Typography - Task 3 / Type Design and Communication

02.06.2024 - 22.07.2024 / Week 7 - Week 13
Omar bin Shafik / 0371439
Typography / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Task 3 / Type Design and Communication

LECTURES

Week 7: We were given our Task 3 and given a quick lecture and tutorial on how we should proceed with the task. The first thing we had to do was break down some letters from a font of our choosing out of the 10 fonts given and write in several different styles for a given set of letters.

Week 8: independent study week

Week 9: We were given feedback on our written letters and had to digitise the sets that were approved by the lecturer. 

Week 10: We were given feedback on our digitisations of the letters that were approved.

Week 11: We were given some more individual feedback on our letter digitisations and tips on how we could improve them.

Week 12: We transferred our fonts to FontLab and adjusted the letter and character sidebearings according to the chart given in Microsoft Teams.

Week 13: We made posters using the fonts we made as a way to display them.

INSTRUCTIONS

Fig 1, Typography MIB, (10.06.2024)

ASSIGNMENTS

Letter Dissection
I picked out the Univers LT Std font to dissect.


Fig 2, Letters Dissection, (10.06.2024)

I noticed in that the vertical strokes in the letter "H" are slightly thicker than the vertical stroke. The stroke in "o" thins out at the top and bottom, the letter itself is also thinner than it is wider. The "g" and the "b" have this thing where main stroke doesn't line up before and after the bowl. The counter of both letters don't line up with the side of the main stroke either. The top of the main stroke for the letter "g" and the bottom of the main stroke for the letter "b" also slightly curve away from the bowl. The descender for "g" also doesn't line up with the side of the bowl.

Typeface Development

Sketches
I started writing out letters on graph paper. At first I had to get used to the pens because the way I had to hold the pens was new to me. I'm used to using ballpoint pens to write which means I could hold it at more or less any angle and it would still write the way I want. Having to use brush pens and flat nib pens outside of highlighters was fairly new to me. I was just writing trying to experiment with shapes and different writing styles.

Fig 3, Initial Letterform Sketches, (14.06.2024)


By the 9th week I had a few letterforms that I was feeling good about and asked for Sir Vinod to review them. He said that they were still in quite a rough state and still too inconsistent. After that I worked on refining them more, holding my pens more steadily and getting more consistent strokes.

Fig 4, First Review, (21.06.2024)

By the next week I had a few letterforms I was feeling confident about again and asked for a review. I had gotten and ok for 9 and 4 so I decided on refining them further.

Fig 5, Second Review, (29.06.2024)

Fig 6, Further Refining, (30.06.2024)

After another week I ended up with roughly what my final letters look like before digitising.

Fig 7, Final Sketches, (02.07.2024)

Digitisation

Digitising
I started out with putting an image of my sketch under the layer I would be working on and lowering the opacity of the image. I then started out blocking out the letters using rectangle shapes. I started carving them out to fit the sketch and made a few adjustments to improve the look a little.

Fig 8, Sketch in Illustrator, (08.07.2024)

Fig 9, Initial Shapes, (08.07.2024)

After completing the shapes, I merged them to form singular shapes for each letter and character. This was so that transferring it to FontLab would be easier.

Fig 10, Final Shapes; Bottom: Unmerged Shapes with Grid Lines, Top: Merged Shapes, (14.07.2024)
Fig 11, Final Font, (14.07.2024)
Fig 12, Final Font PDF, (14.07.2024)

FontLab
I transferred the completed shapes to FontLab. We were given a chart to follow in Microsoft Teams to adjust the sidebearings of each letter and character. I call the font Thicky.

Fig 13, Transferred Shapes to FontLab, (17.07.2024)

After this we had to make a poster using the font we made. I made a few drafts just to see what I could do with the font. 

Download the font here: Thicky Regular

Fig 14, Poster Drafts, (19.07.2024)

I eventually settled on something much different and tried to also apply some type expression in the poster. This is my Final poster design using the font I made. 

Fig 15, Poster Final, (19.07.2024)

Fig 16, Poster Final PDF, (19.07.2024)

FEEDBACK

Week 8:
No feedback

Week 9:
general feedback: 
Pen should be held at a fixed angle when writing. writing should seem natural, not illustrated. Beginning and ending of strokes should face opposite each other.

specific feedback: 
Some sketches look too illustrated. use contrast within strokes more effectively to add character to a letterform.  remember to hold the pen at a fixed angle.

Week 10: 
General feedback: 
the top stroke of the s should be smaller than the bottom. Don't trace the sketch. If start out with brush tool, always going to finish with shape tools for refinement.

Specific feedback: 
Post digitization. if starting out with shape tool its fine, will still refine with shape tool in the end.

Week 11:
Fiddle with the e to make it look better. Fix the exclamation mark and hashtag.

Week 12:
Follow the chart given in MS Teams to space the letters properly. Sir Vinod did it anyways. Thank you Sir Vinod.

Week 13:
Experiment more in creating the poster, search up typography posters online and take examples from those.

REFLECTIONS

Experience
Getting used to writing with the pens took me a while but I did end up getting used to it enough to where I was able to write somewhat consistently with a good form. Digitising was honestly a little challenging in illustrator, but the transferring to FontLab was simple enough. 

Observation
When I was digitising my letters, I had to pay much more attention to certain details like the top of the "s" having to be smaller than the bottom and that what should be curved. For the special characters too, I had to do them a different way from the regular letters, which I didn't know of until I was told by Sir Vinod.

Findings
I learned that there is a lot of attention to detail that goes into creating a font. The way you shape a form and the length of strokes can contribute greatly to the feel of a font even if its just seems like a miniscule detail.

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