Lesson 3
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
- From the compositions you made for Helvetica, choose the one that you think has the most potential.
- Make sure that the design meets all of the requirements before beginning the refining process.
Open Adobe Illustrator.
- Copy the chosen composition and paste it onto Art Board 1 in the file p1s3-helvetica.ai. It is in the placed images folder in the Project 1 folder.
- This file has 12 art boards.
- Select all of the FPO image and delete.
- There is a non-printing layer that shows the name of each art board in a light gray.
- Paste the composition you chose from Project 2 Step 2 on the first art board.
- Go to the second art board and paste it again.
- Now begin asking questions. What if a letter were larger or smaller? Where can you make alignments? Is all the space filled up evenly? Is there a focal point?
- Make some changes.
- After a while, select everything on art board 2 and copy it.
- Paste it onto art board 3.
- Repeat this process until you have 12 composition variations for each font.
- If you are not happy with one of the compositions from each font following this process, pick your most promising compositions and replace weaker designs.
- Choose one composition for each font and mark it with a 9 pt-circle in the bottom left-hand corner.
Print
- Print page 7.
- Print one full-size 8x9.5 inches for each font. (2 prints)
- It is always recommended that you get a color print of your assignment because they look different printed than they do on the screen. This also helps you to develop your printed portfolio, but you will not be turning any printed materials in for this class.
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:
- Write a 200-word blog post that includes the JPEG image exported from Adobe InDesign.
- Copy the text from the blog post and paste it into Project 01 workbook.
- Include paragraph breaks, subheads or other typographic elements to make the post visually accessible.
- The post should be designed and encourage a reader to engage.
- Include a featured image
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:
- Idea: Rate the uniqueness of the overall idea. Is it ordinary and expected or original and unexpected?
- 1–3 pts: unimaginative – confusing
- 4–6 pts: ok – great
- 7–10 pts: great – amazing
- Formal design choices: Rate how well the design principles are used.
- 1–3 pts: unimaginative – confusing
- 4–6 pts: ok – great
- 7–10 pts: great – amazing
- Typography: Rate font choice, size, kerning and spacing, add to the communication of the concept.
- 1–3 pts: not at all
- 4–6 pts: doesn’t help or hurt
- 7–10 pts: significantly adds to the overall communication
- Portfolio: Would you put this in your portfolio? Base this on the quality of the work, not whether it would be appropriate for your personal portfolio.
- 1–3 pts: no
- 4–6 pts: maybe with changes
- 7–10 pts: yes with no changes – absolutely
- Blog Post: Rate the quality of blog post.
- 1–3 pts: messy, unclear, major errors
- 4–6 pts: understandable, organized, rambling, spelling or grammar errors
- 7–10 pts: clear, thoughtful, engaging, free from errors
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.
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
- Create a blog post to reflect your experience on this exercise.
- What do you know now that you didn’t know before doing the exercise?
- What would you suggest to improve the learning experience of this exercise?
- Scan or take a photo of your work and include the image in your blog post.
- Submit the URL for the Exercise Blog Post in I-Learn by clicking on the "Open" button below and pasting your blog page URL in the space provided. Then, click submit.
Reading/Quiz 01
- Text | Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton (2nd edition)
- Pages | Beginning–31