Typography Task 2 / Exercises

5.5.2023 - 14.5.2023 / Week 6 - Week 7
Michael Chan Henn Loong / 0363611
Typography / BA of Design (HONS) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Task 2: Typographic Exploration and Communication (Text Formatting and Expression)

LECTURES

All lectures completed in Task 1: exercise1&2

INSTRUCTIONS

Task 2 Exercise - Typographic Exploration & Communication

"In Task 2, we are asked to express and create 2-page editorial spread (200 X 200) with the provided text. No image and colors are allowed in this task, but minor elements like lines or shades are allowed depending on the design itself. We are allowed to use Adobe Illustrator to express the headline and use Adobe InDesign to compose and express the body text."

Initial Process

Research

Before starting on the task I did some research on typographical posters and tried to get some ideas from these visual references.

Fig 1.1 Research - Visual references

After looking at the visual references that I think is interesting I compiled them up and saved them in a file for progress checking and also for me to look back in the future.

Sketches

After finishing up the researching phase, I carried on with the sketching I sketched out a few ideas of my own. But soon after that I think that doing it straight with AI and InDesign would be more convenient and precise as I can adjust the size and leadings.

Fig 2.1 sketches on paper

These are the ideas that are created with Ai & InDesign. For that moment these are the only designs I can think of so I stopped with the headlines and proceeded with the body text.

Fig 2.2 Attempts of headline digitilization

This is how the text looks like without kerning and adjustments with the margins and columns looks like at the very beginning of it.

Fig 2.3 Body Text without kerning and leading

This is how the body text looks like after playing with the kerning and leadings. Throughout this whole process I remind myself to make sure that every single line of the body text is cross aligned and also that all of it sits on the line.

Fig 2.4 Body Text after kerning and leading

Layout Progress

After dealing with the body text I proceeded with trying out various layouts so that Mr Vinod can have a look on them and give me some feedbacks on what is missing and whether it is extravagant.

For the first progression check I chose these 2 layouts as my choice and showed it to Mr Vinod for progression checking.

Fig 2.5 Layout 1

For both these layouts I did it in the wrong size the size for these layouts should be 200mm X 200mm but I did it in the wrong size so I needed to touch up that part for all my designs. Other than that for layout 1 the idea for the headline is nice and clean but it might be a little bit confusing for the readers so Mr Vinod recommended me to play with the placing a little bit more so maybe I will get idea on how to place it.

Fig 2.6 Layout 2

For Layout 2 the idea is pretty bad because it didn't really shows anything that means unite and the placement and fonts itself doesn't express unite as well so this idea is forsake.

Fig 2.7 Layout Blocked out

Fig 2.8 Layout Blocked out

I personally like the idea from layout 1 too so I carried on with my experiment and using most of my time trying out different stuff to get the ideal size and font for this sentence on how to express it.

So as Mr Vinod said it is actually a little bit confusing as I get the same feeling after looking back at it the next day so I tried out various placements.

Fig 2.9 Placement Experiment

After playing a little bit with the placement I got the ideal solution that I needed which is number 4. It expresses unite and also have a interesting placing and also it is not that confusing anymore compared to my first attempt on the idea.

Fig 2.10 Final layout design

However, I used too much time on the headline and I missed out the body text's part and I only aligned I to the left and didn't really check the ragging, widows and orphans, so as Mr Vinod mentioned before orphans and widows will not be accepted so I carried on with improving my Final layout design.

In addition, as Mr Vinod mentioned we should be careful of the ragging, rivers, orphans and widows so I checked my body text again and make sure that all of the text are cross aligned and no widows and orphans are in the body text and I've also made a few changes on the tracking of the body text too so that the ragging aew not that atrocious.

Fig 2.11 Improved Final Layout

Fonts: Adobe Caslon Pro (Headline) , Futura Std (Sub text) , Janson Text LT Std (Body text)

Point size: 160pt (Headline) , 24pt/10pt (Sub text) , 10pt (Body text)

Leading: 12pt

Paragraph spacing: 12pt

Alignment: Left align

Final Editorial Spread

Fig 3.1 Final Editorial Spread

Fig 3.2 Final editorial spread (PDF)

Fig 3.3 Final editorial spread (with grids)

Fig 3.4 Final editorial spread (with grids) (PDF)

Feedback:

Week 6:

General feedback:

- Make sure that the grey value of the body text is achieved, check by having your eyes half closed. Justified gap must e at least 5mm and also be careful of hyphenation. For the headline to express the feeling try not to exaggerate too much keep it simple and clean

Specific feedback:

- Wrong size for the whole layout, change the layout to the instructed size. Headlines idea is acceptable but the composition is a little bit confusing, try to move it around more to have a few more different compositions. Body text have too many hyphenation. The box at the bottom should be moved up to the body text not staying alone at the bottom of the whole body text like something is happening on its own.

Reflection

Experience:

I personally enjoyed this task as we get to choose our own text to play with and I found out that I'm having a lot of fun when I am playing with various interesting layouts, for this task there are also more space to play with and due to the experience in task 1 so this task is not that hard to deal with.

Observations:

After few weeks of observing my peers work I noticed that everyone have a unique way of expressing a word and some of us also have similar ideas on the words. Other than that I think that we are unintentionally affected by the samples we see for an example the editorial spread that uses the Bahaus Text Mr Vinod showed us, I first chose that topic for my editorial spread but most of the ideas came up are similar to the example so I decided to change to another topic for my task.

Findings:

Throughout this Task I've noticed that the ragging of the body text really affects the readability of the whole editorial spread and also affects the aesthetic of the whole product. Other than that I think we've also learned that intricacy doesn't mean that it's the best solution sometimes making the design clean and clear will be a better solution.