Typography - Project 2

22/5/2018 - 5/6/2018 (Week 9 - Week 11)
Ng Jia Jin (0331589)
Project 2 - Font Design


Lecture Notes

Lecture 9: Project 2 Briefing

22/5/2018 (Week 9)

After submitting our previous project which is our story book project, Mr Vinod gave us a brief about our upcoming project, which is font design. For this project, we are required to design a font for my university which is Taylor's University. We need to design the word Taylor's with our own fonts. Mr. Vinod said that we can use 10 typefaces that was provided by him for our previous assignments. He gave us a sheet of Taylor's font design at the end of the class for further reference.


Lecture 10: Cancelled

29/5/2018 (Week 10)

This week's lecture class got cancelled because it was Wesak Day that day.


Instruction




Project 2

Week 9

I started of my Project 2 by generating some ideas for Taylor's font design on a piece of graph paper to get the rough idea of font designing. I designed 4 sets of font designs for it by taking reference from different typefaces so that I can generate some ideas.

Fig 1.0: Taylor's Logo Design Ideas

Week 10

I then need to transfer my final chosen font design into Adobe Illustrator to create a design for Taylor's. I did some tryouts by using different typefaces as a start. Before that, I did some research of the Taylor's University typeface design so that I can do some comparison with it while designing. Mr Vinod also gave us an A3 sized paper of different typefaces used in Taylor's University.

Fig 1.2: Taylor's University Font Design

Fig 1.3: Taylor's Logo 

Fig 1.4: Reference of Taylor's with Different Typefaces

After doing some research and looking at some references given by my lecturer. I decided to use the Baskerville typeface and further develop it.

Fig 1.5: Taylor's Font Design on Adobe Illustrator

Fig 1.6: Taylor's Font Design on Adobe Illustrator

Fig 1.7: Taylor's Font Design Progression on Adobe Illustrator

Week 11

After getting some feedbacks from my lecturers, I made some improvements so that it look more consistent. They said that my font design doesn't look consistent and he asked me to adjust the length for each edges of the alphabets.

Fig 1.8: Some Improvements from the Previous Attempt

Fig 1.9: Final Font Design

Feedbacks

Week 9:
 Mr. Vinod didn't really give me a feedback for my current project which is font design because I didn't really start with my font design project. Mr Vinod accepted 2 out of 4 of my designs for Taylor's and he asked me transfer it into Adobe Illustrator as soon as possible.

Week 10:
There's no feedback from Mr Vinod because our class is cancelled due to Wesak Day.

Week 11: 
Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul said that my font design for Taylor's is not consistent. What they mean inconsistent is that the alphabets are in different heights and the edges are in different sizes. Mr Shamsul also asked me to complete my e-portfolio for font design as soon as possible.




Reflections

Experiences

Week 9: I experienced that designing a font is actually not easy. I remember checking out at all sorts of font design and thought that it was easy but it actually isn't. It took me 1 hour to design 1 type of design for my university's logo.

Week 10: There's no class today because it was Wesak Day.

Week 11: I experience that having a consistent flow in your font design is hard. My lecturers said that my font design doesn't really have consistent flow throughout the font and that's the part in font design I'm trying to improve.


Observations

Week 9: Everyone was very quiet when designing their own fonts. Besides, many of my classmates also ran out of idea for font designing just like me. We went on to get help from the internet to get some inspiration for our font design.

Week 10: There's no class today because it was Wesak Day.

Week 11: Everyone was waiting anxiously when Mr Shamsul and Mr Vinod are walking giving feedbacks on everyone.s font design. Some of us did some improvements after getting feedbacks from our lecturers so that it looks better throughout.

Findings

Week 9: I didn't really find out anything for this week except from getting ideas for my font design. I constantly went on to the internet to find more font design but I decided to go back to a more minimalistic style for my Taylor's design.

Week 10:There's no class today because it was Wesak Day.

Week 11: I did some improvements for my font design before submitting it on my e-portfolio. I found that it's quite hard for me to have a consistent design throughout my font design. 

Further Readings

29/5/2018 (Week 10)

Lettering & Type by Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals

This book introduces a more advanced role in typography. It talks about all the different principles that are applied in the design of every typography letter. In typography, every word doesn't have to be solid and straight. Lettering & Type explains about how typography design can be flexible, funky yet visible to the public. It still show its own characteristic and communicate to the public through the designs. While other type design books often get hung up on the technical and logical side of it, this book talks about the context and creativity that shape letters and make them more interesting.


Draw Your Own Fonts by Tony Seddon

This book is a rather unique because it introduces you to different font designs by various typographers and graphic designers. There's actually more artists that is not listed here that contributed to this book.

I find this book very useful for this particular project because it helps me to understand letterforms more. It also gives me tips that help develop a skill set. It gives me a lot of ideas and inspirations for this project because I tend to run out of ideas quite fast. The fonts in this book are mostly hand drawn and illustrated so it's not suitable for formal use such as for newspapers or business websites.