Week 2A Overview

This is what happens when you have a draft saved and the you forget to re edit it for the following class!!   It's Saturday so it still counts I would hope for Week 2!

For Tuesday we were unfortunately hit with technology failure, and had to do things the "old fashioned way." We were assigned in groups of two and given specific anatomies and font styles, and researched about them to talk to the class about. I was assigned the font type, Monospaced with Jamie. We then went to the website, typetester.org which is a very informative site that can help you see the differences between different types of font.

Between Tuesday and Thursday Jamie and I worked diligently on our Space Jam project! We tackled Parallax Scrolling - and admittedly it's a fun process! We were able to find icon graphics that go right with our theme, so we have applied those as well as text and links from what the previous site had.

Thursday we learned about EM, Pixels, and Inches for type. I found it to be very interesting. We have also been given an assignment of combining a sans serif and a serif font to create an entirely new font. I have chosen to use Didot and Lucida. Here's to hope!

Week 2 . Compare and Contrast Fonts

Comparing and Contrasting Fonts

Georgia : Courier New : Times New Roman

The first thing to notice about these three fonts together is that Georgia and Times New Roman have a bit more in common compared to Courier New. Courier New is more of a typewriter font, and in being so it has a slight breather in between letters. It has monospacing between the letters. Georgia and Times New Roman are fonts that are close knit to one another having little space in between each other. The similarities shared in all of the fonts can be small things, like how most letters share having eyes within the "e"s, cross strokes on the "r"s and "a"s, and small descender lines for the "g"s, "j"s and "q"s.

Times New Roman and Georgia are also common because they are thicker in body, and can be described to be more of a slab serif compared to being a monospaced font.


Impact : Arial : Verdana

All three fonts share similarities with one another- a main one being that they are all relatively san serif. The major difference however is that Impact is a very condensed font. It does not have much space in between the letters, and crowds itself. Although there is not much space between Arial and Verdana, they are a lot more legible than Impact. Since the font is sans serif, there are no dramatic serifs, brackets, or even terminals. What is interesting is that as a regular text, Impact is very bold. When it is bold, it's increasingly hard to even recognize. The spacing between the letters are almost none, and the boldness of the spine grow. In Arial, bolding is mostly the same. The letters are a smidge larger, but that doesn't make for much change. With Verdana, bold changes both size and also spacing between columned rows. The line-height becomes a tad taller along with change of font size.

 Georgia : Reenie Beanie : Marker Felt

The fonts Georgia, Reenie Beanie, and Marker Felt were interesting to see. For the most part, Georgia and Marker Felt are similar in terms of the different serifs, spacing, ascenders and descenders. Marker Felt is a tad thinner, and the text is only a smidge smaller. The spacing is equal, and the use of eyes and brackets are applied well. Reenie Beanie is a script text, being that it is made to look like it is handwritten. In this case, it looks more to me like a bit of chicken scratch. Because of this, it is also very small. It relates to the other texts mostly due to the various forms of crossbars within the A, cross strokes for the lower case 't's, and so on. The difference between Georgia and Marker Felt is that the x-height for Georgia is off. For example, the 'h' in the word "The" is taller than the capital T. In Marker Felt, all letters align perfectly.

Week 1A - Overview

Welcoming back Tuesday with open arms, we started class with an overview of what we would be doing this semester. We'll possibly be introduced to a 3D printer which I am very excited about! We ended the class with an outside experiment, going to find letters within nature or within mechanics. Just about anywhere, we were suppose to find the letters. It was a fun experience and made us think outside of the box. On Thursday we were introduced to a fun website with the name of webydo.com. It looks like a fantastic website (if only it were free) to create non coded, official websites. Now we are to find bad websites to recreate a better version of them with webydo.com. The website that I have decided to go with is http://www.lost-world.com/ingen/index.html which is a website dedicated to Jurassic Park's the Lost World. It's hilarious to see these old websites and to imagine that back when they were actually used, and liked websites.

Tuesday's homework consisted of finding and uploading the letters as well as turning in our Student Contract. Thursday's homework is to find a website (which I have) and also watching the tutorials that all contribute to the webydo.com site itself.

On Web Typography Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1 . How we Read

This Chapter begins with with the thought of just what exactly are we doing right now? Obviously, the answer is reading the passage that my eyes scan over. However, though I may be reading this with my own eyes, the thoughts that flow in my head may be different compared to another person who also reads this very passage. The chapter relates this idea to typography itself- in that it is a chain reaction of time and place, with you as the catalyst. We are what give multiple meaning and purpose to the text. Reading is something that engages the mind. We do it on a daily basis .This chapter focuses on talking about what circumstances affect our reading. Readability, length, what we are surrounded by, what we are doing, all contribute to our reading experience. Our eyes do not read linear, but more so in saccades and fixations. Saccades are the leaps that happen in a second as our eyes move across a line of text while fixations are the pauses between them. We as typographers have a greater impact on society and how things are seen and read than we think. The differences in text, like caps lock and spacing make all the difference for individual readers.

Chapter 2 . How Type Works

Chapter Two introduces us with the basic statement that there are no rules in typography. I find this kind of hard to believe... while there may not be any rules, there's certainly a better direction to choose to follow compared to other forms of irregular structure. However, it is given point taken that typography has no rules because- well, all that we can really do is try our best to show our ideas and our messages in the best possible way we can. Typography is a way to convey our message to people in the form of imagery. There must be a balance between beauty and utility. According to Karen Cheng, there are over fifty thousand typeface families in the world. And that's not counting all the free fonts that people make on their own. It briefly mentions about how typography has evolved in the web world- utilizing CSS to create imagery and 'fancy' up the words. Most importantly, in order to create good type one has to understand it and become familiar enough that they can discuss it. Basic principles are something you want to have under your belt for sure.

Chapter 3 . Evaluating Typefaces

Type is a tool. Things to remember are typeface and font. Typeface is the name for the design in full, while the font is the format for that design. You also have to remember the different kinds of classifications like sans serif, serif, slab, script, and so on. To refresh the memory you also want to notice crossbars, shoulders, finials, ascenders and descenders, counters, stems, and so on. Don't forget the ear and spine! Typography has so many aspects to it, one doesn't realize until you see it up close and personal. You have to be aware of what kind of texts you use, as there are multiple differences and characteristics contributing to text itself.

ABCs 1/20

Being back in class sure is different. There's a different mind set and pace now for the spring semester! Today was just getting re introduced to class work and also the syllabus. I also was able to see friends that I haven't seen since fall semester ended. And to start off the bat, I did some Alphabet searching with Jamie :D

A.B.C.D.

E.F.G.H.

I.J.K.           M.N.O.

L.

P.Q.r.

S.T.U.V.

W.X.Y.

Z.