Typography Questions: Answered

Here are the questions we were asked to answer on our blog for typography:


What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.? 
- Multicolumn grids provide flexible formats for publications that have a complex hierarchy or that integrate text and illustrations. The more columns you create on your grid, the the more flexible your grid becomes.

 How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?
-A line should be approx 12 to 14 inches long. When working with a 9 pt to 12 pt font, a maximum of ten to twelve words or sixty to seventy characters per line would be acceptable.

Why is the baseline grid used in design?
-Baseline grids serve to anchor all (or nearly all) layout elements to a common rhythm.


What are reasons to set type justified? ragged (unjustified)?
-Justifying your text makes a clean shape on the page as well as uses space efficiently. Flush left and jagged right goes along with the organic flow of language and avoids awkward spacing that justifying sometimes creates.

What is a typographic river?
-a typographic river is the space between words in paragraphs that form and connect between lines to form a river-looking space throughout the paragraph. This is distracting and awkward to the reader and should be fixed. 

What does clothesline, hangline or flow line mean?
-This is the imaginary line created on a page where the designer decides to "hang" the text from on that page.


What is type color/texture mean?
 -Type color is effected by the space in between the lines of text. Smaller lines = bolder type color. Thicker lines = less type color. Texture is created in typography by mixing bold typefaces with thin small ones; creating contrast with your use of type.

More about Rinko

1500 words about her:

Rink Kawauchi was born in Shiga, Japan, in 1972. She lives and works in Tokyo. Kawauchi studied at the Seian University of Art and Design and graduated in 1993. She started as a photographer on a freelance basis from 1997. In 2001 she launched herself into the photographic world with the simultaneous release of 3 books, UTATANE, HANABI and HANAKO, which created an overnight sensation in the photography world in Japan. In 2002, she was awarded prestigious 27^th Annual Kimura Ihei Award for two of the books, UTATANE and HANABI. Kawauchi has joined and held many group and solo exhibitions both at home and abroad to date.  Since then she has released a large number of monographs of which the latest addition is Illuminance. Her images seem simple, but they evoke primal emotions within the viewer. By paying attention to tiny gestures and incidental details within her environment she finds the extraordinary within the mundane. The editing within her books is crucial to her work and the stories she wishes to tell. The photographs show a large range of emotions and fundamentally address life itself, from the good all the way to the bad. Her work has been exhibited extensively in solo and group shows around the world and is in several public collections as the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Huis Marseille in Amsterdam.

A distinctive trait of her work lies both in the sequence and the juxtaposition of her images. This editing, she says, “differentiates between a photograph and an artwork. Seeing two images next to each other opens up the imagination and gives birth to something else. Flipping through the pages of the book, it can arouse feelings of excitement, sadness, or happiness—things that are hard [for me] to do with words.”

In her photos we see an iridescent diamond; a radiant blue sky; an elderly woman making onigiri; an infant suckling on a mother’s breast. At first glance, her photographs seem simple. But her talent lies in the way she is able to evoke the primal in all of us: a depth of raw human emotion. “It’s not enough that [the photograph] is beautiful,” says Kawauchi. “If it doesn’t move my heart, it won’t move anyone else’s heart.”

I was so excited to discover the elusive and internationally renowned Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi’s diary on Tumblr, filled with images shot with her cellphone. Due to Instagram, I have been drawn to cell phone photos taken by people I admire, because I am often curious about what they find interesting in their surroundings in an untouched and honest way. Rinko’s Diary is filled with personal images that bring light to her ability of finding beauty in everyday details and transient wonders.

http://www.rinkokawauchi.com/main/biography_eg.html

http://lightbox.time.com/2011/04/11/rinko-kawauchi%e2%80%99s-illuminance/#ixzz3IhAIOE9c

Below is an interview from

http://pingmag.jp/2006/08/11/10-questions-to-rinko-kawauchi-about-photography/

1. Miss Kawauchi, your photos bring me into a world of quiet contemplation, your camera captures the most intricate details of every day life, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary and revealing a lyrical rhythm to our daily lives and surroundings. Before I go into your motifs and motivation, may I start by asking you what cameras you use?

My favourite camera is the Rolleiflex. The reason why I like the Rolleiflex so much is because every aspect of it, the soft quality of the lens, the feeling of it in my hand, the clicking of the shutter, feels just right. But I also use normal compact cameras as well because some things can only be taken with a compact camera. I love that moment when I feel something and press the shutter.

2. Do you insist upon a certain kind of form of printing? For example, you often print your photos in a square format, is there a reason why?

The reason why I print in a square format is because the Rolleiflex camera which I use is a 6 x 6 camera. I dislike trimming photos because I when I take pictures I am taking them through a 6 x 6 lens and therefore from a 6 x 6 point of view. But I really like the square format it is a world that is neither vertical nor horizontal. Not being pulled by either feels like a world to me.

3. What do you actually like about photography?

I was comfortable with it the moment I held my first camera. Also, there is a kind of positive chemistry between me and taking photos …I think I really like the idea of cutting out a moment in time…it is almost like fulfilling a hunting instinct for me. By fulfilling this need I get a feeling of satisfaction. For example, I think its similar to going shopping, the feeling of going to get something is a really comfortable task and coming home and printing the images is very similar to cooking for me. This string of tasks is very important to my daily life.

4. You do commercial photography as well as your personal artwork. Can you tell us a little about the relationship between your work in an artistic and commercial context and about how you negotiate and deal with both.

At first I had been doing lots of commercial work, but my manager Mr. Takei encouraged me to spend more time on my artistic work. But it’s difficult to choose one or the other because if someone where to ask me whether I work better without commissioned work, that is not always the case. On the other hand, doing too much commercial work is no good either. But for example, the work I am displaying at the Photographers Gallery now is what I worked on whilst I worked on commissions and when I look back on myself, I am really glad that I was able to take so much work side by side with my commercial work. If I were given lots of time to concentrate just on my artistic works, I don’t know if I could do it. So for me it is best when I balance out the job of being a commercial photographer and an artistic photographer.

5 . I realized, that you take photos with your mobile phone, too for your online Rinko Diary you write! I find it extremely interesting to see a professional photographer taking photos on a mobile phone and presenting them to the public. Can you tell me a bit more about those photos and why you started the diary?

I thought taking photos with my mobile phone every day would be quite interesting, It’s a mobile phone camera and I am writing a diary, so I tried not to make it too artistic. Why I started it is because I really wanted to do something daily. Even more, I wanted it to be presented to others because doing something privately doesn’t ever last long, and going round in circles brings you back to the same place. I also thought that presenting it on the internet would make it feel live.

I also think it a really positive activity form me as it is in a sense therapeutic and helps me maintain my mental health.

6. And I heard that you are taking this diary further by publishing a book based on it! This also brings me to my next question: you have a prolific publishing career with 6 major beautiful titles and you tend to present a lot of your photography in book format. What exactly triggered your bookmaking career? Was it inspired by any special encounters?

My first photography book was published by Mr. Takei when he was still at Little More (He is now the president of Foil. Normally, publishing three books at once, especially photography books is completely unheard of, but he just did it and that was the beginning Books have always been like a friend to me from a very early age and when I spoke of my future dream in high school I said that, although I didn’t know exactly what kind of book it would be, I would publish a book in my own name one day.

Words on her famous “Illuminance” series from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2012/06/14/arts/in-the-light-of-rinko-kawauchi/#.VGOux16z5g0

The subjects in “Illuminance” vary: There are flower gardens and city streets, piles of snow, a rough ocean, even a tiny frog sitting on someone’s hand — all evoking a certain sense of stillness and beauty. The first thing visitors may notice is a lack of people. If someone is seen, he or she is but a hand or a foot.

In the exhibition’s catalogue, Kawauchi is described as an artist who chooses her subjects as a child would, focusing on small but fascinating details that are free of heavy symbolism and are reminders of the wonderful world around us. More often than not, she captures these in a limited spectrum of cool, pale blues that have become her signature colors.

According to Kawauchi, “Illuminance,” which she started in 2007, has been in production for the past several years. Every now and then, she adds or removes parts of the collection. This editing process — how the photos are chosen, what order to place them — is part of the artistic process and is more important to her than how or why the photographs were taken in the first place.

“Illuminance” is the scientific word for the measurement of light, and the essential role light has in producing photographs is always a theme. But the images in the series also often focus on the remarkable ways light can transform the world. The series’ main work, a shot taken at the base of a set of subway stairs, depicts commuters climbing the stairs as a ray of bright sunlight descends down the steps into the station. The effect, achieved without any post-production tricks, transforms a mundane scene into a sight resembling a divine passage to heaven.

7. What exactly do you like about the book format?

Movies and television offer you a form of time, which is in a sense imposed upon you and which you can’t really move away from or control. But with books, you can take them around and look at any part of them at your own pace. This is why, I can’t stand reading the same book with someone else. For example, I used to love the Shonen Jump Magazine when I was in elementary school and I hated it when my brother would try to read the comics while I did. I would say, “Stop interfering with my relationship with Dragonball!” (ha ha ha) I didn’t want anyone to interfere with the intimate world created between me and whatever I was reading. Books are such a big part of my life, they have helped me through a lot, and that is why I am so happy to be able to have a job where I can make books

8. Your books are collections of images often put together based on visual association and I find that these visual associations create space for engagement, curiosity, contemplation and imagination. How do you decide upon the composition of your books? How do you make your books flow so beautifully?

When I put together a book, I actually I have a conversation with myself. To be more specific, I begin by printing simply everything that I have recently taken and which interest me for whatever reason. And then I spread everything on my floor at home and start by taking an image in my hand. I then choose the next image, as if I were playing an image association game. I have moments where I say to myself, “I don’t know why but only this image can be next to this one”, or “this is a bit too well-coupled”. It’s almost like having some kind of discovery. In fact, photography is a succession of discoveries. When you take the photo you have a discovery. Then when you print you have another discovery. It is as if I am pressing the shutter a second time, because I notice things, I wasn’t aware before.

9. How did you cultivate your photographic/artistic sensibility?

People often say that I have a child’s eye. For example, I stare at ants gathering around sugar, or when I seek shelter from the rain, I gaze upon snails. These are things which you often do when you are a child aren’t they? I have a very similar sensibility to that.

I prefer listening to the small voices in our world, those which whisper. I have a feeling I am always being saved by these whispers, my eyes naturally focus on small things. Even when I walk around Shibuya, I find myself running towards a little batch of flowers. I find comfort in them. I think this is a very normal sensitivity, on the contrary to what people may think, I think its sound. But of course the world we live in is not only made up of grass growing by the road, it is composed by lots and lots of other elements and so I do also take pictures of many other things. Just taking flowers is not interesting. I experience the world with a feeling of equilibrium and I think it shows in my works.

Here are a couple more interviews I found of her on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n0WUhFQ_cY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ymxIjPQYF0

List of 50 words describing Rinko’s Work:

1. Airy: open to a free current of fresh air; breezy
2. Breathy
3. Light: an illuminating agent or source, as the sun, a lamp, or a beacon
4. Environmental: the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings
5. Sunny
6. Sparkly
7. Raw
8. Radiant
9. Simple
10. Breathtaking
11. Fluorescent
12. Carefree
13. Lighthearted
14. Glowing
15. Luminous
16. Lustrous
17. Humble
18. Modest
19. Elegant
20. Graceful
21. Supple
22. Smooth
23. Clear
24. Fair
25. Pure
26. Rich
27. Chaste
28. Clean
29. Green
30. Eco-friendly
31. Fresh: not salty, as water.
32. Crisp
33. Tasteful
34. Refined
35. Aesthetic
36. Appealing
37. Pretty
38. Unclouded
39. Vibrant
40. Refreshing: having the power to restore freshness, vitality, energy, etc
41. Stimulating
42. Energizing
43. Revitalizing
44. Pleasant
45. Uplifting
46. Incandescent
47. Unsoiled
48. Sterile
49. Sanitized
50. Charming : pleasing; delightful

::Compound-Words::

Fresh-Environmental: Within Rinko’s work, there is a lot of naturalistic, fresh elements such as the following: plants, water, sunlight, etc.

Airy-Refreshing: Rinko’s work feels very open and breezy, and this creates a sense of restoration and stimulation.

Light-Charming: It seems that Rinko allows/creates a sense of radiance and light within her works, and this creates a pleasing and delightful environment.

Pure-Simple: Rinko’s work seems that it is free from polluted matter and is not overly complicated or elaborate.

Lighthearted-Tasteful: Rinko creates a cheerful and happy atmosphere which then makes her work quite appealing.

Graceful-Radiant: There is a sense of beauty and elegance in Rinko’s work, and this allows her work to shine amongst other work.

Rinko Kawauchi

Rink Kawauchi was born in Shiga, Japan, in 1972. Lives and works in Tokyo. In 2001 she simultaneously released a series of three photographic books – UTATANE, HANABI, HANAKO from Little More publisher, which created an overnight sensation in the photography world in Japan. In 2002, she was awarded prestigious 27th Annual Kimura Ihei Award for two of the books, UTATANE and HANABI. Kawauchi has joined and held many group and solo exhibitions both at home and abroad to date. 

A distinctive trait of her work lies both in the sequence and the juxtaposition of her images. This editing, she says, “differentiates between a photograph and an artwork. Seeing two images next to each other opens up the imagination and gives birth to something else. Flipping through the pages of the book, it can arouse feelings of excitement, sadness, or happiness—things that are hard [for me] to do with words.”

In her photos we see an iridescent diamond; a radiant blue sky; an elderly woman making onigiri; an infant suckling on a mother’s breast. At first glance, her photographs seem simple. But her talent lies in the way she is able to evoke the primal in all of us: a depth of raw human emotion. “It’s not enough that [the photograph] is beautiful,” says Kawauchi. “If it doesn’t move my heart, it won’t move anyone else’s heart.”

http://www.rinkokawauchi.com/main/biography_eg.html

http://lightbox.time.com/2011/04/11/rinko-kawauchi%e2%80%99s-illuminance/#ixzz3IhAIOE9c

3rd Typography Project: Finished

Hello there friends!


Tomorrow I turn in my third typography project. WHAT? For real, where has the time gone? This semester is moving a little too fast for me. I can't keep up!

Anywho, I know y'all are DYING, it's absolutely KILLING you, to see my project. I will just show ya! 

For the project I was asked to design two posters about Serifa, a slab serif typeface. From the history of the designer, to the history of the time period it was designed, I reasearched just about as much as I could. From there, I dove into exploring the the appeareance of the font and how it was designed. After gaining lots of reasearch, I began designing posters to highlight Serifa’s specific unique qualities. Two posters were involved in this process: the poster highlighting characteristics, and the poster displaying body text encompassing all of the research I gathered. 

Here are the two final posters I ended up with:

I learned quite a bit in this project. I gained some general knowledge about typefaces and how to typography labeling, and of course, I learned extensively about Serifa. I feel like a typography genius now! (hah, just kidding.. I'm not quite there yet)

If you'd like to see my process on how I got to these final posters, visit my Behance Page!

Peace and blessins' my friends, peace and blessins.

Typography Vocab

SMALL CAPS: a set of capital letters having the same height as the lowercase x-height, frequently used for cross-reference and abbreviations. The difference between small caps and ALL-CAPS is that all caps goes clear up to the cap height Serifa does not have small caps, only all caps. However, here is a picture of Times New Roman's small caps:

LIGATURES: two or more characters linked together as one unit, such as ff. The ampersand is a ligature originating as a letter combination for the French for et ("and") in medieval manuscripts. Ligatures are used to create a smoother transition or connection between characters by connecting crossbars, removing dots over the i, or otherwise altering the shape of the characters. Ligatures should not be used, if it will harm readability. Here are some common ligatures:

Serifa does not have ligurates; however, Myriad Pro does. 


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FOOT MARK AND AN APOSTROPHE is a foot mark is used to show measurements such as 4'and an apostrophe is used to show possession such as Amy's keyboard.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN INCH MARK AND A QUOTE MARK is the same thing. An inch mark is used to show measurements, and quotation marks are used when there is verbiage in text. 

A HYPHEN is used to conjoin words like single-thought adjectives or breaking words in half when it hits the end of a line. An en dash is used to show how many things like "pages 3-15," and an em dash is used to show emphasis. Below is the correct usage of these three things:




I had never watched Helvetica before, and I'm glad I did. Although Adrian Futiger was not featured in the movie, I still learned quite a bit about the history of fonts, and different fonts' unique characteristics.

Typography Videos + Designers

In the video of Neville Body, he talked about many designers involved with Fuse. Below are six of them that I've decided to research a little bit. 

BARRY DECK:
Barry is a brand experience professional who has struggled with the imaginary divide between creative and account leadership. He has an MFA in visual communication from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA in visual communication from Northern Illinois University. Very much aware of the recent changes in how consumers make decision and consumers' effect on business, he collaborates with others to understand business problems, and he delivers value by finding different ways to drive results from a company’s core outward, in product development, innovation, customer experience, and marketing.

RICK VERMEULEN:

Rick Vermeulen studied graphic design at the Rotterdam Academy and graduated in 1972. In 1975, he worked for the publisher Bert Bakker and was a participant in Rotterdam’s Graphic Workshop. Rotterdam's Graphic Workshop was where designers and artists produced material for cultural organizations in the city and events. From 1978-82, Vermeulen was an editor of Hard Werken magazine,. In recent years, Vermeulen has designed two typefaces for Fuse. He collaborates with Inizio and works on freelance projects for publishing and other clients.

Tibor Kalman:

Kalman was an American graphic designer of Hungarian origin. He is very well known for his work as editor-in-chief of Colors magazine. Kalman was born in Budapestand became a U.S. resident in 1956. He later attended NYU, dropping out after one year of Journalism classes. In the 1970s Kalman worked at a small New York City bookstore that eventually became Barnes & Noble. He later became the supervisor of their in-house design department. In 1979 Kalman, Carol Bokuniewicz, and Liz Trovato started the design firm M & Co., which did corporate work for such diverse clients as the Limited Corporation, the music group Talking Heads, and Restaurant Florent in New York City's Meatpacking District. Kalman also worked as creative director of Interview magazine in the early 1990s.

PAUL ELLIMAN:

Paul is an artist and designer based in London. His work combines an interest in typography and the human voice, often referring to forms of audio signage that mediate a relationship between both. His typeface Found Fount (aka Bits) is an ongoing collection of found ‘typography’ drawn from objects and industrial debris in which no letter-form is repeated. Elliman's work has addressed the instrumentalist of the human voice as a kind of typography, engaging the voice in many of its social and technological guises, as well as imitating other languages and sounds of the city included the non-verbal messages of emergency vehicle sirens, radio transmissions and the muted acoustics of architectural space.

CORNEL WINDLIN:

After graduating from Schule für Gestaltung Luzern, Cornel Windlin moved to London in 1988 to work for Neville Brody and later became art editor for THE FACE magazine. In 1993 he returned to his native Switzerland and started his own design practice in Zurich. He has lectured in the US, England, Germany, Austria, Israel and Switzerland. He currently works as a designer/art director in both Zurich and London for a number of clients in both cultural and commercial fields. Cornel Windlin started creating typefaces primarily for use in his own work while still at art school. Together with Stephan Müller, he formed the digital font foundry LINETO to distribute his fonts and those of an illustruous circle of friends. Windlin has created corporate typefaces for clients as diverse as Mitsubishi cars or the Herzefeld Memorial Trust, or custom fonts for projects at Kunsthaus Zurich, Tate museums as well as various editorial projects.

TOBIAS FRERE-JONES:

Tobias is an American designer who works in New York City with fellow type designer Jonathan Hoefler. Since 1989, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones have helped some of the world's foremost publications, corporations, and institutions develop their unique voice through typography. Their body of work includes some of the world's most famous designs, typefaces marked by both high performance and high style.

In the video This video explores the whole history of typefaces. The first time I watched it, it was a lot of information at once and definitely hard to grasp. After watching it again, I was able to pick up more information. For instance, I learned the following: most typefaces were developed and then edited later for legibility reasons and  during the second industrial revolution, there a need for large typefaces for posters and billboards. That is where Slab serif came into the picture. Slab serifs are usually used for titles. Another thing that's completely mind blowing is how the computer in this day and age changed the typography world. Now anyone can create their own typeface. 

Sick of Infographics yet?

Great because here's more. 

Tomorrow is the last time I get feedback on my infographics in class so... here they are!

Image-Based:

Type-Based:
























































































Non computer Based:

More and More Infographics

HAYYYYYY fwends

I've found some more inspiring inforgraphics as I was just browsing through pinterest and procrastinating on homework (normal Sunday afternoon). GET EXCITED.

Serifa + Font Information

Serifa was created by Adrien Frutiger in the year 1964. Frutiger is quite the famous type designer. He is also known for creating the following fonts: Univers, Avenir, President, Apollo, Versailles, Vectora, and Glypha. In fact, Frutiger based Serifa off of his previous-made font, Univers. Serifa is considered a serif typeface, and even more specifically, is is labeled as a slab serif (or Egyptian) typeface. Slab serifs utilize thick, block like serifs throughout their letterforms. Within Serifa, there are six family members: Serifa Bold, Serifa Black, Serifa Italic, Serifa Light, Serifa Light Italic, Serifa Roman, Serifa Bold. 

-------------------------

An Old Style typeface has slander ascender serifs. There is not much contrast between the thick and thin strokes in these typefaces. Some old style typefaces include: Garamond, Minion Pro, and Perpetua. 
A Transitional typeface, such as Baskerville, Century, and Time, has a primarily vertical stress and had more refined thin strokes. Thick-to-thin relationships are exaggerated, and brackets are lightened
Modern typefaces are characterized by a distinguishing contrast between thick and thin strokes. Modern typefaces also have flat serifs. Here are a few examples: Didot, Bodoni, and Linotype. 
San Serif typefaces, such as Arial, Futura, and Tahoma,  do not have small projecting figures known as "serifs" shooting out from the letterforms. 
A Slab Serif typeface uses very thick and blocky serifs. Some slad serif typefaces include the following: Rockwell, Memphis, and Archer. 

Stroke Weight is the certain amount of thickness a letterform has. For instance, several fonts have the options of "light," "regular," or "bold." Users are able to pick a thickness for letterforms based upon those options. 


The Axis, or Stress, of a letterform is the horizontal, vertical, or even diagonal line going across the letter to show the transition from thick to thin lines within that particular letter. You find the stress of letters by drawing a line through the thinnest parts of the letter. 

Small caps are uppercase letters; however, they are drawn at lowercase scales. 
Lining Figures are when all figures are same the height. 
Non-aligning Figures are when figures don't line up neatly on the baseline. The figures have ascenders and descenders. 
Ligatures are two or more letters that combine into one character. Often happens with "tt" ft" "fi"

Type Measurement is how type is measured. Type is measured by its height and its width. The height of type is usually all the way up to the cap height from the baseline (unless there are ascenders and descenders). The width of type varies depending on the typeface and the certain family chosen within that typeface. 

Baseline is the bottom line where all letters are anchored. 
X-Height is the middle line that all lower case letters reach, typically exemplified by the letter x. 
Cap Height is the top line where all capital letters reach.
Ascender is the stems on letters such as b and h that extend above the cap height line. 
Descender parts of the letter that extend below the baseline.
Arm the horizontal stroke on some characters that does not connect to a stroke or stem at one or both ends
Leg  The lower, down sloping stroke of the K and k is called a leg.
Tail descending, decorative strokes on letters such as Q, R, or y
Eye enclosed circle of the lowercase e
Apex  A point at the top of a character where two strokes meet.
Crossbar horizontal stoke across letters such as H and A
Counter circular enclosed section of negative space, a d s o
Bowl The curved part of the character that encloses the circular or curved parts (counter) of some letters such as ‘d’, ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ is the bowl.
Ear decorative flourish found on upper right side of bowl.
Loop The enclosed or partially enclosed extenders on cursive ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘l’, and similar letters