Studio Brief 1  - Typographic Anatomy

In This task we were introduced to typesetting, layout, colour, theories in practice and context of principles/ designers. 

Were we introduced to the three elements of typography;

- Letter - the design of the individual characters/glyphs and anatomy.

- Word - how these glyphs fit together

- Line - combination & arrangement of words in a body or sequence.

The idea that typography is not an art form, or an exact science, but a craft is an interesting point as it asks the question of real difference between font; which I see as a more scientifical fact that a letter which is drawn/wrote in a particular way is fact that that is that font that you use; and then there is the more craftwork/artistic form of the typeface that is what you see, and this can varying depending on the intention and finish of the work of the artist.   

We were introduced to typography terms such as; cap height, baseline aperture, counter, bracket etc. These terms gave me an insight into how you can manipulate all aspects of a letter, and how this can affect the word and ultimately the line of words. 

We then watch a clip from the documentary 'Erik Spiekerman: Putting back the face in typeface'. Here he spoke about type being like music, you don't change the tune, but the sound of the music. The equivalent being, using the same words but using a different style, and that type is about rhythm m not form; that how does the letter work amongst other letters/lines. The idea of creating a letterform based on the rhythm of it is new to me, but it gave me insight into how a letter form can flow smoothly or be dysfunctional and not work off each other in a line. 

We then move onto our task, where we chose a random word, and would then use this word to manipulate the letter forms we were given. I was given the word homogenous, which turned out to be quite hard to work from as it was a very specific word about something being similar to each other. I started by layering up text so that it would overlap and create a form which looked mirrored, this was probably my favourite out if the two, as the others - a scientific interpretation of the word ' a process involving substances in the same phase (solid liquid gas)' gave me a result which was too literal and seemed more illustrated and lacking its own personality; and the other being a piece which opposed the idea of the letters being similar, by missing random chunks from the text seemed too obvious as well and didn't have its own recognisable form. 

From this task I gained a further understanding of how type can be manipulated and how it can have a personality and rhythm of its own. The idea of creating a typeface which doesn't 'bark', the words of Erik Spiekerman, a term which means a type shouldn't be literally in it't portrayal of a theme or idea, i.e. text relating to a dog shouldn't 'bark'.