Typography I – ‘The Elements of Typographic Style, The Grand Design’ reading

Here I will review some points that I find interesting from the ‘The Elements of Typographic Style, The Grand Design’ reading by Robert Bringhurst. I’ll start off with his saying, “Typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn.”

Saying “many a book….a warrior or dancer of either sex, may look well with some paint on its face, or indeed with a bone in its nose” is to make a metaphorical relation to how some documents such as magazines or children’s books, do need a creative typography presented on their front cover to make them look wholesome and enticing. Whereas for some others like telephone directory or classified ads, it only needs a simple typeface that’s readable and classic, perhaps a sans serif throughout and presented in a good layout, to direct viewers easily into reading important information. Similarly to formal things like newspapers, that simply needs a transitional typeface like Baskerville as Baskerville is a font that means business, making it a great fit for more formal media.

It’s interesting how he says “Typography is to literature as musical performance is to the composition”. Like music, it can be used to manipulate behaviour and emotions. I agree that sometimes typography feels like a musical performance when I see posters that are very well done and I could feel the letters dancing in swirls, or give a certain vibe. If it draws my attention as a reader, makes me feel something and even pleased with the typography or the whole book that has good typography, I’d say it has succeeded in achieving an exceptional typographic style.

However, whatever it is, after reading this I highly believe then that an essential principle to typography is to give full typographic attention, especially to incidental details. Like the saying goes by Massimo Vignelli “it’s not entirely about the letters, it’s more about the white spaces between the letters that matter”. Little things like negative spaces, the kerning and such, plays a huge part. Because if not, how does one read? Where is the balance in the words or even the page itself? These incidental details, play a crucial part to make typography work, even when trying to make a visual aesthetic out of it.

November 6, 2018

Typography I – ‘The Crystal Goblet’ reading

In the reading The Crystal Goblet, Beatrice Warde tries to convey the message that typography is not merely just a type. It has a deeper purpose and more technical than we think. She uses metaphors of “solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns” versus “crystal-clear glass” as the virtues of the perfect wine-glass, and parallel that to typography.

She does this to infer the purpose of type and the effects on communication between humans. To her, the crucial thing about type or printing is to “convey thoughts, ideas, and images from one mind to other minds.” With a ‘transparent’ type, typography will then help to highlight the thoughts and ideas contained in the written word.

Beatrice also commends that typography will not qualify as an art “until the present English language no longer conveys ideas to future generations, and until printing itself hands its usefulness to some yet unimagined successor”. Meaning to say that to her, as long as it still serves an active form of communication and language, it proves that typography cannot be an art. A fine art artist reflects feelings and emotions, whereas a typographer and designer tend to think more than they feel.

However, I only agree to a certain extent. I say yes to the fact that the primary purpose of typography is the communication between human to human and to what’s written. That a responsible typographer is like a crystal goblet that is transparent enough to hold the wine (the author’s mind) allowing the connoisseur (the reader) to see directly and clearly on the wine. Which is why typography could be said as more technical — to make the message clear to the reader as they read along the lines of the text.

But then, what if the typographer wants to portray an underlying message behind his typography? Then shouldn’t that have a considerable amount of art included to express it? What if the purpose is to attract different kinds of audiences? Yes, a typographer does think, but he/she must also feel their work. I guess this is subjective. For some, we feel the way we want our work to be like, we feel through the different types of typefaces and fonts, and how to document them to make a certain piece look the way we want it to. I believe a text would have no visual characteristic without typography. Hence, I largely disagree with Beatrice’s idea of typography being simply ‘transparent’.

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Typographer of Week 5: Paula Scher

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Paula Scher is an American illustrator, painter, graphic designer, and art educator. She moved to New York City and worked as a layout artist for Random House.

She worked in CBS Records for eight years as the cover department art director; during that time, she designed several hundred album covers. She then left CBS to pursue her own work, including the development of a typographic solution based on Russian constructivism and Art Deco.

Scher joined Pentagram in 1991, becoming the first female principal to join the company. The following year, she became an art educator at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and since then, she has received hundreds of design awards. She even has her own exhibition in New York. Many of Scher’s designs have become synonymous with New York City culture.

Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Described as the “master conjurer of the instantly familiar,” Scher straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work. Iconic, smart, and accessible, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

HER WORKS

She has so many to even start with. Here are some below.

Scher developed a typographic solution based on Art deco and Russian constructivism, which incorporated outmoded typefaces into her work. The Russian constructivism had provided Scher inspiration for her typography; she didn’t copy the early constructivist style but used its vocabulary of form on her works.

The Public Theater logo evolution

Scher’s

In 1994 Paula Scher designed a poster for the New York Shakespeare Festival that introduced a new identity for the Public Theater, a program that would eventually influence much of the graphic design created for theatrical promotion and for cultural institutions in general. She said “You can basically take any version of sans serif font, organize it in the same way and with the same proportions and it would be recognizable as The Public’s logo,” says Scher. “The system was designed to be flexible because we knew it would need to be handled by individual designers over the years.”

Reflect Us

Artwork published recently in March 2018.

Reflect US is a “nonpartisan coalition of eight leading women’s political organizations working together to increase the number of women in office and achieve equal representation across the ideological, racial, ethnic and geographic spectrum.”

The visual identity created by Paula Scher here is obvious. The colours used to present ‘democracy’ with the big bold red screaming “JOIN US” – bold and encouraging for the women in USA.

Swatch

You can sort of see that the Swatch poster she did above includes inspiration derived from Russian constructivism artworks.

LEARNING POINT

I’m very intrigued by Scher’s use of bold colours and unusual layout of text because she actually makes it work. It looks great and not messy at all. She places her text in a certain flow or a different direction, and that creates movement in the work. To me, that really gives an overall refreshing look.

Most of her works have this energetic vibe towards it and I guess that’s partly due to her use of contrasting colours as well. That’s why it’s so mesmerising to look at. It’s cool how when you look up on her name, she is known for a lot of her amazing works, plastered everywhere such as famous brands like Swatch or Atlantic Records. Even designing works advocating women power lately in 2018? That is very inspiring.

References:

https://www.pentagram.com/about/paula-scher

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/20796/reflect-us

https://99designs.com.sg/blog/famous-design/paula-scher-titan-of-postmodern-design/

http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/postmodern-design/207-paula-scher

http://www.artnet.com/artists/paula-scher/biography

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Reflection on TED talk: My life in typefaces

I had to rewatch some parts of the talk to get myself feeling inspired by the things Matthew Carter shared. One of which is the part when he was told by the engineers that the problem in the typeface was solved and so Mr Carter’s draft design was not needed. BUT he didn’t stop there. In fact, he was interested in the ‘aesthetic exercise’ and loved the idea of type-making and the typeface he made.

Far right, the edit he made in the typeface design so as it doesn’t look so technological-like.

A problem-solver and also someone who perseveres and not just scrap off his work. And hence leading to some popular typefaces such as Verdana – working directly onto the screen from the pixel app. (It’s interesting to me how he designed a typeface for Microsoft using a Mac.)

I see it as, him adapting to the future without rejecting it and adapting (transforming) a rigid technology into a sensitive, more human “being”. Matthew Carter’s experience shares a tiny bit of what he’s accumulated over decades of honing his skill. This should be inspiring to all of us, at least it is to me. Very fascinating and enriching.

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Thinking With Type (Reflection)

I swear I wish I stumbled upon this website waaaaay earlier.

It goes in-depth on the anatomy of type and now gives me a better idea of what to look out for when analysing a certain font, and the criteria to set when selecting fonts for a piece of design.

It intrigues me how there is a power in the sizing and scaling of letters in typography, how it really makes a huge difference in the spaces between the letters and how warped a text is, gives a different effect. And that there’ such a thing as ‘Optical sizes’??? “Optical sizes designed for headlines or display tend to have delicate, lyrical forms, while styles created for text and captions are built with heavier strokes.”

I’m brought into a new perspective especially when it came to the ‘Mixing Typefaces’ – that there’s actually a way to make a sentence look as good as a good salad, and not end up making the sentence messy.

As a beginner in typography, it is one of my weaker elements of design. Thus this reading allowed me to have a clearer view on how to integrate typefaces into the design pieces (and at the same time, making them visually appealing and complementary to the other visual elements). It also helped me in familiarising important terms, as well as what to refrain from doing in future!

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Typographer of Week 4: Neville Brody

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Neville Brody is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director currently working in his own design practice called Research Studios.

Back then, he enrolled himself at the London College of Printing for a 3-year Bachelor of Arts degree in graphics but his designs were often condemned by his teachers for having ‘uncommercial’ quality to them. The era of punk rock highly influenced Brody’s work and motivation in the late 1970s. However, his tutors disagree with his experimentation of punk rock art and got him almost expelled. Even then, he continued to explore the new boundaries in graphic design. Therefore, his first-year thesis focused on the subject of comparison between Dadaism and Pop Art.

He’s also a leading typographer and internationally recognised brand strategist.

HIS WORKS

He is best known for his work on ‘The Face’ and ‘Arena’ magazines and various record covers for several famous music artists, including Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode.

Cabaret Voltaire Record Cover – Designed in 1984

Brody is also one of the founding members of Fontworks and the leading website the FontShop. He designed numerous notable typefaces for the website. A well-known FUSE project was also the result of his initiation which featured the fusion of a magazine, typeface and graphics design.

He co-founded a typeface library, the FontFont, with Erik Spiekermann, in 1990.

He has designed many typefaces such as Industria, Insignia and Blur, which was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s architecture and design collection in 1992.

Insignia font by Neville Brody (image obtained from https://www.behance.net/gallery/21328109/Insignia-Type-Specimen-Poster)

Brand Strategy for Nike – Designed in 1988

LEARNING POINT

I’m inspired by how his experimentation of the punk rock art was noticeable in some of his works and that created an interesting approach in forming portraits. And for his typefaces, it’s interesting how he could make them look simple but at the same time, possessed features that made them distinguishable and less boring.

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Short reflective post on Type Speaks (1948)

After watching this, my first thought was “wow, we really take printers for granted”!

Type Speaks is a 1948 film that features an in-depth process of making type. The film emphasizes type as a medium with a mission to improve the world and showcases how they used to be made. Firstly showing a brief history of printing and then followed by the entire process of type making from original design to pattern making, punch cutting, matrix making, and the use of the Benton engraving machine.

I realized how differently a designer is defined now compared to how a designer was defined then. Now with the power of machines such as a computer, it is easy to design a certain typography. Back then, mostly everything was hands-on. The responsibilities of a designer were different as well.

It’s truly amazing how people back then painstakingly carved the letters out from the metal rod and had the patience to file away the outside of the rod, simply to get the lettering right. Everything is done one at a time, even the design of the characters of the letters.

I salute them for the many hours of craftsmanship needed for this whole typography process. Now I have a newfound appreciation for the art behind type and this film educates me a bit, on knowing how important the little details in each lettering are. It gives me a new perspective on designing type and typography itself.

September 28, 2018

Typography I – Typographer of Week 3: Massimo Vignelli

ABOUT THE ARTIST

An Italian, Massimo Vignelli was born in Milan in 1931. There, he first studied art and architecture, until he came to America in 1957. He was the co-founder of Vignelli Associates, with his wife, Lella. in 1971 they formed Vignelli Associates, and in 1978, Vignelli Designs. Vignelli worked in a number of areas ranging from package design through houseware design and furniture design to public signage and showroom design.

HIS WORKS

Vignelli believes that a designer needs only 6 typefaces and his six preferred typefaces are Garamond, Bodoni, Century Expanded, Futura, Times, Helvetica (shown below):

Here are some of the typographic works he did:

- Official redesign of 1972 map of the New York subway system
- Poster and graphics programme for Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, 1964 and 1965
- the “AA” logo used by American Airlines up until 2013

The 1972 map of the New York subway system

Around 1965, Vignelli and his business partner Bob Noorda established Unimark International, a new design consultancy, in New York. They worked with Mildred Constantine, an influential design curator at the Museum of Modern Art, who is well connected in the New York City’s social scene.

There was a desperate need for a transformation of the city’s nightmarish subway navigation system, hence Vignelli helped to redesign the subway map. Following the Beck London Underground diagram, Vignelli produced a diagram of subway lines. Although the map is widely admired for its beauty and utility, it was rejected by commuters as the New Yorkers disliked its indifference to above-ground geography. They felt that it looked too abstract and it did not accurately represent the subway routes and cities.

Poster and graphic programme for Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, 1964 and 1965

The Piccolo Teatro di Milano posters such as the one above illustrate the powerful philosophical connection between Zurich and Milan in the 1960s. Vignelli’s uses closely set Helvetica in two sizes and strong horizontal rules. His effortless ordering of information has been echoed in print, blog themes and app design right up to the present day.

LEARNING POINT

In his interview with Big Think, he mentioned how it’s important for graphic designers to stay away from trends and think more about the quality of the typographic design where “a timeless design is powerful”. I agree with him, how when it comes to designing things, I would still want it to be looked in respect in 100 years time and not laughed about. This is reflected in some of his works that are still present up to this day such as the ones mentioned above (Piccolo Teatro di Milano posters and American Airlines logo (1967 till 2013)”. There needs to be “guts, expression, intellectually elegant”.

In most projects he has done, he has this same design: “..the heavy black rules, the red, black and yellow, the large Garamond Italic or Bodoni type going over the gutter..” (like the picture above). He explained that he wanted to achieve an effect and clarity. When comparing his works with Jan Tschihold, both of them are similar as clarity seems to be their focal point for these designers. To create assets that would help people to navigate their daily lives, both of them stand by the idea of limited type fonts and design as well and apply these similar styles to most of the work they do even for different companies.

Vignelli’s work is recognizable, even when working with different companies. Hence, we see that design is a voice, and for him, making a design that is timeless is important. That is his core set of beliefs, and similarly, with other designers, they have their own set of beliefs. And this is something that is incapable of being replicated.

Vignelli is the “fearless critic of junk” and that is a constant reminder for me whenever I feel like my work is junk. He emphasizes the coherence of elements, clarity, discipline and continuity. There’s a certain discipline we must put into our work, and we ought to put pride in it. There is always a way to make our own typography work look better than it is before.

References:

http://www.designculture.it/interview/massimo-vignelli.html

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-massimo-vignelli

Massimo Vignelli: Creator of Timeless Design and Fearless Critic of “Junk”

September 5, 2018September 21, 2018

Typography I – Typographer of Week 2: Jan Tschichold

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jan Tshichold is a German typographer and author who played a seminal role in the development of 20th-century graphic design and typography. He was largely impressed by one of the first fonts of Rudolf Koch – Maximillian Grotesk. Then the artist was hugely inspired by the Bauhaus exhibition, which then led to his typography where we look at letters with straight edges, made of simple shapes with no flare. He had formulated a set of typographic principles, which he published in pamphlet form under the title Elementaire Typographie. In 1928, Tschichold published Die Neue Typographie, a full treatment of his new ideas for typographic design.

HIS WORKS

The creation of Sabon typeface

The Sabon typeface was inspired by the Garamont typeface that was created by Jacques Sabon and Conrad Berner. Sabon was a result of Tschichold’s efforts of taking Garamond typeface and standardising its construction by removing historic typefaces anomalies, making it more ‘economical’ and ‘narrower’. Tshichold created this typeface so that it could be used in any of the various printing techniques for that period of time. For the italic version, he drew inspiration directly from a model of Granjon typeface in the specimen.

Die Neue Typographie, (The New Typography)

This above is known as the definitive manifesto on graphic design in the machine age. It provided a set of rules that standardized the practices relating to modern type usage. All typefaces were condemned, except for sans-serif types. He standardized the sizes of paper for all printed matter and made clear explanations of why they were preferable and effective. This book was followed with a series of practical manuals on the principles of Modernist typography which had a wide influence among ordinary workers and printers in Germany.

Below: an example of his work where the typography is thick and bold and clean-cut. You can tell that it is largely inspired by the Bauhaus movement.

Refinement of Penguin book design

Tschichold refined the Penguin emblem and tidied up the horizontally banded covers of the standard Penguins. Penguin Composition Rules was the standard he created, embodied in a four-page booklet of typographic instructions for editors and compositors. Tschichold was meticulous in detail, and the guidelines “addressed all the important aspects of book design: Text Composition; Indenting of Paragraphs; Punctuation Marks and Spelling; Capitals, Small Capitals, and Italics; References and Footnotes; Folios; The Printing of Plays; The Printings of Poetry; Make-up”.

Page Canons

Tschichold developed a system of page harmony where there is a 2:3 page-size ratio rule.

Through that ratio rule (seen above), it allows us to have an exact positioning where we will end up with a 9×9 grid, with the text block 1/9th from the top and inside, and 2/9ths from the outside and bottom.

With that, the text block is in a relatively exact position and size, with echoed margins, all of which are elegantly rational.

The development of ratio rule is practical when applying to various layouts (such as magazine spreads, book illustration, etc) as the text block sits in the upper section of the page, which is more in line with where our eyes rest on a page, as well as giving space at the bottom for our hands to hold the book open without covering any content.

LEARNING POINT

It’s really not as easy as we think Typography is. I used to brush it off and think it’s just letterings but after reviewing and learning about Jan Tschichold, there’s a lot of effort and deep research put into developing typefaces and standardisations such as the one above, just to make a cleaner-looking typography structure and layout required for books. And it is still used up till this day. Amazing. Thankful for those creations so we don’t really have to go through the painstaking effort of developing a standardisation.

References:

http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/index.php/prologue/alphabets/670-king-eumenes-ii-of-pergamum

http://www.garamond.culture.fr/en/page/jan_tschichold_s_sabon

Jan Tschichold

The Secret Law of Page Harmony

https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/jan-tschichold-the-new-typography-1928.pdf

September 5, 2018September 5, 2018

Typography I – Type in the Wild

I went to USS a few days back and decided to take some shots of the letterings in some buildings.

Here’s some that I don’t like:

If you look into the right side of the image above, the shop ‘Safari Outfitters’ uses 3 different typefaces for their shop signages. I feel like there’s no need to unless you could make the main signage (at the very top) a bold typeface but in a funky fun serif like maybe Futura. Or maybe just have the main signage and the signage below as the same typeface but with a little tweak and the ‘outfitters’ below to be a brighter red so that it doesn’t actually camouflage itself onto the black window pane.

When I think of the words “Minion Mart” I immediately associate it with BIG, BOLD, YELLOW. ‘Minion’ to me is something that screams joy and fuzzy, adorable, weird creatures. And with the word ‘mart’? Something fun. How they portrayed it here, is the total opposite of all that. The colour in ‘minion’ is somewhat okay (it stands out) but the typeface used is such a turn-off. It doesn’t give that exciting feeling of skipping into the mart like “Oh yes, I WANNA GO IN!”. The colour in ‘mart’ is even more disappointing because it’s black and it blends in with the background colour which is the big brown building. You want to entice visitors and create participation on the part of the customers, so come on.

Here’s some that I like:

The spacing between the letters in this one is cool, and how the letters are thin and elongated. They made the typography somewhat rounded which is even cooler as it closely resembles the idea of ‘universal’ (the image in our head that it’s all-rounded, curved). So in a way, they look tall but curved (gives me the image of looking upwards and all around you). Big and bold and white and gold: totally the way to attract visitors and tourists. Similarly to the bold, red in “studios store”. Overall it gives me a big welcoming and exciting “W O W” feeling.

I love the cursive typeface in this ‘Celebrity’. It looks a bit like the ‘Snell Roundhand’ typeface but gives off this retro vibe. Even when contrasting with the thick lettering of the words below it, overall it still gives a good balance in the outdoor signage design. The glow in the wordings, as well as the zig-zag and purple-coloured element in them further amplify the funky, retro vibe.

This was fun! But I realised I can’t see outdoor signage the same way ever again (like totally just not care about it but now I do).