Noun.
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing, and letter-spacing, as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters.
A quote that stood out to me was that “95% of the information on the web is written language…the main discipline of shaping written information…typography”. I hadn’t realised how much we rely on typography in our every day lives, so it is vital designers are able to use it correctly.
Willi Kunz:
Kunz was born in 1943 and is originally from Switzerland but moved to the US in 1970. He has been called an ‘information architect’, as a result of he uses a visual hierarchy to bring order and clarity to the messages he is trying to give. Kunz played a key role in introducing a new type of typography. Wolfgang Weingart was a huge inspiration to Kunz, and led him to begin a series of typographic interpretations of writings by Marshall McLuhan. These were visualised by contrasting weights, geometric forms, unorthodox lettering and spacing. Kunz doesn’t use a grid when designing, he simply starts the design and lets it grow from there.
Wolfgang Weingart:
Weingart (1941-2021) was an internationally known graphic designer and typographer. His work and designs are placed into the category of Swiss Typography and is often called the ‘father’ of New Wave Typography. Weingart’s influence on the growth of typography though his teachings and designs, is unparalleled. He once said that “anyone who uses Helvetica knows nothing about typefaces typography”, and this quote highlights the change he brought to type design.
Jan Tschichold:
Tschichold was a German calligrapher, typographer and book designer, born in 1902 and died in 1974, and he played a major role in the development in graphic design during the 20th century by developing and promoting the principles of typographic modernism. Tschichold was so important in terms of typographic development because of his role as an advocate for standardised paper sizes and the rules of type hierarchy, which was and still is used by designers worldwide. He is the designer of the iconic Penguin book covers and created numerous typefaces including Transit, Zeus and Sabon. Tschichold was inspired by the Bauhaus school of design, which was a leading influence in the design movements that were happening during the century. His use of symmetry, asymmetry and sans-serif typography shaped the graphic design, printing and typographic industry as we know it.
TASK…
Looking at the single letterform, F, I explored how I could change character within a 3×3 grid but adding and subtracting parts of it. This allowed me to see what features of the letter are what makes it recognisable and if it can be confused with another letter. I took inspiration from the designers previously looked at, specifically Weingart, as the methods of rotating, stretching and cutting letters are a key feature of his work.
TASK…
Manipulating letterforms again, taking inspiration from the previous three designers, I chose the letter L this time, and explored taking away parts of it and see if I could create a new shape or letterform. My end result was something that could be interpreted to be multiple things, but the main thing I was going for was that I manipulated the letter and changed it into an abstract looking ’n’.
TASK…
Moving on from and using what I learned from the first two tasks, I then combined two letters to create a new shape. I decided on lowercase ‘d’ and ‘p’, as they are similar shapes so I wanted to look at how I could manipulate them into being symmetrical.
As well as single letterforms, words can be manipulated as well, whether this be using all uppercase or lowercase, having correct grammar and adding spacing that shouldn’t be there, which can break the world into multiple smaller words. The latter is called kerning, which relates to the spacing between individual letters or characters. This changes to suit certain letters, depending mainly on the angle of the sides. If the kerning isn’t correct, it can lead to people misinterpreting the message. To have a closer look at this, using the Kerntype game, I was able to see if I could guess the correct kerning needed for words.
Tracking in typography is the decreasing and increasing of the horizontal spacing between letterforms, and works well alongside kerning. Loose tracking means the spaces are larger and smaller gaps is called tight tracking. Before the digital age of typography, designers used a method called Letraset, where individual letters were transferred onto paper. This was a very time consuming process, which I discovered when I tried using it during class.
In terms of the paragraph, measure and alignment is key. If it’s too wide or too narrow it’ll be difficult to read, and the alignment directs the read where to read. We naturally read left to right, so therefore left alignment is mainly used to help the viewer. Even something that seems as basic as the page is can be used to shape the typography.
TASK…
After being given the message on Ant Middleton’s show, I placed text onto a page in a way I thought best suited the message. I used the type size as the main way of attracting the attention to the main parts, but also the alignment and played around with the ‘over’ so that it actually over the word ‘muscle’. For the parts of the message I considered to be less important, I reduced the weight, so that it didn’t take from the main pieces of information.
Josef Muller-Brockmann’s three stages of designing grid systems seem simple, but cannot be played down on the role they play:
- Figure out the page size
- Divide it into a grid
- Start designing
These grids give designers a sold visual and structural balance when it comes to designing websites. The combination of columns and rows are used to organise the information which is being delivered to the reader.
TASK…
Taking one of Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles for Good Design and using a grid, I created a poster presenting my chosen principle. I picked ‘Good design is unobtrusive’ as I saw an opportunity to use multiple design options as well as the grid to show the message in a suitable way. I recognised how the grid helped me make sure all the parts of text where aligned correctly.
