Fonts as form: critique

Today we will be discussing your "fonts as form" projects in class. We will look at everyone's projects and see if the class can determine which font you chose for which emotion. If the class can't pick it out, your grade will suffer.

I will be grading these on the quality of your final drawings as well. I warned you to be neat! Let's see if you listened!

NO HOMEWORK!

You'll need a rest after this one. Bring your kleenex!

Fonts as form: day two

Continue working on your fonts as form projects. Use your class time to choose your font and develop your layout. I will try to help you print your ideas so you may use them to create your hand-drawn pieces to turn in.

HOMEWORK:

• Finish your SIX 14"x14" pieces

• Turn these in on Monday!

Fonts as form

After your found alphabet projects, you should have a new understanding of typography. You learn to see the shapes of letters and numbers in everyday objects. Now, I want you to acquaint yourself with the elegance of typography: it's form.

The letter's form is it's main visual characteristic. That form conveys a message. The message can be good or bad, happy or scary, loving or evil, etc. Finding the form and identifying it is important to learn as a young graphic designer.

For today's assignment, I want you to find type styles that illustrate certain feelings or moods. You will choose ONE letter of the alphabet and, using ONLY that one letter and the choice of font, will illustrate a mood or feeling. You can NOT show all of the letter, either. You must obscure part of it. You must make your letter fit into a 10" square!!! Not only must the letter still be readable as a letter, it must also convey the feelings described below.

Using this technique, I want you to illustrate the following:

• fat

• happy

• bold

• meek

• scary

• sad

Remember, you can only choose ONE letter to illustrate this. One more catch: You can't show all of the letter, either! One, partially obscured letter is all you've got. Take your time and make your choices wisely! There isn't much techincal difficulty to this assignment, so I will be grading you based on your choice of fonts used and your placement of the font in your square to hide part of it.

HOMEWORK:

• Pick your fonts and your specific letters to illustrate each feeling listed above.

• Use the computer to position your fonts in your squares to see how they look. Then. . .

• HAND DRAW your letter in a 10" square on posterboard. Leave a TWO INCH margin all around it. You must use WHITE posterboard ONLY.

• Take your time and make these drawings CLEAN. Edges must be CRISP!

• Color in your letters using a BLACK marker.

• Erase ALL your pencil lines!

• You will end up with SIX pieces of posterboard that are 14"x14" in size to turn in.

• You will have today's class and Wednesday's class to work on these.

• Due first thing on Monday.

Found alphabets: DUE TODAY

Your found alphabet projects are due today. If you all have them ready at the beginning of class, we will go over them and critique your found letterforms. If you need the rest of class today to keep working on them, we will finish them during class and turn them in at the end.

Found alphabets: day THREE

I wont be in class today, but you will still meet during class time to work on your projects. Tina will be telling me who shows up and works and who doesn't. If you slack off, expect no mercy when I return and grade your projects!

Take today's class to work on putting your letters into your InDesign documents. I am amending my previous instructions to say that you may create a layout other than the three rows of 12 images I originally asked for. Arrange these images however looks the best. I want them nice and clean. Even numbers of images on each line is preferable, unless you have a GOOD reason to do otherwise.

HOMEWORK:

• Keep working on your found alphabet InDesign document.

• We will discuss these on Monday and see how far you've gotten.

Found alphabets: day two

Your alphabet photos are due today. We will look at them in class and you may start building your InDesign document. Make sure your document size is 11x17 (horizontal - or "landscape" - orientation.) You will size each of your individual photographs to 1.25" square. You will have your letters and numbers on THREE lines of 12 characters each.

Use today's class to work on this project. If you don't finish, work on them for homework.

HOMEWORK:

• Keep working on your found alphabet InDesign document

MOAR fun with FONTS!

Since you are all having such a great time with fonts and typography, we are going to do another FUN assignment involving your favorite alpha-numeric characters! Don't worry, you won't have to draw anything! I promise!

First, let's have a look at a fun little video that talks about fonts called "Our fonts, our friends."

For your next assignment, I want you to compile the entire alphabet and numbers 0-9 from found objects. "Found" alphabets are lots of fun, plus they will start teaching you to look for design in unconventional places.

First, I want you to find all 26 letters and numbers 0-9 somewhere out in the world. Yes, you can photograph SOME existing letterforms, but I also want to see at least 10 letters you find created by everyday objects! See the photograph in this post for an example of a letter "A."

Second, once you compile your 36 photographs, I want you to combine them into a single 11x17 document using Adobe InDesign. Take care to create a grid and give your alphabet an attractive layout! Creative layouts get extra points!

For today's class (and this weekend's homework) use your digital camera, or borrow one from the SVHEC, to capture your letters and numbers. Bring them with you to class on Monday so you can start importing them to your computer to manipulate in photoshop (if so desired) and placed into InDesign.

HOMEWORK:

• Take photographs of all 26 letters of the alphabet and numbers 0-9.

• Bring your photos to class on Monday to work on!

• Photos are DUE monday, and I will be checking to see if you have them (for a grade!)

Finishing your type illustrations

First, TURN IN your alphabet assignments! They are due at the beginning of class!

Now, use the rest of class to finish your type illustrations. Please ask me if you need any help!

They will be due at the beginning of class on Wednesday.

HOMEWORK:

• Finish type illustrations