Type Design

I always find it fascinating to hear from people who create things that we tend to take for granted. Like the show “How It’s Made”. The process, the conceptualizing…it’s all pretty interesting to me. It becomes no less so on the small scale, like the work of a single artist. Anything done well deserves to be appreciated for how it’s done. This interview with Eduilson Wessler Coan certainly fits in here. I don’t know anything about the guy, and I’d never heard of any of the typefaces he’s created before reading this (though whether I’ve seen them in use, I couldn’t say, I don’t quite have the eye for that). But typography is one of those areas that I had no idea was so complex as it is until last year when I tried searching for a specific font to use for our wedding invitations. Most of the experience that I had ever had with any kind of typography before was in Microsoft Word, making sure I used the right font for school assignments. Searching for our wedding font revealed to me that not only is this field unbelievably vast, it can also demand some very high money. Before that situation where I desperately needed a specific typeface, I had no idea that other people were in the habit of buying (BUYING!!!) typefaces, but also making their own, or paying others to make them. I guess I always imagined some company somewhere who just has a monopoly on type design with little unnamed elves sitting in an office making a new one every five years. Kinda like 3M with adhesives or Pantone with colors.

Anyway…the interview. I like that Coan is open about his process, I think not everyone is willing to discuss “trade secrets”. He uses what I assume are typographical terms to explain his fonts that aren’t difficult to understand by someone outside of the industry. I also like that he’s open about having lots of design experience, but not excessive amounts of education past his undergrad studies. And he’s not elitist about others needing that design background if this is something that they wish to do (though of course it helps to know your way around a letterform). Even his tools he has no qualms about revealing, like the Pentel Brush and Parallel Pen (which the article conveniently links to, since I had no idea what they were). I have a basic calligraphic background from a class I took in middle school, and these look much easier to use than the nibs and bottles of India ink that I was trained with. Along with his openness about his process, I very much appreciate that he is humble enough to admit what he has trouble with when designing. Anyone who can share details with the public about how to do what they do for a living certainly deserves a high-five.

Project 3B Wireframes

Wireframes

Color

It’s kind of ironic that in our culture we use the word “tint”, as in, “tinted windows” to express a darkening, when in color theory, it’s actually a term used to show the addition of white. To be fair, shade, the proper term used for darkening, or addition of black, is also a common term. These two terms are what influence the value of a color.

I think it’s interesting that there are two types of color models used for different applications. As a child we grow up learning the basic primary colors and the secondary colors they create when they’re mixed. This seems like it would be considered “additive” since, with paint anyway, you’re adding one color to another. However, with color models it’s all about the light. Since putting these colors together causes less light to be reflected back to our eyes, it’s actually considered “subtractive.” Using this logic, it makes sense that CMYK, used for printing, is a subtractive process, whereas the RGB color model used in lighting or monitors is “additive” since, obviously, you’re adding colored light to colored light.

Going along with the idea of color mixing, it’s fascinating to me that one color can create a certain impression or feeling depending on what color it’s paired with. Emotion can be played with even more by the pairing of colors. The individual colors in particular may not necessarily be the reason for being pleasant or disturbing, but whatever color it’s near can affect our eyes either in a positive or negative way.

Grid

A grid is something that has always seemed like a no-brainer to me in any kind of visual presentation. However, I’ve never thought of it in that way. Just like a book, I expect to see something informational laid out in a cohesive manner so that I can understand what information the visual is supposed to convey. When I am designing something, I can’t help but break up the canvas into sections, essentially a mental grid, though unconscious. The thing that is kind of crazy to me is that a grid, something structured and solid, can be used to make a design that is completely anachronistic and asymmetrical, depending on how you offset the features, or your type, or even by using a different type of grid, such as a circular one. But any successful design by definition is assembled with some kind of relationship (respectful or not) to a grid. 

Exercise 4 – Zamboni

Zamboni

Project 2 Brief

I’ve chosen to do my project in the style of Josef Mueller-Brockman. I appreciate the clean lines of his design, the fact that it’s all on a grid makes it very easy to read, and can lend itself to a feeling of cold un-feeling or traditionally modern aesthetic.

Exercise 3

photo-11

Figure/Ground

Texture

I think texture is one of those elements in design that can easily be overlooked by a design/art student, especially when working in 2-dimensional media. I know I tend to get caught up in shapes/lines, colors, and framing, I often forget that texture can easily add dimension and richness to a piece. Especially if the subject is something emotional or lends itself to association with a particular texture, the goal could be so much more powerfully accomplished by paying attention to all of the tools available to us. The cut up artist cutting boards were a very appropriate and literal example of texture in design. The use of words in many of the exercises shown, both the photographs and squares, appeal to me both as a writer and visual media student. I like the idea that words can be used not just to create an image in the mind, but also on the page.

Exercise 2

Squares