So now that I've been here about 2 weeks and classes have started and I've seen most of what is really big in Aberdeen, I've started to get back to why I'm here. So I've begun asking myself Why am I here? What am I doing? What do I want to get out of this? Scotland and traveling and pubs and beaches aside, I'm here to learn all I can about Graphic Design in a semester, and apparently the fastest way of doing this is jumping straight into Year 3, with all those people who have been designing for 3 or 4 or 5 years. After arriving, I had found that I was enrolled in Year 3 Graphic Design, and apparently this means going to all the same classes with all the other 3rd years and doing everything all the other 3rd years do. So, I'm in a class with 22 other people, and am taking Corporate Design, Design for Multimedia, and Tools for Multimedia. At any rate, this week was hit off with a typefacing project, in which we researched a number of our favorite fonts and produced research posters, such as the following, depicting what we learned.
We then progressed to choosing our five favorite fonts from our selection, and creating pictoral postcards that emphasized their potentials and special characteristics.
Perpetua has a dignified, somewhat cold face with a feeling of authority... a chiseled quality characteristic of engraving... a noble, monumental appearance.
Myriad is professional, clean, and classy, and moreover, it is a typeface that naturally presents a warmth and readability resulting from its rounded curves and smooth transitions.
Interstate is the font we see on our road signs nearly everywhere, and so it presents us with a warmth of familiarity, and is a typeface glowing with clarity and conciseness.
The personality a typeface conveys may stem in large part from the ways in which that typeface has been used in the past, and Caslon has been known as the "script of kings" in the past, and was the official font for the US Declaration of Independence. It thus has a dignified and royal feel to it.
Aachen is heavy set, with every stroke wide cut legs and large feet. "If Aachen were a friend it would be a loud body guard."
Turns out, there's a lot more to fonts than one could have thought, and it's near impossible to learn everything about them in 3 days, which is all the time I've had. How is Baskerville different from Frutiger different from Linotype? How could two fonts that look nearly exactly the same, FF Kievet andMyriad, actually be different? What typefaces complement each other and can thus be used in design together? All kinds of questions have been rushing through my mind the last few days, and in my rush to find answers to them all, I've neglected other things, like eating, and ... sleeping, and ....... being a faithful blogger. No, I really have been eating and sleeping, and even have free time to join the mountaineering society and possibly the swim team.
So, I will leave you with a parting quote... "Type is emotional and situational. Just as you wouldn't laugh at a funeral... certain fonts are out of place in certain situations." And learning which fonts are humanist and sans serif as opposed to grotesque or slab serif is only the beginning.
Sincerely,
Your most faithful blogger, Amy
P.S. The rugby players over here are convinced American football players are "wusses" because they wear padding. Haha!
2 comments:
Myriad Pro. I should have expected it, I guess.
I can't decide anymore. Maybe Gill Sans is more beautiful than Myriad. It certainly looks so much better with Perpetua at least. I should spend my massive amounts of free time learning more about typefaces.
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