Art 230 | Typography

Lesson 3

Project

Project 01 Step 03
Glyph Composition: Variation and Refinement

What are we doing?

At this point, you have three designs in a digital format. Now create a series of variations based on one of the designs.

Project 1 Overview | Create an interesting composition with only letterforms/glyphs to demonstrate aesthetic skill and understanding. You will also learn to identify the anatomical parts of letterforms.

Why are we doing it?

Learning to refine your design work is a skill that separates good designers from great designers. It involves making changes a step at a time to discover the best possible solution. The design needs to be polished and refined. Because we are seeking a visual solution, it is necessary to make a range of variations that are visual. Making twelve variations for each composition allows the designer to make changes and have a visual history to compare. Most student designers stop designing too soon. This step is intended to make the designs the best that they can be.

Refinement: 1. The process of removing impurities or unwanted elements from a substance. 2. The improvement or clarification of something by the making of small changes. —New Oxford American Dictionary

How are we going to do it?

Choose
Open Adobe Illustrator.
Print

Process Blog Post

After you have completed all of the steps listed above for this lesson, you are ready to complete your process blog post. Blogposts should be structured like a presentation with a beginning, middle and end. Each step will involve it's own process and its own unique challenges and successes. Introduce the assignment, talk about what worked for you and what didn't, explain which of your solutions are working using design principles to back it up. If you have specific questions about how to move forward, you can ask them in the blogpost.

Please include the following in your blog post:

Once the Process Blog Post is complete, submit a link to the post in I-Learn. To submit the link in I-Learn, click P1S3 link in the left navigation and then click on the Open button at the bottom of the I-Learn window.

After you have submitted your assignment in I-Learn, you will need to provide feedback to your team members in WordPress. Your feedback to team members will be on the following areas:

You should list the item, your rating, and any comments you had to help your team member improve. Your feedback on process blog posts will not be used as part of their grade but will help you to teach one another to improve their work.

Exercise

Build-up Lettering

The purpose of reproducing letters by hand is to learn the nuances of font design. This will help you recognize typefaces more accurately.

Directions Using a sharp graphite pencil or mechanical pencil, draw the lowercase “g.” Letters must be drawn from the inside out. You must start with the general shape of the letter, or the skeleton form. Next, build up the shape, working toward the outer edge of the letter and also toward the counters (the interior negative space). Lastly, finalize the edge of the letter, or the skin. This is where your ability to see the subtleties of the letter will develop.

To teach yourself how to recognize the subtleties of the letter, ask yourself: Is this portion of the letter or this particular line concave or convex? At the point these shapes join, is it a smooth or abrupt transition? Are the thicknesses is my reproduction accurate relative to the thin strokes? Are the counters the correct shape?

Replace the fpo grid with a scan of your finished drawing of the letter “g.”

Download
Blog Post

Reading

Reading/Quiz 01