Graphic Design Intro · Words To Know 1. Graphic Design: The art or skill of combining text and...
Transcript of Graphic Design Intro · Words To Know 1. Graphic Design: The art or skill of combining text and...
GRAPHIC DESIGN INTRO
Words To Know1. Graphic Design: The art or skill of combining text and pictures in
advertisements, magazines, or books.
2. Logo: A symbol or other design adopted by an organization to identify its products, uniform, vehicles, etc.
3. CMYK: A very common color mode used for printing, also known as “process colors”. The CMYK stands for the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
The letter K represents black as a way to not confuse with blue.
4. San Serif: A kind of font type that is void of the strokes on the end of letters that can be found on a “serif” typeface (see “serif”).
5. Serif: A type of font that has exaggerated strokes or details at the end of it’s letters (unlike “san serif” typefaces).
6. Bleed (bleed edge): when creating a design for print, a “bleed edge” needs to be added to the document’s page size. For example, a brochure with the
dimensions 8″ x 10″ needs to be created at something like 8.5″ x 10.5″. This
leaves room for the design to extend past the cut area.
7. Font: An assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes one size.
8. Corporate Identity: image is the manner in which a corporation, firm or business enterprise presents itself to the public (such as customers and
investors as well as employees).
Why Are Fonts Important
Using fonts that are easy to read are
key to presentation. The fonts add
value to your text. It helps readers to
perceive information from the text.
The correct choice of color, font
and text size can prove to be vital
for attracting your target audience.
Mini Lesson #1
In your sketch book create
7 original fonts. Represent
that font with a single letter
one upper case and one
lower case.
Brief History of Fonts and Typography1400’s: Guttenberg invented movable typefaces, giving the world a cheaper way to
obtain the written word. Up until this point, all written materials were done by hand,
and were very costly to purchase. Guttenburg also created the first typeface,
blackletter – it was dark, fairly practical, and intense, but not very legible.
1470: Nicolas Jenson created Roman Type, inspired by the text on ancient roman
buildings. It was far more readable than blackletter, and caught on quickly.
1501: Aldus Manutius created italics – a way to fit more words onto a page, saving
the printer money. Today, we use italics as a design detail or for emphasis when
writing.
1734: William Caslon created a typeface which features straighter serifs and much
more obvious contrasts between thin and bold strokes. Today, we call this type style
‘old style’.
1757: John Baskerville created what we now call Transitional type, a Roman-style
type, with very sharp serifs and lots of drastic contrast between thick and thin lines.
1780: Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni created the first ‘modern’ Roman
typefaces (Didot, and Bodoni). The contrasts were more extreme than ever before,
and created a very cool, fresh look.
Brief History of Fonts and Typography1815: Vincent Figgins created Egyptian, or Slab Serif – the first time a typeface
had serifs that were squares or boxes.
1816 William Caslon IV created the first typeface without any serifs at all. It was
widely rebuked at the time. This was the start of what we now consider Sans Serif
typefaces. During this time, type exploded, and many, many variations were
being created to accommodate advertising.
1920’s: Frederic Goudy became the world’s first full time type designer,
developing numerous groundbreaking typefaces, such as Copperplate Gothic,
Kennerly, and Goudy Old Style.
1957: Swiss designer Max Miedinger created Helvetica, the most loved typeface
of our time. This was a return to minimalism, and many other simplistic typefaces
such as Futura surfaced around this time period.
Present: With the internet, we have such a vast variety of old and new typefaces
available for us to peruse and use. All these typefaces give us an abundance of
options and looks for our designs today, and we’re not limited by just one or two
typefaces like we would have been a few hundred years ago.
Mini Lesson #2
Your turn, I would like for you to search on
the internet for designs with fonts and
typography. Save the pics and then post
them on the assignment on Seesaw. Make
sure you answer the questions I have
added to the assignment. Find 4-5 designs
you would like to share.
How to Choose Your Font
What Is Your Goal?
The first thing you have to do in
order to choose a typeface is
form a strong impression in your
mind about how you want your
audience to react to the text.
How to Choose Your FontLEGIBILITY
It may seem at first glance that legibility and
readability are the same thing, but they are not.
Legibility refers to the design of the typeface, as in
the width of the strokes, whether or not it has serifs,
the presence of novel type design elements etc. It is
easy to tell one letterform from another in a legible
typeface. For instance, decorative typefaces have
low legibility because they are primarily meant to
be seen at a glance, rather than read at length.
Conversely, typefaces designed for novels or
newspapers have very high legibility.
How to Choose Your FontLEGIBILITY CONTINUED
Choose typefaces with conventional letterforms. Letterforms composed of
unique shapes, artistic deformations, excessive ornamentation or other novel
design elements cause the reader to have to process what they are looking at
first, instead of just taking in the message. Novelty always comes at the cost of
immediate comprehension.
Choose typefaces with generous spacing. Tight tracking causes the eye to fill in
visual gaps between the various shapes that make up different letterforms, thus
slowing down the time it takes to both recognize letterforms and word and
sentence structures. Generous spacing allows the eyes to proceed as fast as
the cognitive skills of the reader will permit.
How to Choose Your FontREADABILITY
How your typeface is set, combined with the basic
legibility of the typeface, yields a certain level of
readability. Readability is the dynamic interaction of the
type style, size, tracking, leading, color and other
properties all combined into one overall impression.
They add up to a certain typographic style which has a
quantifiable degree of readability. For instance, you
could use a style that has an intentionally low
readability that is part of the message. Or you could
focus on designing a high readability because your
message is complicated, and you don’t want your type
style to hinder the audiences’ understanding in any
way. In most cases, communication comes before style,
so resolve readability first.
Mini Lesson#3In your sketchbooks I want you to create a font set. This will
include every letter from the alphabet. I want to see a capital
and lower case of each letter. Make sure the fonts are
readable and legible. Make sure the fonts are trying to also
communicate something. If this means to make them very
stylized or add designs in them do so. Decide if your fonts will
be san-serif or serif fonts. Create an original name for your font
set.