Core Concepts- Assignment 4: Show me
Assignment 4: Show me
Design the font for use on the cover of a magazine called type and write a short article for the magazine using a range of typefaces, with typographic illustrations, drawing on all that you have learned in this section. The article should include sections on:
• what makes a typeface interesting
• how a typeface is constructed
• question marks.
I began this assignment by researching type foundries, and the history of printing typefaces. I found out some interesting information on the history of typography and it’s distribution. I came across a good article at ‘Book Riot'.’
“In the 1450s, Gutenberg’s press could print around 250 sheets per hour, and it took him three years to print around 180 copies of the Bible. For context: Today, newspapers use offset printing, which prints around 70,000 pages per hour. Although it doesn’t seem impressive now, the effect of these early book printers and typeface creators is enormous, and began the era of mass book production, as well as the rise of public literacy and education. By 1500, some 12 million books were printed in Europe.
The typeface that Gutenberg’s press used for those first print runs of the Bible was called Textura, also known as Blackletter or Gothic. It was based on the handwritten letter form found in religious texts in the late medieval period, painstakingly type casted by skilled metalworkers like Gutenberg who designed each metal character. They were then manually placed, letter by letter and line by line, onto the wooden plate for ink application. The first type foundry for the English language was started by William Caxton in 1476, who also devised his own printing press.”
Manually placed cast metal letters
Diagram of a Linotype machine from 1904
“David Bruce of New York created a game changing pivotal typecaster in 1838, of which there is remarkably little information anymore, although it was a wholly necessary invention in order to keep up with the print demands of the Industrial Revolution.
The Linotype: This mechanical typecasting machine, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884, utilized keyboards modeled after early typewriters, so the typecaster would type in the text, and the machine would imprint each letter into a matrix, or a bar of metal. Then, they would pour hot metal onto the imprinted bar to create the line of text for printing.”
“These typecasting machines pretty much ruled the roost until the digital age, when technology offered us a way to speed up the printing process even further, like the invention of laser and dot-matrix printing of the late 1970s and phototypesetting, which assembled type on film that was then used to make printing plates. Since printing technology was advancing, font creation had to adapt with it.”
I took the font into Photoshop and created a digital version. I quite liked the end result, but before creating a version of glyphs for this I decided to try something different. This font was too decorative for a front cover, but I may use it elsewhere.
I began to think about the style of font I wanted to create. I felt like it should have a handmade feel, hint at the origins of printing and look different from ‘clean’ fonts, but not being too decorative. I began by jotting down some ideas, also a few quick ideas about the layout of the front page of the magazine.
Instead of sketching out a body of a font, and taking it into illustrator and tracing it to create it, I wanted something more hand made. I began to test with various pens/pencils to provide different textures, and wrote the alphabet many times, honing in on what style I aimed for. As I continued repeatedly copying the alphabet the style became more relaxed and better textures/markings formed.
I chose a few of my favourite fonts, Helvetica, Neue Haas Grotesk and Futura then printed them onto acetate. My plan was to use them as an initial template then combine each element that I enjoy, and create a graffiti style stencil of it. When producing this, I had a different idea, to scribe them loosely, and repeat this process until the original font wasn’t recognisable, but more hand drawn. My method was holding the pencil at the end of it allowing it to move more loosely, then tracing, scanning and retracing.
I decided I preferred the thinner font, it looked interesting but still could work as a title. I moved onto printing it out in different ways using an inkjet print transfer and scanning in the results. This helped me formulate an idea of what I wanted my magazine to look like. When playing with how each font looked I came up with “What’s your type” a subheading or slogan I felt would work well in my magazine.
When collecting together the acetate after printing, I found the way they layered on top of each other to look great. This was definitely something to explore further. I scanned in different variations of the acetate prints which had some interesting results. As I touched the prints by accident, I found myself transferring the words to various other areas of the acetate. This lead to me printing my hand into the ink and producing some other interesting markings. I feel like this could add a good layer to the magazine, showing how type can be hand made, quite literally.
I next tackled the short article. I came up with suitable text, describing what I had learnt, but tried to be as concise as possible. This lead onto me creating a Typography diagram describing the different elements that construct a typeface.
I continued to test with my different prints in Photoshop to form a front page I had in mind, focusing on just typographic illustrations, which for me is something new, and I struggled to not use any other imagery.
I worked on the inside page of the magazine (which quickly turned into 2 pages) simultaneously to the front cover, and whenever I sat down to begin work, or just play around with it, I opened both files. I wanted continuity and the same style as the front cover to carry over to the article.
I wanted to add some balance to the blue parts (or possibly grey) I created some handmade writing/scribble with an old felt tip pen. I feel like they could be a good contrast to the textures so far.
I continued to test with the composition of the article page. I used a justified text in different column sizes.
Final:
I am quite pleased with my final outcomes. I feel like this works well as a typography magazine. The printing methods used allude to typography history, and I think work well as ‘typography illustrations.’ After testing different fonts, I decided to use Futura Medium for the text inside the magazine. I justified the text, and used different sized columns. I wanted to be as abstract as possible. I regret not doing an acetone transfer print for the text, but wanted to try digitally editing it in a similar way using some textures I had created. I also feel like I should’ve tested with more textures on the background, to fill smaller parts of the negative space (despite the space being a deliberate stylistic choice.)
I think I should’ve experimented more with the front cover. The non deliberate discovery which inspired the front was the acetate being placed on top of each other, which I found interesting. I will be using this method in the future. I wanted to stay away from other imagery when creating this magazine to try something different. I did not feel very confident to begin with but feel as if it works ok. I have definitely improved since the beginning of the Typography section, have learnt a lot and have found many new methods of working to improve on with future projects.
