Typography // Project 1

29/09/2020 - 06/10/2020 (Week 6 - Week 7)

Fann Man Ling - 0344623 (BDCM)
Typography // Mr. Vinod & Mr. Shamsul
Project 1 // Text Formatting and Expression

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Text Formatting & Expression

INSTRUCTION

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On week 4, Mr. Vinod assigned us the first project which is creating an editorial text by using one of the three texts given for us. Before began on this project, I went through the module instructions to ensure I understand the instruction. Then, I went through the texts given and decided to pick the second one (A Designer's Code of Ethics), in which outlining the designer's responsibility to work on it. After that, I watched the Youtube tutorial video regarding Project 1, and started looking for inspirations from Pinterest.

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RESEARCH

In an attempt of getting a better picture of editorial piece of writing, I searched for ideas on Pinterest:

Fig 1.1 - 1.4 : Research (Source: Pinterest) (28/09/2020)

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IDEATION

After finished brainstorming for the idea, I started sketched my idea out:

Fig 2 : Sketches// Editorial text idea (28/09/2020)

Digitalization

I decided to try digitalise the left bottom design of my sketches. At first, I used Adobe Illustrator to create my headline expression.

Fig 3 : Designing the headline by using AI (29/09/2020)

I wanted to make it looks like a 5 to shows there's five codes for designer's ethics. Thus, I put the words accordingly and wrap the "Ethics" in order to highlight it.

Next, I started working on the text layout in Adobe InDesign:

Fig 4.1 : Setting the margins, columns and grids (29/09/2020)

After received feedback from Mr. Vinod, I reduced the tone of the numbers.

Fig 4.2:  Reducing the tone of the numbers (29/09/2020)

Fig 4.3 : Text layout before inserted the Headline expression (29/09/2020)

Fig 4.4 : Placing the Headline (29/09/2020) 

Fig 4.5 : First draft (29/09/2020)

I noticed that the ragging on some parts, especially the text under 03, was not good enough as well as the cross-alignment problem across the heading and body text, so I made some changes on it afterward:

Fig 5.1 : Fixing the ragging and cross-alignment (29/09/2020)

Fig 5.2 : Second draft (29/09/2020)

After received feedback from Mr. Vinod on week 7, I made some changes on it.

Fig 6.1 : Redoing the text expression in AI (removing the wrap effect) (06/10/2020)

Fig 6.2 : Placing the finish designed Headline from AI into InDesign (06/10/2020)

Final Work:

Fig 7.1 : Project 1_Final. jpg (06/10/2020)

Fig 7.2 : Project 1_Final. pdf (06/10/2020)

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FEEDBACK 

Week 6

General Feedback: Mr. Vinod told us that the body text must use the same alignment, line length, and point size.

Specific Feedback:  Mr. Vinod said that the text layout is fine, but the numbers' tone could be reduced abit. Fig 4.2 

Week 7

Specific Feedback: Mr. Vinod told me that the headline of my work (ETHICS) Fig 5.2 needs not to be wrapped, he then suggested me to just put the alphabets accordingly in a circle shape, then undo the circle shape.

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REFLECTION

Experience:

I had a hard time to figure out the idea in doing this project like the text layout, expression and stuff at first. I was stuck in figuring out the ideas to express the headline. Luckily, by looking up some research on Pinterest, I kind of getting some picture about the layout and finally I came out with the idea with expression in number. Since there's 5 main points written in the article, so I decided to do it in that way. 

Observation:

I felt that the title that I chose (A Designer's Code of Ethics) was quite related to us as a designer in the future, so I opted for it in hopes of learning more from it. 

Findings:

After completed this project, I truly felt that I learned better by practicing the things that Mr.Vinod have taught in the lecture such as the rules in text-formatting, the shortcut keys, and some tools in In-Design by doing this project , rather than studying them in the abstract.

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FURTHER READING

WEEK 6

I read this article titled 10 Typography Terms Every Designer Should Know on CreativeMarket, which I think it's useful for me to know the terms.

Here's the summary:

• Ascent : top most line that the upstroke from lowercase letters sich as l,h,d,b should reach.
• Cap height : the apex of the capital letters.
• Median (aka: Mean line, x-height) : where most of the lowercase letters should reach their maximum height.
• Baseline : the lowest point of all capital letters and most lowercase letters. All the characters sit on the baseline.
• Descent : for characters that hace strokes that fo below the baseline like j,g,q, the descent marks the lowest point that their lines meet.
• Ascender & Descender = Ascent & Descent
• Serifs : small finishing strokes on ends of characters.
• Counter : the negative space inside a letter.
• Bézier Curves : mathematical curves that can be scaled to any size.
• Kerning : the amount of space between characters in a font.

Fig 8 : 10 Typography Terms Every Designer Should Know (Source: CreativeMarket)

WEEK 7

For this week, I learned about some tips to create Kinectic typography, a.k.a Motion typography from Convice&Concert.

Short summary:

• Kinetic typography is an animation technique that uses moving text to capture attention, set a tone, and entertain.
• Used in commercials, music videos, mobile apps, websites.

• 5 tips: 

• Choose an Easy-to-Read, Professional-Looking font .
• Experiment with Constant Motion.
• Try Combining Words with Shapes.
• Think about using Words and Images together.
• Rely on Contrast to show opposing views / feelings.

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* Other reference: Inside Design

* Further Reading of Week 8 & 9 are on another blog post (Project 2A).