Strategies For Visual Research: Typography

STRATEGIES FOR VISUAL RESEARCH:

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Background

Brief

Research & Observations

Play & Experiments

Developments

Conclusion

CONTENTS

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BACKGROUND

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Introduction

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The aim of this visual research project is to explore a chosen area and let the findings influence where it ends up and the final out come.

This body of work relates directly to a theoretical industry report that I have written, concerning the relationship between letter spacing and the audience. Looking at how the audience’s requirements influence the typographic choices that are made.

At the on set of this project, it was know that typography was going to be the chosen subject of this visual research project. However, there was a degree or uncertainty on how to approach this and where to specific. This therefore meant that it was necessary to carry out some preliminary research before the brief was written. This preliminary research would have a general look at typography to find out what interested me, as well as being relevant to the theoretical industry report being carried out. As a start point web search were carried out to find possible research techniques that could be used throughout this project. Then a visit to the campus library to find something that struck a spark with me. I was also helpful to visit the British Library and St Bride Library, as they are a valuable resource with exhibitions and information, with historical relevance such as Johann Gutenberg and slightly more current resources such as Desmond Jeffery’s exhibition

on letterpress. With this information it is then possible to start thinking about the brief and specializing this visual research. The technique has been used to do this is called the six thinking men where the questions: what, where, when, how, why and who? This is used to raise any questions that were raised during the preliminary research. Then these questions are used to write the brief as a start point for this project, and then see where the project takes us.

After the brief has been defined further more specific in depth observations and research are required. This is where I would be looking for direct inspiration my experiments to be carried out later on. When it comes to the experiments I have introduced an element of play, with only two rules, to get my hands on and have fun with type. After playing with the type, it is necessary to gather my thoughts and develop my findings in some way that enables the developed techniques to be displayed in a suitable way.

Enjoy

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The Basic Methods of Research

Surveys With concise and straightforward questionnaires, you can analyze a sample group that represents your target market. The larger the sample, the more reliable your results will be.

Personal interviews. Like focus groups, personal interviews include unstructured, open-ended questions. They usually last for about an hour and are typically recorded.

Focus groups and personal interviews provide more subjective data than surveys. The results are not statistically reliable, which means that they usually don't represent a large enough segment of the population. Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insights into customer attitudes and are excellent ways to uncover issues related to new products or service development.

Introduction to academic design research

“The overall aim of design research is to develop an accessible, robust body of knowledge that enhances our understanding of design processes, applications, methods and contexts. Often, this knowledge helps to define best practice and workable methods in dealing with design and design related problems. It therefore has considerable potential for improving our use and management of design.”

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk

Primary Research

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Mood boardsA collection of images and found objects the helps set the mood of the project. A mood board will also work as a quick reference to keep referring to while working to help give inspiration. I will also help when trying to experiment with things relevant to my project.

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I gathered some images from David Jury’s ‘Letterpress New Applications for Traditional Skills’ (2006) book to help give me some inspiration. And I started to question why spacing needs to be in straight lines.

This then led me to start thinking about ‘type as image’. I started to think about the process and decided that letterpress would be an ideal way to explore type.

This is a traditional way to look at the shapes that form a character. I used letterpress to help me explore small and large point size type and how they work together.

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The catalogue from the St. Bride Library Exhibition

A little about the Library:St Bride Library was opened in 1895. It was both a technical library and printing school; the school eventually moved out and is now the London College of Communication. The Library is now situated in Ludgate Circus, at the Eastern end of Fleet Street.

St Bride Library’s collections cover all aspects of printing—paper and binding; graphic design, typography, typefaces and calligraphy; illustration and printmaking; publishing and bookselling; and the social and economic side of printing and its allied trades. They continue to develop their position as the definitive source for typographic information and the world’s foremost printing, technical and graphic arts library.

With printing technology changing at an unprecedented pace, their collections provide an increasingly important focal point both for the modern industry, and for the study of the traditional means by which words and images have been reproduced and distributed.

I went to see an exhibition at the St. Bride Library called ‘Late Letterpress The Work of Desmond Jeffery’. (From 27th October to 13 November 2009)

As a direct and elegant means of putting words on paper, letterpress remained vigorous until the end of its useful life about forty years ago. In 1950 the power of this unmediated route from original text to printed sheet caught the imagination of a young returning serviceman, Desmond Jeffery. (ref: the St. Bride web site.)

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Catalogue of the first exhibition at the Partisan coffee house, 1958Red Paper 1, 1969

I liked these images as they are using type to produce the image on the poster or card, by playing around with size colour and layout.

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Johann Gutenberg’s 42-line BibleBritish Library C.9d3Copyright © The British Library Board

The British Library (BL) is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is located in London and is one of the world’s largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings and much more. Its book collection is second only to the American Library of Congress. The Library’s collections include around 25 million books, along with substantial additional collection of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC. (Ref, Wikipedia)

The examples I am looking at here are all from key historical books: Gutenberg’s Bible, New Testament and The Lindisfarne Gospels. I have chosen these as examples to look at as the have all have a hand made element in the making of them. The Gutenberg Bible uses letterpress and the others are hand written. They all are extremely beautiful pieces in there own way especially what you consider the detain in them all.

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The Lindisfarne Gospels, one of Britain’s greatest art treasuresBritish Library Cotton MS Nero D.IVCopyright © The British Library Board

William Tyndale: New TestamentBritish Library C.188.a.17Copyright © The British Library Board

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Looking for brief inspiration… Six thinking men.

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What What different materials can be used to explore type?What is the main problem of type spacing?What are the different techniques used in letter spacing in letterpress?What to do next?

WhereWhere is spacing used?Where is spacing ignored?

WhenWhen can I apply positive and negative space to type layout?

HowHow does scale affect the spacing?How can I challenge the positive negative space of type?

WhyWhy is spacing so important?Why do we need spacing?Why can’t it all be the same?Why does type spacing need to be in straight lines?

WhoWho is a good person to help me with this?Who would be good to talk to about this?Who has pushed the limits of spacing in type?

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My Brief

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I will be investigating how different materials and techniques affect type spacing.

My possible problems:What are the different materials or techniques that can be used in type layout?Where does technique affect the way type looks?How can I explore positive and negative space?Why do we need spacing?Who pushes the limits of spacing?

How I might solve the problems? (Research methods I’m going to try)Lots of experimentations in letterpress: with, with out and good, bad as spacing comparisons.Explore different ways of producing the type form e.g. Found objects, potato stamps.

Time scale1st draft 22nd Oct2nd draft 12th NovFormative hand in 19th NovPresentation 26th NovDead line 28th Jan

Criteria to judge successIn depth research Varied experimentation in materials and techniques Develop from this

RESEARCH &

OBSERVATIONS

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Alan Kitchen

On the right are some images that I found on Alan Kitchen’s web site. I like the use of large colourful Letter overlapping each other to produce an image with the words still remaining legible. He is celebrating the letter form itself.

Here I have used Kitchens method of playing with font size, spacing, layout, colour and overlapping to produce my own layouts. I find the simple playful style really effective and inspiring.

FormFollowsFunctionLEGIBLE

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Illustrator Spacing Experiments This experiment ais inspired by some found images, considering positive and negative space in an interesting and effective way by using Illustrator. The first experiment looks at larger type experimenting with colour and the space on the page to define the shapes on the characters. This technique would be more suitable for heading text as if it was used for body text some parts may become illegible or would need to be large to keep it legible.

The next experiment is thinking about large amounts of text most likely to be body text. I then looked at body text (using place holder text) and what happens when almost all of the leading is taken out and the background space used to make the letters legible. This only really works when the text is on a large scale or point size as otherwise the page becomes very busy and difficult to read.

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The results of these experiments produced some interesting layouts. They addressed the limits of spacing by using the positive negative space. However they only really work at a larger size as if they were reduced to something like 12pt legibility would become an issue.

To develop this further, the weight of the font could be adjusted and experimented with. It would also be interesting to experiment with a large amount of spacing rather then reduced spacing to find which is the most effective balance between all the elements.

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These are examples that I have found of type being uses to produce an image. I find these interesting as I like how some of the images use the shapes of the letters to form the images and the letter it’s self becomes unimportant as an individual.

I will use these images as inspiration in producing my own type images.

Form Follows Function

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Here are some collected images of handwritten notices. I find it interesting how people Like to communicate their message. We tend to unknowingly give our hand writing a certain amount of spacing to make our message legible. Also some people prefer to writhe sings like these in capitol and others written in lowercase but at a larger size.

It is interesting to see how people handle mistakes such as running out of space or spelling mistakes or even if they are noticed.

Hand Written Signs

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In a similar way to the previous page in continued to look at hand written text, but I thought it would be interesting to have a look at market stall signs. This is because I have found that a lot of market stalls use a similar style of writing out their signs. Its also interesting who different market stall depending on there location use different media to produce their signs. For example pen to paper of a wipe clean surface or chalk on a chalk board or even pre printed then laminated signs.

Market Stall Signs

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For inspiration I went to visit St. Brides Library and The British Library.

On my day out I came across these images which I found interesting and you not only look at the lettering, you look at the letter in its surroundings as a whole.

I particularly like the British Library signing as it uses the surrounding as part of the positive negative space and will change as the light and weather changes.

Type in The Enviroment

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After a brief visit to the letterpress workshop I collected these images from the scrap bin. On looking at all of my finding spread out on the table I found the most interesting thing about what I had was the mistakes and how interesting they were and how they could be developed the prints are made really interesting images with smudges and overlapping letters producing interesting effects.

This got me thinking about mistakes as something I could develop alongside my type as image theme, as if I set out to make mistakes they would not be a true mistake and therefore not a natural progression.

Letterpress

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The book ‘All Messed Up’ by Anna Gerber, was suggested to me, as it was interesting food for thought. The images on the opposite page look at how mistakes are made and how they can be used to enhance the pieces.

This is a subject the continues to interest me however it is something that I will have to learn to be aware of and to pick things up as I work. As it will be hard to purposely make mistakes, but at the same time I need to loose my worry of making mistakes as this where interesting things happen.

Exploring Mistakes

PL AY & EXPERIMENTS

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To get me started I just started to play with letters. Firstly in letterpress practising with the process in the workshop. Next generally doodling free hand with letters. Then I brought some Letraset and started to work with that and its a lot harder than you would think.

Looking at the collection I’m images here I think that the leftover Letraset sheet is the most interesting as my mind tries to fill in the gaps.

Experimentation

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Before LetterpressAs a result of the research so far, it decided to go into the letterpress work shop and start experimenting, with the techniques.

Before entering the work shop I produced some rough layouts in Illustrator so that I had a starting point of what kind of layouts to do.

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For the last set of experiments, I went into the letterpress workshop and started experimenting, with the techniques available in there. To start with some rough layouts were produced in Illustrator, so that there was a starting point. Before addressing leading and kerning I started with the larger letters to gain confidence with the media, arranging the letters in various ways while still being aware of the space around them, then placed the plate in the manual printing bed, which inks the blocks, then after adding the paper, rolls out an even print.

Letterpress and Mistakes in Letterpress

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The result of this experiment was a series of prints that look more like images than words on a page with a conceptual feel about them. Although it would be possible to produce these images digitally the process in producing them manually is a lot more creative and the element of not being perfect adds something to them, for example not being able to find enough letters of the same size and font forces you to improvise creating interesting outcomes. The fact that it is not being printed digitally also means that no two prints will be exactly the same and that there will be mistakes while printing. This was an important experiment; as when handling the letter blocks manually I had to physically think about the spaces and fill them on the plate into prevent the blocks from moving when being put through the print roller. This means I had to constantly be aware of where there is and is not space.

To develop this further you could try to recreate the same style of prints digitally, as this would be an interesting contrast to see what tasks would be easier and harder by doing it this way. It would also be interesting see the difference in the print outcomes if you printed the letters manually one by one, as it may be less accurate but you could reduce or eliminate all spacing by overlapping some letters.

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This experiment as with the last took place in the letterpress workshop. However, this time I was looking at body text type setting, with metal type. When laying out the text it has to be done upside-down and backwards, personally I struggled with getting the correct spelling, as you can see in ‘Legible’. When setting the text you do a line at a time and you start with the longest line first as the other lines will need metal blocks on the end to fill out the rest of the line. You also set the text upside-down as when you have finished each line you will need to place a thin piece of lead on line before you move on to the next line. After printing in the same way as the previous experiment different thicknesses of lead were placed between the lines to see what effects were produced.

Typesetting Block Text in letterpress

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The result of this was a series of prints that look at letterpress with small type and various leading. This technique made me appreciate how much software does just by a click of a button, as when doing the same adjustment in typesetting can be rather time consuming. These experiments were a useful and a steep learning curve, as there is a lot to consider when setting lines of text.

To develop this further the tracking of the text could be explored and experimented with to experience the technicalities that are involved in this kind of adjustment. Also experiments in reducing the leading right down, looking at splitting the text onto two plates to enable this to happen would be useful.

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Potato Printing This experiment was conducted with a letterpress workshop in mind using fixed stamps to produce a type arrangement. Stamps were made out of potato with letters cut out of the potato. It was important to remember to cut out the letters in reverse while ensuring they all stayed in proportion to one another. When the stamps had been made it was possible to experiment with different with different layouts. After using the stamps to produce prints, the prints were then scanned in, cleaned up and edited changing the colours around.

This way of working with type form was ideal to do at home, as it is possible to make your own stamps. These potato stamps make it possible to experiment with different layouts and spacing while gaining a ‘hands on’ experience. Examples of the resulting prints are given below:

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The results of this experiment were pleasing as after the prints had been cleaned up, as they provided a good example on what can be done with the potato stamp. Although the experiments were not focused on spacing they gave valuable experience of manually working with letterforms. To develop this technique further, the scans could be worked up by editing the colours or even producing an entire hand made typeface originating from the potato stamps.

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Hand Rendering

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate using bold and fine lettering to see how the weight of the type affects spacing requirements. This was done by using wide and narrow paintbrushes and painting the letters free hand. The results of this experiment show clearly, as shown in the example that, the heavy weight type makes the word appear crowded and finer lettering is easier to read as there is more space around the letters to allow the eye to process the information. This is a clear example of where the designer needs to consider the type form and its job when arranging type, as the bolder out of the two may become clearer if more space allowed around the letters.

To develop this it would be useful to, experiment further with different combinations of spacing and letter weight, gaining experience in which combinations work better than others and what feel they give, so when it comes to producing layouts digitally there will be a background knowledge of what will and will not work for the required job.

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This experiment revolved around small individual rubber letter stamps that can be found in most large local supermarkets in the card making section. Prints were produced in a playful way, experimenting with different spacing and colour combinations. The prints were then scanned in, cleaned up and manipulated in Photoshop.

Mini Rubber Stamps

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The results were interesting as the combination of different spacing, colours and the random element of using the stamps started to produce interesting patterns, where some letter parts faded and other parts became more intense. This technique however, is not so appropriate to use for looking at spacing, as when using the stamp it is hard to see exactly where the letter is being placed in regards to the previous letter. This means that the random nature of this technique eliminates the ability to be accurate which means it is difficult to have the spacing constant throughout the layout.

To develop this further the random element of the stamps could be explored solving the problem of achieving the accuracy needed when considering letter spacing.

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Plastic Letter Stencil This experiment is a fun quick way of playing with type, quite simply using a plastic letter stencil to produce the write words. It was possible to play around with different solid type and outlined type.

The results were a bit uninspiring as after a couple of experiments it became clear that the technique is limited to one type style which is very rigid. Using these stencils doesn’t really give as much of a hands on experience as I was hoping for, as it is similar to working with digital type, as it is just placing the letters with a fixed form. However, on reflection this would be an effective way to play with spacing and produce layout drafts by hand quickly.

To develop this, the stencils could be used as a way of producing type layouts very quickly as roughs. This is beneficial as when a designer works quickly they produce lots of outcomes and options to develop, whilst losing their inhibitions.

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Playing With Paper

This experiment is looking at different techniques of creating lettering with paper. The first experiment has been done by ripping paper to form the letter shapes, which make up a word with out any letter spacing. The second experiment has been carried out by gluing and scrunching up tissue paper in to balls and sticking them down to from letter shapes. When arranging the tissue paper to form the letters it would be possible to consider and adjust the spacing accordingly however in this case no letter spacing has been used.

The results of this are quite interesting as the spacing has been almost removed and yet the words are still legible. However, not all letters are clear and merge into the next, which cause problems when you start to play around with scale. Also once the word has been completed it is final and cant be edited even if it was scanned into Photoshop editing it would remove the character of the shape forming the letters.

To develop this further the letters could tear out in a way that creates finer letters, which may allow room for rescaling. To develop the tissue paper experiment it could be repeated with different letter spacing.

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Glue & Textures

This experiment involved an element of surprise in regards to the outcome. PVA glue was used to write out the letters then food granules (in this case polenta) were pored on to the paper and it was left for the glue to dry. After the glue was allowed to dry the excess granules were tipped off the paper revealing the letterforms.

The results of this technique are very unpredictable meaning that is uses would be very limited. It was very difficult to control where the glue went this meant that the letter spacing is very inconsistent and hard to judge. However, this technique has produced some interesting outcomes and are very quick to produce. So this technique could be used when looking for inspiration, as it is very hands on with an unpredictable outcome.

To develop this technique, you could investigate a method of regulating the spacing or even making the out come slightly more predictable. Perhaps the use of a stencil of masking fluid for the spacing could help this issue.

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Layers of pulses This experiment uses pulses such as cracked wheat and lentils. The letters were drawn out and then built up in layers using the pulses and lots of PVA glue to form the letters, giving a bumpy textured finish.

The result of this method was a lot easer to control the outcome in comparison to the previous technique, as the letters are built up in gradual layers and the spacing is roughly planned out before hand. However, as with everything that is done manually it is impossible to control everything, as in this case the thickness of the letters grew due to the nature of the material so as the layers built up the planed letter spacing reduced. This is a very impractical technique, as it takes time to dry then it is very delicate and parts fall off easily.

To develop this further the pieces can be scanned into Photoshop and digitised and cleaned up and the scale and spacing cam be easily edited with out the mess.

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Reverse ImageThis experiment looks at lettering being reversed out of something. Letters were drawn out to give a rough idea of layout, then layers of rice were built up using PVA glue with the letters being scraped out of the rice as the layers were built up. This was repeated until there was a thick enough covering of rice to make the letters clear.

The result of this is very effective and the letters are very clear. It was also possible to edit the outcome to an extent as the glue and rice dried. The spacing around the letters is what forms the word.

To develop this further, the use of different materials can be explored looking at scale and how this effects the detail that can or can not be added to the letters.

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Typography: an Overview

Tracing Printed Digital type

This experiment looks at different techniques of creating lettering by tracing printed digital type, then editing it back on the computer. I first created and printed my desired text then on a light box I freely traced the copy. Then I scanned it back into Photoshop to clean up the image. Next I imported it into Illustrator to create a live trace and a vector of my hand drawn lettering. This process has gone full circle, digitally printed as a start point then manually hand drawn then finally back in to digital document but this time with more emphasis on the form and appearance of he letter form.

The result of this is a very clean and easy to edit piece of lettering. This is because you are using the technology to space everything out then you manually create the letters adding charter and also giving you a feel of the letters forms that you are working with.

To develop this further, this method could be carried out for an entire alphabet producing an entire hand made font. This would enable you to play around with spacing and scale easily. Also in the process or producing the font you would gain a full understanding your hand madefonts form.

D E V EL O P ME N T S

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The Development Process

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So far I have looked at exciting type examples then played around with type conducting various experiments with various techniques and materials. The next step is to develop and apply the techniques that I have found. I considered various ways of doing this, such as posters, lefts, and post cards. I decided that postcards would the most useful and effective to apply these techniques. As they are a size that is practical to carry with and are also something that is more likely to be kept on a desk and viewed regularly and used as inspiration for later work. They could possibly be used as a kind of business card in the future.

So to take this further it was necessary to look at various post cards with text on and the most logical content was cards with various quotes. It was decided to keep the quotes subject relevant to typography, so it was also necessary to collect various typographic quotes to chose from. The post cards will be in black and white as I want to keep them simple as possible. To ensure that they work together as a series of post cards. This will also so add emphasis on the form and spacing of the letters.

To produce the final postcards all the information that has been collected throughout this visual research project has been applied.

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Postcard’s with Quotes

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“As the saying goes, type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.” Matthew Carter

“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.” Emil Ruder

“Faces of type are like men’s faces. They have their own expression; their complexion and peculiar twists and turns of line identify them immediately to friends, to whom each is full of identity.” J.L. Frazier

“Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts.” El Lizzitsky

“Wouldn’t it be interesting if there were only one typeface in the world? Designers would really have to think about the idea behind their designs instead of covering ir up with fancy typefaces. One, universal typeface would really strip away all the flashy emptiness in design. And, of course, that one typeface would have to be Helvetica.” Erik Kessels

“This then is the scribe’s direct purpose : the making of useful things legibly beautiful.” Edward Johnston

“Anyone who would letterspace black letter would steal sheep.” Frederick Goudy

Possible Quotes For The Postcards

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“You cannot understand typography and typefaces without knowledge and you can’t keep that knowledge for only yourself. Type design is a cultural act, not just a few lines of data in the corner of a hard disk.” Jean-François Porchez

“Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced.” Helmut Schmid

“To be married to a wife who can set type is happiness indeed.” Walter Tracy

Negative space is magical-create it, don’t just fill it up! Timothy Samara

“ Design thinking is about analyzing situations and becoming conscious.”Ellen Lupton

“ Typography is what language looks like.”Ellen Lupton

“ Are some free fonts a gift to humanity rather than a blight on typographic civilization ?” Ellen Lupton

= Chosen Quotes

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For this quote postcard I decided to use the stencil technique. However to over come the initial problems I encountered in my earlier experiment, I used lined paper place onto a light box. This enabled me to keep the text straight and gain regular line spacing. This was a very straightforward post card that didn’t require much if any editing. The letters clearly do their job well.

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This postcard uses the technique of tracing digital lettering to form you own digital type. I created this in the same way as explained in the experiment on page 74. Then I cleaned it up and I decided that it looked more appealing as a reversed image with white text on a black background as the lines seem to stand out as a negative image. Again this technique was very simple to carry out and required little development.

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For this postcard I have used the torn paper technique shown in the experiment on page 66. This was quite difficult to produce, as mentioned in the original experiment, the letters needed to be a lot finer for the words to be legible when reduced in size. This meant when making up the words they were very delicate and kept tearing in the wrong place. However once the words have been scanned into Photoshop, laid out to form the quote and applied to the postcard, I feel that they work very well.

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This was one of the most difficult postcards to get right. To produce the quote I used the mini rubber stamps mentioned on page 60. To try and get even spacing of the letter stamps I used lined paper on a light box. This helped quite a bit but not all the stamps are stuck exactly square to the wooden blocks. Which meant it was difficult to line everything up evenly. After completing the quote I scanned it into Photoshop and removed the colour simplifying the image. The gray scale quote was then applied to the postcard and a rough was printed.

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On printing the postcard I discovered the quote was very if not impossible to read, although produced an interesting pattern, but practical for this purpose.

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To overcome this problem with out starting from the beginning I had to come up with a solution either manually or digitally. I found that by removing the square pattern from around the letters simplified the form. So in Photoshop I selected and removed these shapes simplifying the letter therefore making them easier to read. I then repeated the process of making this a black and white image then adjusted the contrast making the letters darker and more defined against the white background, then again applied it to the postcard.

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The technique used is an exploration of the initial experiments carried out on pages 70 and 72, using rice and lentils to form the letters either in a positive image or in a reverse image of the letters drawn into something. Firstly I used granulated sugar spread out on to black paper and drew the letters out into this. However, the outcome of this was not that clear or constant, also when all the words had been completed there would be lots on inconsistent distracting shapes around the words. The only of doing this would be to do it on a massive scale with the whole quote drawn out in one pile of sugar. This however, would not be possible to do in a practical way. So I decided to look at using rice to form the letters.

This seemed to look a lot more effective and clearer. I had to work out which letters I need to form the quote and produce them one by one photographing them as I went. I then turned them to black and white and pieced them together in Photoshop. Once the quote was finished I applied it to the postcard and I feel that it works really well.

CONCLUSION

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Conclusion As this project evolved I found that the findings of the research and outcomes of the experiments dictated where the project would go next, weather more experiments, research or developments were needed. This process of research was a natural progression through the work, which was beneficial as the brief could be adapted to fit the direction of the work. The process consisted of initial research to identify a design problem and enable the brief to be written. Then more in depth research and observations were carried, to gain a body of practical and experimental work. Which gave me a starting point for my playful experiments. I then hand to step back and look at what I have gathered and how to apply the newfound techniques. So further research into quote postcard and subject relevant quotes was needed. It was then necessary to develop all of the elements of what I have collected to date into something that would act as a showcase of my findings by producing prototypes and test pieces.

This visual research project was a very useful exercise, as it has highlighted the importance of a strong design process, to produce effective and relevant pieces of work. I have learnt that the stronger each stage of the process is the easier the next stage will be and that the stages will naturally lead to one another adapting along the way. To start with I found it difficult to write my brief and specify on an interesting subject that would support my Industrial

In conclusion, I feel that this project has been greatly successful. The purpose of this visual research project was to explore typography and type spacing through various media and techniques. Specifically taking a look at how different way of producing affect the type spacing requirements. Personally I felt it was important have a strong manual approach towards the experiments. I felt that this was important, as I have found this to be the best way to discover and truly understand type or any other graphic technique for that matter.

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report. However, after getting stuck into the initial research it all started to click. However, I did encounter some difficulties during the project in that every now and then I lost my way and became despondent loosing focus. To over come this I took a step back and looked at what I have collected analyzing my findings and then considered the purpose of my brief. This then helped me decide weather further experiments or research was needed pin pointing any gaps or week spots.

I chose to showcase my findings as a series of postcards, with typographic quotes on them. Applying the developed techniques from my experiments for the content of the postcards. I felt that this would be ideal due to the size, as they would be a practical reminder of what was found out on this project and a nice image or quote to have up in your work area. I am pleased with how my postcards have turned out as the letters forming the quotes on them appear to be more like a picture rather than a piece of text. The viewer looks at the form and shapes of the letters before actually reading them, the message almost becomes unimportant, which in this case is what I wanted. However, to apply these techniques in other situations they may need further development to help find a happy medium between seeing the beautiful letter form and reading the content. If I were to develop these cards further I would firstly look at the paper or card they are

printed on as the really need to printed on a much thicker card, as at the moment they are a bit flimsy and would not be very durable. Also to increase the durability of the cards I feel a glossy print may be more beneficial. It would also be interesting to look at other stationary that could use these methods.

Overall I feel that there is no set rule for type spacing. It is something that has to be considered on an individual basis, taking to consideration the purpose of the typography and form of the letters. Some of the techniques I looked at dictated the spacing in there form, for example torn paper letters didn’t need any spacing as to produce them they all had to be joined together. This has been a very useful project and I have learnt a lot. This project will be a useful reference for me to look back on in the future. It is also something that I feel I wall continue on with in my future work, in regards to my type space findings on typography and my now developed design process skills.

Strategies For Visual Research: Typography

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