That's the first course of second semester of Visual Communication Design i.e, VCD302. I think i very much needed a course on typography. Since i have got to do the course, I am going to make the best use of the opportunity and learn practically as much as I can.
The first day of the course...
January 14, 2008.
A new semester beings with new rules to be implemented in class—
THE RULES:
- one reading and reflection on the same per day
- be in at 9:30 or get marked absent.
- keep a timeline record of what you do when.. daily.
- compile the readings in the form of a book or any other way possible and hand it in on 7th February 2008, 9:30 a.m
Aims and Objectives of the readings:
Broaden the understanding of typography and get acquainted to what has been written, done or practiced so far in the realm of typography, letterpress and design.
Timeline:
9:30 New Rules This Semester
9:45 Reading (Old style letterpress, time magazine.)
10:00 time to ponder upon the questions raised.
10:15 - 10:45 Class Discussion
10:45 - 3:30 Research on Letterpress, Typography
3:30 - 3:45 Discussing Line of inquiry—what interests us, what we think can we take forward.
3:45 - 4:10 Julie's Presentation.
____________________________________________________________________
January 15, 2008 (at home)
10:00- 12:30 Research on letterpress, typography, graphic design continues.
12:30- 1:45 reading and analyzing the quotes that I came across while doing the research.
1:45- 3:00 considering the layouts for the quotes keeping in mind the certain known constraints, without knowing about the constraints at VYKAT press.
A few quotes that I came across while I was doing the research..
"Typography is a beautiful group of letters and not just a group of beautiful letters"
- Steve Byers.
"what is typography?"
"A terminal condition suffered by letter"
Poor Design is making something worthless.
Good Design is making something intelligent and memorable.
Great Design is making something memorable and meaningful.
Exceptional Design is making something meaningful and worthwhile."
- Dieter Rams
(Source: the art of looking sideways)
"A designer has to have the hide of a rhinoceros, the neck of a girraffee, the memory of an elephant and the persistence of a woodpecker."
- Dieter Rams
(Source: the art of looking sideways)
"I'd sooner do the same on Monday or Wednesday as I do on Saturday or Sunday. I don't devide my life between labour and pleasure"
- Alan Fletcher, Graphic Designer and author of The art of looking sideways.
" You are designing on the black marks on paper, but the spaces in between."
- Erik Spiekermann.
____________________________________________________________________
January 16, 2008
The day began with an interesting article on Gutenberg and movable type. This particular article seemed to have given me better understanding of hoe letterpress was first used (I could visualize it). Following the tea break we were given the vital time for research- finalizing the quote, and a concrete research on the person/ topic you’ve chosen. And then the visit to VYKAT press… that’s when I realized that most of my layouts will need to be reworked and rethought so as to fit the requirements of letterpress printing at VYKAT press. The following were the constraints:
- use of only black ink
- only one gsm paper for all(no varying thickness, textures and general quality of paper)
- typefaces available: probably these are the only fonts that we could use.
universe (pt18 and pt24, normal)
Times New Roman( pt12, and certain letter of pt 24)
Script (pt 12)
- printing time: 10:00a.m to 1:00 p.m
- not more than 10 prints per student.
- Experimentation with two layouts only.
- Cannot have layout that has text along any diagonal axis.
- Avoid using text along vertical axis.
9:30 - 9:45 Reading ( movable type and Gutenberg.)
10:05 -10:15 time to ponder upon some questions raised by Arjun
10:15 - 10:45 Class Discussion
10:45 - 12:30 Tea Break + Research time
12:30 - 4:15 Travel, Lunch and visit to VYKAT letterpress printing followed by a class discussion with Julie at CCD.
VYKAT prints PVT, LTD, Airport road, Bangalore.
letterpress machine at VYKAT press.
box containing all the glyphs.
the numbering machine used to number pages.
tpye set for letterpress printing.
____________________________________________________________________
January 17, 2008
The day began with a reading that Upi and myself happen to selected. We selected the same one by chance n neither knew that we had the same article... Anyway... The article is about “design
educators are finding that the letterpress nurtures creativity and visual abstraction” Eye magazine
I could somehow relate this one to our batch since we all are quite glued to the comp almost all the time… and this particular article talks about how moving away from the comp can be of use.. And hence nurture creativity.
The Final Quote:
" You are designing on the black marks on paper, but the spaces in between."
- Erik Spiekermann.
I’m not too happy with my thumbnails.. plus Somesh ended up giving me an inferiority complex because of the way he “perfectly” did his thumbnails.. They were way better than what thumbnails are supposed to look. All of use ended up following Somesh and hence had kind of "perfect" thumbnails. I don’t think Julie expected it that way. She just wanted an idea of basic composition and the use of serifs or sans serif font. She was kind of awestruck to see the quality of thumbnails.
I know I can do a much better job than this.. guess it's just a matter of giving it a thought again and making my hands work without fear.
Timeline:
9:30– 9:55 Reading
9:55- 10:00 Time to ponder upon the questions raised.
10:00- 10:30 Class Discussion headed by Upasna and myself.
10:30- 10:45 tea break
10:45 -3:00 working on the layouts (thumbnails)
3:00 – 4:15 feedback session on the thumbnails.
____________________________________________________________________
January 20, 2008
1:30- 3:30 Finding more information on Erik Spiekermann and his work
4:30- 7:00 Finalizing the layouts for letterpress printing, keeping in mind the constraints.
____________________________________________________________________
January 21, 2008
One more reading (Pallavi got it) from one of the books I like. Type matters from The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher.
This was followed by handing in the new briefs… discussing it briefly.
Following this we had to collect one sample (as a group) of each of the eight principles of composition:
- Visual Anchor
- Figure and Ground
- Hierarchy
- symmetry
- asymmetry
- active
- passive
- grids and margin
In a group, we collected some samples from books that Julie had asked us to bring in and presented them to the class. A couple of us who forgot to get the book, rushed to the library devoid of typography books( because even the second year students had a course on typography going on, hence all typography books were issued.) and got back to class in 15 minutes. Roshan’s car did the magic of taking 7 of us to the old campus and dropping us back to the new campus in almost no time. Thanks Roshan.
The photocopier was out of order so we had to use my camera in a hurry... and some of the images were just badly shot! Sorry Julie, will definitely keep this in mind the next time we take pictures of images from any book.
Timeline:
9:30- 10:00 Reading
10:00- 10:30 Questions.
10:30- 11:00 Class discussion.
11:30- 12:15 collecting samples f the 8 principles of composition.
12:15- 1:00 presenting the samples to the class.
1:00- 4:30 Kayen printers with Pallavi and Arjun for looking at the production of Nokia book.
19:30- 21:00 research on the net and from books related to the 8 principles of composition.
22:30- 1:00 looking at visuals and identifying the 8 principles, thumbnails for next day.
Offset printing machine.
Hiedelberg's Letterpress machine used as foil stamping machine.
Sample of foil stamping.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
January 29, 2008.
Today, Prarthana, Aditi and I went for the letterpress printing. We got late by half an hour. We reached there at 10:30 instead of 10:00. It was a challenge for us to finish on time i.e. 1:00 p.m. that’s because all three of us were supposed to complete the printing in the given time. I chose two of the 5 layouts that I had prepared. I chose simple ones since the lady said that if we choose the complex ones, it will be difficult for all three of us to finish it.
Hands on Letterpresss...
A hand on letterpress was indeed a unique experience. It gave me a better understanding of kerning and leading as well as the letter forms itself. While setting up the type, the constraints did not become a hurdle.
The final letterpress prints came out pretty much up to my expectations. I liked the emboss effect it created.
One of the letterpressed prints.
But the day was pretty long and tiring. It was tough to come back and work on the book. I was almost zero on energy.
No comments:
Post a Comment