Generating your font

Hi all,

Just so you have this in writing, here’s how to get your font ready to hand in—

1.) Complete your font in FontLab (lowercase characters and punctuation) by 2pm today!!

2.) Save as (as you have been doing I presume)

3.) File > Font Info – fill in the blanks (Name, weight, more names…)

4.) File > Generate Font 

5.) Hand in your generated, named font (should be a .ttf file) with the ‘raw’ FontLab file (on a flash drive, and I’ll copy onto my Mac)!

6.) Hand in hand drawn sketches

If you haven’t already done so, begin working on your type specimen poster (11×17″), due Tuesday. The deadline for the poster has been pushed forward 45minutes—to 4.15pm. I (and a number of you) have a final at that time on tuesday. I will be in my office sometime after 2pm on Tuesday, so I won’t be around in the morning to collect your work – your work being a finished type specimen poster, and a cd/flash drive with final pdf files of your projects (Newspaper, spread, poster (2), type specimen poster).

If any of this is unclear, just ask!

Phil

Final Class

Hi all,

Just to let you all know, as we won’t be having a final critique (due to time constraints), I will post the type designs and type specimen posters on the blog by the end of finals week. That way (if you wish), you will be able to view each others typeface. Unless you have any objections, once the fonts are finished and generated, I can post them here as downloadable links—and you’ll be able to install each others fonts! Team work!

If you were searching for inspiration for type specimen posters, here’s a couple I think are terrific – http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/steve-mehallo/jeanne-moderno/gallery.html

Phil

Final Hand in Deadline

Hi all,

I know on the previous post I had stated the final hand in would be the final during finals week. Turns out, our final should theoretically be on the last day of class (Fri May 1st). I’m not going to do that, as that’s a bit tight for this project. So, the hand in for this project (hand drawings, digital typeface and type specimen poster), and your Digital portfolio for this class (CD with pdf’s of each project) is Tuesday May 5th @5pm.

Phil

Type Design

Hi all,

Typeface design—project 5

As the final project of the semester in a Type class, it seemed logical to give you the opportunity to design your own typeface. We will be using FontLab Studio (free trial available on fontlab.com), the premier font creating application. 

The project hand-ins are –

1.) Hand rendered drawings of your type face components

2.) A digital file of your working typeface—all lowercase characters and punctuation. Uppercase characters are optional if you have time.

3.) A type specimen poster of your typeface—11×17″

The theme and structure is up to you, be it geometric, cursive, hand-drawn, serif or sans-serif, fun, serious, creative, experimental, abstract or realistic etc etc. Maybe it reflects your personality? Maybe your typeface is based off of an existing typeface, and carries a historical component? You choose. But, as a word of warning—I wouldn’t make things too complicated, otherwise you may run out of time! You must give your typeface a name (nothing too cheesey).

A typeface is built up of structural components, rather than whole letters individually. These components make up the ascender and descender, bowl (curved elements of o, b, p, d and so on), serif (if necessary), horizontal and vertical strokes, curvilinear stroke (for the body of the ‘s’), and  are designed based upon a consistent structure (thicks and thins, serifs or sans-serif). So, theoretically, if your components have been designed consistently, when you piece them together (for example, the bowl, vertical stroke, and an ascender), they will create the letterforms (in this case, d or b). The graphic below demonstrates visually what I’m talking about. The link to this image is here – http://www.stonetypefoundry.com/Resources/WA%20Dwiggins%20Lecture%202007%20im.pdf 

In the process of type design, your initial drawings are the most important step, as these are what you’ll be converting to digital files. Rather than draw out the whole alphabet, it will be easier for you to make your components as close to perfect as possible, so then you don’t have to spend extra time in FontLab catching up. When drawing your components, consider using an x-height diagram, so you can be sure your measurements are relevant to each other. Tracing paper is also a valuable tool in terms of reproduction. This is why I mentioned earlier, you may want to keep things relatively simple. I have chosen to focus on the lowercase, rather than uppercase for two reasons – 1.) I’m not sure we’ll have time to develop both 2.) the lowercase has more contrast, and will display more variety in your typeface. Once you have your typeface designed and manufactured, you’ll designa type specimen poster to show off your new font!

Here are a couple of useful articles from iLT on making typefaces, just for your benefit – http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/22/so-you-want-to-create-a-font-part-1/ and http://ilovetypography.com/2009/03/23/the-first-ones-the-hardest/

What you need to do for next Friday (April 17th) 

1.) Download the 30 day free trial of FontLab Studio, the link is here – http://www.fontlab.com/fontlab-font-editors/fontlab-studio-8212-professional-font-editor/download-fontlab-studio.html

2.) Familiarize yourself with the interface – open FontLab and start playing (you can open an existing font, eg: Helvetica, and start customizing). This will mean it’s not such a shock to the system when we meet on the 17th. There are also tutorials online at FontLab.com—although they’re not the best. Worth a look though. There are also video tutorials on youtube, albeit mostly in different languages. 

3.) Have your components drawn and ready to scan into Illustrator (1st step to making your font digital).

Schedule

04/17 — Bring hand drawn components to scan, FontLab tutorial (I’ll show you the basics and get you going).

04/24 — Work in class developing typeface.

05/01 — Final day of the semester. Hand in finished typeface.

FINALS WEEK — Critique Type Specimen poster & turn in digital portfolio (CD please).

Given the fact that this is a rather large post, I have this info on a pdf for you here (minus the image and links) – project5_brief

Happy Easter! You can always reply to this post or email me with questions.

Phil

Great Type Magazine!

Hi all,

From Italy — a typographic master class.

http://www.tipoitalia.it/en/

Project 4—Hattiesburg Typography

Hi all,

And so to the next project:

Representing and communicating your chosen area of Hattiesburg (or the whole town if you feel compelled to do so), through the towns typography, in the form of a type-heavy poster. Communicating the tone, attitude, environment, look and feel, or physical attributes of the area. How do you convey these characteristics utilizing the typography (signage, symbols, ads etc) in that part of H’burg, as your main design tool?

How would you translate all of these characteristics of H’burg downtown into a visual form, for instance? What makes up the identity of the Downtown area, and how does the type on show reinforce this? I am looking for you to gather images of typography within whichever area you choose, and create a poster composition/design that reflects the part of town.

Poster specifications—I am not setting you any hard specs for the dimensions. The orientation, scale and end presentation should be considered as part of the design response to the areas characteristics/environment.

I would like you to use examples of the type available to you, but that’s not to say it can’t be developed to help your design. You may wish to trace/manipulate the type (colors, textures, scale etc) as your design takes shape.

The ideology behind this project is to have you take notice of the typography in the town you are part of, type that surrounds us, and think about how the type responds to the environment it’s held within. The project also deals with type in a unconventional form. It is also open to your own expressive natures—the chance to be as creative as possible! I’m giving you as few restraints as possible. Be conceptual, be expressive.

Deadline. Two weeks from today—which would be Good Friday. However, obviously we won’t be here. So, hand in date is Thursday April 9th. Also, as next Friday (April 3rd) is Open House, coming by to see me next meet is of the utmost importance! Failure to drop into my office will be counter productive.

Phil

Type Task is Back!

Hi all,

I hope everyone is enjoying the back-end of Spring Break, and you’re all recharged and ready for the last 6 weeks of the semester!

Remember what’s what for this week—I should be seeing everyone once before Friday, so I see your 3 poster variations before the Friday hand in.

Simple type-task this week—find a type related article on the web, and post the link. Alternatively, scan an article from a book and email me the pdf. I’ll post it for you.

As another reminder; some of you didn’t give me digital copies on the friday before spring break. A packaged InDesign file, pdf, and bibliography—pwinfi2@tigers.lsu.edu if you’re still wondering what my email address is!

Otherwise, happy Sunday evening and see you all next week!

Phil

What to do over Spring Break…

Hey gang,

Nice and simple over the break:

3 variations of your 11×17 typographic poster, based upon your time period. I’m sure, as you’ve been designing your spreads, you’ve been thinking about the poster too. Digital print outs please. Anyone bringing me sketches on paper, and then trying to explain what the poster is going to look like will wish they hadn’t.

You should be bringing these first 3 to me in the week, so we can hand this in on the friday—March 27th. So put a large amount of thought into these first 3 variations.

You have an entire week and two weekends to get this done. No type task this next week.

Happy days!

Phil

Typographic Periodic Table

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Periodic-Table-of-Typefaces/193759

Monday March 9

Hi all, 

A little late I know, but I’m not going to be in my office today. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I’ve seen a few spreads over the weekend, I think we’re looking good.

Happy Monday,

Phil