Last day! Are you going to make it?

You've successfully navigated another semester of classes and you should be proud of the work you've done. I asked a lot of you in class this semester and I want you to know that I'm truly proud of the work created this semester!

Now enjoy your Christmas break and I'll see you again in January!

Simple alphabet

For your final assignment, I want you to examine the alphabet and it's letters. Look at their form, shape, weight, etc. Now I want you to create the alphabet using ONLY circles and squares. NO rectangles, NO triangles, NO octagons.

Your requirements are:

• You must use Adobe Illustrator

• Use ONLY circles and squares

• Use ONLY black/white as your colors

• Create all 26 letters of the alphabet

• Create numbers 0-9

Take your time and get creative with these. There's no reason everyone's alphabets should look the same. This is your final project of the semesters, so put your whole self into it and come up with a snazzy alphabet! You have all of today's class period and all of Wednesday's class period. They will be due before you leave class on Wednesday.

HOMEWORK:

Work on your circle/square alphabet!

TypeFACE (part II)

Now that you've created a type portrait of yourself, that background looks pretty boring. Using the same technique used to create your portrait, create an interesting type background.

Use a DIFFERENT COLOR (or colors!) for the background so it stands out!

You have all class period today to work on these, as well as the weekend.

Projects are due on Monday when you come to class!

HOMEWORK:

• Finish your TypeFACE project, complete with background!

TypeFACE

Today's project is going to be fun! You are going to be creating a portrait of yourself using TYPE! There are great tutorials HERE and HERE that make this easy! Follow along and create your own type portrait!

You may use class time to take photos of each other for this project. You MUST use a photograph of YOURSELF as the portrait of this project. No exceptions! We have the photo studio available, as well as cameras to check out. Use the lights in there and create some shadows on your face! That will give your final type portrait better results. Get creative with your pose and crop!

HOMEWORK:

• You will have all day in class to work on these today as well as Wednesday's class.

• These will be due next Monday.

Turkey type

Today your assignment will be to create a turkey using only type. Some of you have created font-bots for Mr. Capozzi in the past. This is just an extension of that assignment.

Choose your font carefully!

Using ONLY letters/numbers from ONE font, create your turkey!

I want to see these by the end of class today!

BE CREATIVE!!!

Have a great holiday!

NO HOMEWORK!

Illustrated quote Critique (for real)

O.k. we will REALLY be critiquing your illustrated quotes today. Be prepared to defend your work!

NO HOMEWORK!

Illustrating a quote: Critique

Today we will look at your Illustrated quotes. We will talk about your concept and execution. Be prepared to defend your work! Why did you choose the graphics you used? What do the colors mean? How did your manipulation of type increase the effect of your quote?

Part of every assignment is knowing why you did the things you did. Be prepared to explain why during class today.

NO HOMEWORK

Illustrating a quote

Today's assignment will have you marrying typography with graphics to create an interesting layout. Remember, type can be a graphic element as well, so use that to your advantage.

Your new assignment is to pick a quote from a famous person. You can use websites such as: Brainy Quote, Great Quotes, Famous Quotes and Authors, or one of your own choosing.

Once you have your quote, you must create a design for your quote that includes:

• an image of the person you are quoting

• at least one font that helps give your quote the correct feeling (more than one is o.k.)

• some other type(s) of graphic element to add interest.

Make an Adobe Illustrator document that is 11"x8.5" (letter sized - landscape)

Any photoshop elements must be brought into illustrator and vectorized

Remember to be creative with your type! It doesn't all have to be the same font. It doesn't all have to be the same size. You will be learning how to relate text to graphics in this exercise, so experiment! Pick your most important elements and choose how you can present them to make them stand out.

You will have all week to complete this assignment. They will be due at the beginning of class on Monday, November 14th. Save your Illustrator file as a .pdf and save your file with the following name: lastname_quote.pdf

Fonts as form: critique (Take Two)

Today we will be discussing your "fonts as form" projects in class. For REAL, this time! This is the last time extension I will be giving on homework. Also of note: as announced in class, I am NO LONGER ACCEPTING LATE HOMEWORK. If it's not turned in on the due date, you'd better have a doctor's excuse if you want to make it up!

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!

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

Work on your type illustrations!

You are expected to use class time today to work on your type illustration projects. Take advantage of class time to ask me for help and to bounce ideas off your classmates. You are expected to WORK while in class, so keep conversations to a minimum! If you aren't working and are disturbing other students, your grade WILL suffer!

Work hard on these during class and I will give you Monday to finish them. If you goof off, they will be due on Monday.

HOMEWORK:

• Keep working on your type illustrations!

• Finish your Alphabet drawings. They are due first thing on Monday!

Illustrating with type

It's time to use your knowledge of type, and how to manipulate it, to create something new. I want you to come up with a phrase and create it using only type. You must CAREFULLY choose the font you want to use. If the font's feeling doesn't go with the phrase, or idea you are trying to convey, it will ruin this project. Take your time coming up with a phrase, saying, riddle, statement or whatever. Have it mean something to you. Have a personal connection to it.

Once you have your phrase, start looking for type that "fits" the feeling you're going for. You can check www.dafont.com or other free font websites to find these fonts. BE SURE TO SAVE YOUR FONT with your document or it will not open properly on my computer when you turn it in. As a rule, if you use specific fonts (or photos, or anything) in your designs, you MUST include them when turning them in, taking them to a print shop, etc. Otherwise, they will not display or print correctly.

Next, using Adobe Illustrator, I want you to create an 8.5x11 document for your phrase. You may use different colors, or perhaps a background or other subtle design elements to create your message or phrase, BUT the typography MUST be the main component of your design. If I feel you placed too much emphasis on your other elements, and let your typography suffer, you will get a bad grade on this assignment! To be safe, you should at least *try* to create your design without using any other graphic elements. What you CAN do is use Illustrator to ADD elements to your type to turn your type into an illustration!

We will work on these during class on Monday, September 26th and Wednesday, September 28th. Use your class time wisely. If I see goofing off, it will deduct points off your grade!

HOMEWORK:

• Come up with your phrase

• Sketch some ideas of how you'll illustrate it

• Start working on designing it

Kearning, Tracking and Leading, OH MY!

You've spent some time learning about letterforms, so now let's learn more about how to put those letterforms together. The space between letters, between words and between paragraphs can (and should) be fine-tuned.

Have a look at Thinking with Type and check out the TYPE section. Read over all the TEXT topics at the top of the page: Kerning, Tracking, Line Spacing, Alignment, Stacked Type and Hierarchy.

In class we will be downloading Lorum Ipsum text (it's actually, the Hipster Ipsum I have linked on the class blog) and using it to test out what you've learned.

HOMEWORK:

Part 1

• Copy/paste 2 paragraphs worth of Hipster Ipsum text into an Illustrator document.

• Make the 2 paragraphs 12 point, Times New Roman.

• Copy those 2 paragraphs three more times (for a total of four.)

• Give the first set line spacing (also called leading) of 5 points and set the alignment to Justified.

• Give the second set line spacing of 12 points and set the alignment to centered.

• Give the third set line spacing of 20 points and set the alignment to flush left.

• Give the fourth set line spacing of 30 points and set the alignment to flush right.

Part 2

• Pick ONE word out of those paragraphs and make it 60 points tall.

• Copy that word two more times (for a total of three.)

• For the first one, play with the kerning between each letter. Don't make them all even!

• For the second one, play with the tracking of the entire word. Use large numbers to space it out!

• For the third one, make the word into stacked type and align it to be centered.

• Save this document using the naming structure: lastname_text.pdf

You will turn this in on MONDAY. Don't ask to turn it in today. Be responsible and bring it with you to class (or better yet, save it to your network drive!)

Quiz: Type anatomy

You should be all brushed-up on your type anatomy by now so it's time to show me your stuff! Be prepared for a quiz in class that will challenge your type knowledge! It isn't going to be open notes and it isn't going to be easy. So STUDY!!

The rest of the class period will be reworking your alphabet project. Use your time wisely!

Learn the type. Love the type.

Have you studied your type anatomy? The handout I gave you wasn't just for fun (but it IS fun, isn't it?) You also have to LEARN it! There will be a quiz on the anatomy of a typeface on Monday, so be prepared! It won't be easy, so STUDY your sheet AND the stuff I put on the board during class this past Monday!

Take the rest of the class period to start working on your REwork of a set of typographical alpha-numerics. You may choose to re-do the typeface you chose the first time - OR - you may choose to try a different one. Pick one from the three typeface handouts I gave you in class and get to work. Remember, take your time, work hard and get these down pat. I will be grading these VERY hard, and if you fail to do a good job this time, you will have to do them again.

HOMEWORK:

• Keep working on your alphabet! Make it GREAT!

Anatomy of a typeface

Tonight you will learn about the different parts of a typeface. Just like an automobile, a typeface is built from a collection of parts that both create the typeface's aesthetic as well as make it functional. You will learn these parts and be able to tell me what they are. That means, there will be a QUIZ on the different parts of a typeface. There are websites that will give you some of the information, but you will receive a handout during class that will aid your studying. Make sure you know all the parts on the handout, not just the website!

We will be looking at your hand-drawn type during class and discussing it. I want to know what you've learned about the font you chose to reproduce. Surely after drawing the alphabet and numbers, you have a better understanding of your font.

HOMEWORK:

• STUDY for your quiz on the anatomy of a typeface!

• Quiz will be during class on Wednesday

Understading and recreating fonts

The time has come to start to understand fonts better. You have learned about the origins of some early fonts (in your papers about famous typographers,) and now you will learn more about the characters themselves.

Today, I am handing out examples of three different fonts. I want you to pick your favorite one and reproduce it. On 11x17 paper (I will provide,) recreate the font of your choice. This will probably use more than one sheet of paper. That's o.k. I have more. :)

USE PENCIL TO CREATE THESE!

Take your time! Pay close attention to the details in the letterforms. Once you are sure they are correct, and as close to the original font as possible, I want you to GO OVER THESE IN INK. Do NOT erase your pencil marks as I want to be able to see them!!!

You will have all of today's class period today to work on these and you will finish them for homework over the weekend. If you are caught tracing letters instead of actually drawing them, you will FAIL this assignment and be forced to complete TWO more to make up for it. Don't take the easy path and try to trace these.

HOMEWORK:

• Complete your recreation of ONE font on 11x17 paper I've handed out.

• These are due at the beginning of class on Monday!

Type tutorials

Keep working on your type tutorials in class today. If you finish them, you may turn them in. If not, keep working on them for homework. These will be due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, September 7th.

Don't forget: no class on Monday! It's a holiday!

Let's start working with type!

So you've written a paper on a famous typographer and know a thing or two about type. Let's start designing with it!

I want you to pick one tutorial from this link and recreate the type design. You will use either Photoshop or Illustrator on this one, so pick one that uses the software you are comfortable with. You will work on this tutorial during class today, and if needed, in class on Wednesday. Take your time and follow the tuts step-by-step!

HOMEWORK:

• Pick one of the tutorials from this link

• Start working on it!

• If you need Wednesday's class period to finish, you'll have it.

Keep working on your papers!

I want you to keep working on your papers during class this afternoon. I will be available to help you with any problems you might have. Spend your time wisely. If you work hard in class, I might even allow you to finish these over the weekend. Don't forget to tell me how your typographer and their typefaces have influenced the design world of today!

Welcome to ART 283 - Computer Graphics I

Hello all! Welcome to ART 283 - Computer Graphics I! In this class you will be getting your hands dirty creating some cutting edge design. You will also learn some of the nuts-and-bolts of graphic design and what it takes to be successful in the advertising industry.

You will learn that basic graphic design can be broken down into several specific parts:

• Typography

• Imagery

• Layout

Let's focus on the first of these three basic parts: Typography. For our first assignment, I want you to research some famous typefaces and who invented them. Check out the link below and pick one of the typographers listed on that web page to research. Then write a one-page (single-spaced) paper on the typographer and their famous font(s.) Take your time and learn about these typographers. Tell me all the normal information like who they are/were, where they're from, how they got into typography, etc. But also tell me what significance they had on the world of graphic design. How did their involvement shape the face of what we know and use today?

The faces behind 20 famous typefaces

These papers will be due at the END of class on Wednesday. Please be thorough in your research as I will be grading these papers very carefully and checking your facts! You may use books, magazine articles, web pages and online articles, etc. as your sources. Just be sure to give proper credit for the sources! Be sure to include your works cited on a separate page. Use MLA Works Cited Formatting for your works cited page!!!