDF Project 3
Typeface
Introduction:
Exercise 1: Typographic Voice
Sept.22
For this exercise, I chose the word Supreme. I think Supreme represents a bold, grand, and powerful word. I came up with 2/5 typefaces that I think works well with the word and 3/5 typefaces that doesn’t seem to represent “Supreme”. The fonts Impact and Arial Black (1 and 4) work best with this word because it clearly represents bold, grand, and powerful. The thickness of the letters, spacing, and san serif style of the fonts really stand out. As for (2,3, and 5), I used the fonts American Typewriter, Reross, and Trattatello. These fonts were not bold, serif, geometric, curvy, and too haunting for “Supreme” to be clearly represented. It wasn’t the best match with the word.
Research:
- Name: Futura
- Designer: Paul Renner
- Year: 1927
- Paragraphs: (idsgn.org) Renner was not a member of the Bauhaus, he shared many of its views, believing that a modern typeface should express modern models rather than be a rivial of a previous design. Futura was commercially released in 1927, commissioned by the Bauer type foundry. While designing Futura, Renner avoided creating any non-essential elements, making use of basic geometric proportions with no serifs or frills. Futura’s crisp, clean forms reflect the appearance of efficiency and forwardness even today.
5. Full Character Set:
Sketches:
Exercise 2: Typographic Hierarchy
Sept.24
Digital Sketches: 3 digital sketches produced through Adobe Illustrator to communicate typographic hierarchy of the typeface Futura. I played around with composition and boldness to indicate the different levels of hierarchy for this poster. I want to emphasize the typeface Futura, then the designer — Paul Renner, as well as the year created — 1927. Lastly, I focused on the character set and paragraph to see which composition looked best overall.
Feedback
Oct. 1
The feedback session and peer review critiqued my sketches on alignment, hierarchy, and composition. It seemed like the middle design was the most effective to read and get the message across. The last design was effective but the alignment of the information was slightly off. From this feedback, I changed the alignments of the following posters and added background color to the design.
Updated Designs:
Along with the previous designs, I created another set of 3 compositions. I felt that the color red was most effective to show the boldness the typeface Futura. I settled on this color and played around with various font sizes, placement, alignment, and orientation. By using these techniques, I aimed for a more dramatic hierarchy approach.
Feedback Session 2:
Oct.6
The feedback from Anna was that the middle composition of Futura (left screenshot) and the first composition (right screenshot) were the most effective. As for color, the blue and navy shades seem to work best — explaining the futuristic, space-like colors in the background. Also, I realized I need to fix the alignments of some text and paragraphs to make the poster look cleaner.
Group Critique
Oct. 8
Poster Revisions
From the group feedback I got, I decided to change up the alignment of the letters, designer, and year. I was told that the paragraph was hard to read on an angle so I transformed it to the original rotation and scaled it a little larger to make it more legible. I tried to create a three dimensional effect to the typeface to make it look more futuristic. I felt that the character set was the last thing I want the viewers to look at, so I lowered the opacity so it doesn’t collide with the paragraph.
Feedback:
1:1 with Anna
There are some adjustments, alignments, and scaling that needs to be done to make it look more clean. Some of the spacing is not equal and I need to get rid of hyphens in the paragraph. I changed the placement of the character set multiple times to see what worked best but in the end the placement on the top right in an invisible box was most effective.
Final PDF
Reflection
This project let me learn about the overall composition of designs. I fixed the alignments, sizes, and spacings multiple times to finalize the design. I had a hard time sizing and aligning both ends of the paragraph and character set in illustrator. I did the best I could by getting rid of hyphens and playing with scale but it is not perfect. I personally like the irregularity of the paragraph on the right end. I also learned more technical skills about adobe illustrator itself and I want to continue practicing in the future. Overall, this project let me realize the importance of hierarchy. It is important how we scale, bold, and use opacity see how our eyes move across the page.
