Typography WEEK 5

17/2/2016 (Week 5)
Joshua Low Wai Peng (UIU 300 414 734)
Typography - Type Expression

Lecture:
CHINESE NEW YEAR, SO THERE WAS NO CLASSES ON THAT DAY. BUT MR.VINOD ASK US TO DIGITIZED OUR WORK FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK.

Instructions

Type expression (20%)

Task 1(10%): Single word expression

Identify 4 words that describe you. You will then express typographically the meaning of these words without the aid of a visual. You are only allowed to manipulate the type to express the inherent meaning of the chosen words.
Upon approval digitize your artworks using Adobe Illustrator and print them out. Update your e-portfolio throughout the task and ensure every aspect of the process is documented methodically.

Marking criteria
Your work will be judged on whether you have been able to capture the meaning or action of the chosen words through your designs. The designed words in the type expression task must showcase sensitivity in balance, proportion and composition. It must reflect the inherent meanings of the words. You will be judged on whether you have demonstrated critical thinking and exploration. This evidence must be visible in your postings in the e-portfolio and your in-class process work. 

process:

final draft before the work to digitizing begin.

this is the final outcome after all the editing and advise gave by Mr.vinod to me. i change quite a lot of stuff because i did something wrong in the previous drafting and Mr.vinod requested me to view my fellow classmates blog.

Experience:
it was a confusing task for me as i previously had done something out of track. but with the guidance that i get from my friend and also my lecturer i was able to slowly get back on track and finish what i've started. reviewing tutorial from youtube is also one of my method in pulling of this task. it was a chaotic moment for me. overall i enjoyed the process of creating and digitizing the work and have also gain some new insight on illustrator.

Observation:
due to Chinese new year and some problems occuring at home, i was not able to really focus on what am i doing. but as i slowly progress thru, i've learn the ups and down in using illustrator(gave me hard times for abit).

Findings:
its good to know that the words really fits in to the font chose and how it carries the meaning out and i'm very happy about the final outcome. i wish to further explore illustrator and will try to process faster in my work.

Typography Week 4

11/2/2016 (Week 4)
Joshua Low Wai Peng (UIU 300 414 734)
Typography - Type Expression

Instructions:
In before the class session takes place by presenting one second task to all of the classmates, Mr. Vinod reminded us and also gave some tips on how to update our blog in a simple and brief way so that is it easier for us to manage. Sir then gave everyone a heads up on when and where we should ask him questions about our progress and not doing it on last minute. He uses me as an example to tell the class that i seek for his advise days before the assignment is due. He then proceed on telling us how should a photo been taken in a proper way to upload it to the blog. After the briefing done, we took our turn to present what we had done for task 2. After all the sharing session from fellow classmates, Mr. Vinod proceed on teaching us about types of fonts and ask us to create our on font by using words to describe ourself. he ended the class session by introducing a new task.

Type expression (20%)Task 1: Identify 4 words that describe you. You will then express typographically the meaning of these words without the aid of a visual. You are only allowed to manipulate the type to express the inherent meaning of the chosen words.

Draw two 7cm squares on an A4 graph paper using a pencil. Ensure the boxes are centered vertically and horizontally in the A4 paper. Do the same for two other sheets of paper to obtain 4 squares in total.

Draw and express you respective words. Upon approval digitize your artworks using Adobe Illustrator and print them out. Update your eportfolio throughout the task and ensure every aspect of the process is documented methodically.

Marking criteria: Your work will be judged on whether you have been able to capture the meaning or action of the chosen words through your designs. The designed words in the type expression task must showcase sensitivity in balance, proportion and composition. It must reflect the inherent meanings of the words. You will be judged on whether you have demonstrated critical thinking and exploration. This evidence must be visible in your postings in the eportfolio and your in-class process work. 

Process

diagram 1this was my first draft after i did returning home after the class on that day.came out with quite a few drafts and decided to use these few words and fonts and my first draft.
"more process will be uploaded soon."

Experience:
so far from what i word i have chose and created that suits my personality the most, i think that there is more space for me to tweak things around and make it more into the character. the reason behind creating the font for "outgoing" was because i personally like to explore new things rather than sitting at home doing nothing. hence, the result of different patterns that occur in the font which makes it more lively.

obersevation:
throughout the trial and error, i realized that once again creating a font that suits the word itself aint easy. but it is also something new again for me to explore and create better outcomes.

Findings:
most of the word came to me by getting feedback from relatives and friends about how am i in person when they first and after they met me. but research is still needed to enhance the progression of my work.

Typography WEEK 3- continuation of week 2's task

2/3/2016 (Week 3)

JOSHUA LOW WAI PENG (UIU 300 414 734)

Typography

WEEK 3 continuation of assignment

lecture: On Wednesday, Mr.vinod went with a brief summary of what we were doing last week and will be using that material to continue this week's progress as it was a 2 weeks on going assignment and also what were we going to do on that day. Then, he proceeded on reviewing our work. he steadily go through everyone's font and giving feedback and advise on how the font should look like, how it should been and how to draw it out correctly in a simple and faster way. after the private 1 on 1 session with students, he then continue his lecture by asking student to start up their laptops and open up the software needed which was Ai(adobe illustrator). After everyone was ready, he then proceed on  showing step by step on how to draw a letter using the particular Ai software. after the guide session given by Mr.vinod, he required students to practice and learn up most of the things that he taught so that student can question him about things that they do not know about. it was a 30 minutes error and learning session before ending the lecture session.

The videos below should be viewed at a later stage of the task, when students are more knowledgeable and ready to digitize their letters.

Marking criteria: You will be judged on your creativity; the aesthetics of your letter and how consistent are they with regard to their character or personality – do they look like a family of characters. You will be judged on whether you have made the appropriate research and analysis of other typefaces, whether you have demonstrated critical thinking and exploration. This evidence must be visible in your postings in the eportfolio and your in-class process work. 

Duration: 2 weeks
Deadline: week 3

Type expression (20%)Task 1: Identify 6 words that describe you. You will then express typographically the meaning of these words without the aid of a visual. You are only allowed to manipulate the type to express the inherent meaning of the chosen words.

Draw two 7cm squares on an A4 graph paper using a pencil. Ensure the boxes are centered vertically and horizontally in the A4 paper. Do the same for two other sheets of paper to obtain 6 squares in total.

Draw and express you respective words. Upon approval digitize your artworks using Adobe Illustrator and print them out. Update your eportfolio throughout the task and ensure every aspect of the process is documented methodically.

Marking criteria: Your work will be judged on whether you have been able to capture the meaning or action of the chosen words through your designs. The designed words in the type expression task must showcase sensitivity in balance, proportion and composition. It must reflect the inherent meanings of the words. You will be judged on whether you have demonstrated critical thinking and exploration. This evidence must be visible in your postings in the eportfolio and your in-class process work. 

WEEK 3 PROGRESS:

                                          

DIAGRAM 1

This was my font that i came up with. the feedback that i got from Mr.vinod was the font looks fine but he wanted the font to be in a more simpler way by removing more dots. therefore the first from the top was my final font lining up as the second one from the top was having too many dots in it. then i proceed on letting Mr.Vinod to check my work again before proceeding and he gave me the green light to proceed.

 DIAGRAM 2
this was my first rendering  after i finished. i then message Mr. Vinod to get some feedback on what i'm currently doing. He suggested me to align the dots properly and moving the "a" tail to the side to make it look more tidy.

DIAGRAM 3
TADAAA!! this was my final rendering of my own font. it does look better after tidying up the dots spacing between the line and also moving the "a" tail to the side(thanks sir for the suggestion!hehe).

Feedback:

1.Font looks fine but Sir wanted the font to be in a more simpler way by removing more dots. therefore the first from the top was my final font lining up as the second one from the top was having too many dots in it.
2. he also suggested me to align the dots properly and moving the "a" tail to the side to make it look more tidy.

Reflection

Experience:
Learning about different fonts allows me to gain more knowledge about origin of different fonts. in each fonts lies a different message that it would like to bring forth. i was able to draft out some of my own fonts and might put it into use. it may be another challenging task for me to pull through, but in each time during the learning process i pick up skills to think, draw, create something out of nothing. There are so many fonts out there which u can just find, and the hardest part is to create another font of yours. But in the end, i think that i did a fairly nice job in creating my own font which looks much more simple and easier to be read.

Observation:
I still find myself not satisfy with the draft outcome because it wasn't drawn nicely.(kill me please). i think that is the cause of wanting to finishing something in a perfect way. i tried to draw lines by free hand and the out come was better than i expected it to be. at the end of the final font, i feel that it looks much more better comparing to the one i did previously and it may seems easy to draw it out in the iluustrator, but the allignment of the letters ain't easy as u have to really align it properly according to the grids.

Findings:

 My freehand drawing is having some slight improvement as mentioned previously, i rely a lot on tools that is available. also i'm able to do things my own way for instants, using my own way to draw,create new patterns that is needed to accomplish the task given. Also, i really love this font i may be putting it to use in the future, maybe?? well overall it was a great experience to develop my own font and also get to polish back what ive forgotten in using illustrator.

Typography: Week 2

27/1/2016 (Week 2)

JOSHUA LOW WAI PENG (UIU 300 414 734)

Typography

Lecture:

On the third week of class, we started off by presenting the task that we had done for week 1. The purpose of presenting and explaining to everyone about the concept of the alphabet created is to gain feedback from Mr.Vinod and fellow classmate. “there is no right or wrong, as we have different perception towards everything we see” said Mr.vinod. Next, he teaches us about the anatomy of alphabets. We were then given the guidance and thoughts in redo-ing, creating a new alphabet using the asecender line, cap line, mean line, base line, and also the descender line. After that, Mr.vinod did a small activity using Pictionary, which students have to guess the words that are drawn out. Using the iPad to draw was not quite a success at first because of the tilting screen and it annoys all of us in the classroom. Lastly we went on by using the old skol method which is writing on the whiteboard. Before the class was about to end, Mr.vinod explained and assigned us with the second task.

Task 2 (15%): Type Design
You are to design a number of alphabets and punctuations, as determined by the teacher. You will begin by sketching and exploring a minimum of 3 options.

The sketches of the alphabets are to be submitted on A4 graph paper for selection. As always, you will understand, analyse and reflect on the knowledge acquired during the allotted weeks for the task in your ePortfolio.

Starting with the letter “o” design a string of alphabets of similar characteristics. The subsequent letters must spell your name and therefore the characteristics of the letters must represent your personality.

Read or view the teaching material below to understand:

How to design your own typeface
So you want to create a font
The Ultimate Guide on How to Create a Font

There are many more resources out there you may read, please do if you have the time.

Research:
i kick started my research by searching and having the insight of the history of fonts to get the idea of how did fonts evolves, from the time where Johann Gutenberg created a font in Gothic style in order to have fastening the progress in printing, up to the new era where post script by Adobe that consist of Type-1 and Type-3 fonts, starts to dominate. the website also provided me the insight of how fonts are developed, the measuring of the fonts,how its formed into a font and so forth. Different people have different types of font style with their own x-height. Also, in the early 90's, Adobe offered postscript to both Apple and Microsoft but both companies is reluctant to let each other to take control over a vital part of their operating system. both companies did not even want to pay the stiff royalties that Adobe has demanded. realizing they are stuck in the same situation, they decided to join forces. Hence, Apple will be the one to provide font technology and Microsoft will be the one coming up with an imaging technology which is similar to postscript. Besides that, i found out through a website point out that people misinterpret a font and a typeface. To clarify, a font is what u will be using, and a typeface is what you see/observe. but as time evolves, professionals suggest that both the term "font" and "typeface" can be used interchangeably.
source 1: http://www.prepressure.com/fonts/basics/history
source 2: https://www.vletter.com/help/font-faq/all-about-fonts.html
source 3: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3028971/whats-the-difference-between-a-font-and-a-typeface

other research:upon the learning process of the fonts, i googled up some of the fonts that is used in certain product.

The gaming gear company "Razer" uses a font which is unique because, on each alphabet, there is a straight line in between that kind of make the alphabet out of alignment.

another gaming gear company "Roccat" also features a unique design. A gap between each letter gradually expand till the end of the last alphabet. it also features a squarey font.

the logo of a company "herschel" that produces bag, has more curvy and continuity strokes which also make it simple, nice and easy to be read.

Font progression:

these are the few i came out with, hopefully there is still more ideas to come in creating the letter "O" as requested by Mr. Vinod.

i created few of this font which looks like it is out of place, not align according to my personality. the reason behind creating font that is either not aligned properly or square-ish is because, i do no like to follow orders and doing the same thing like others, I'm more of a person that likes to go beyond or do things differently in my own way. that is how you express yourself. on the other hand, the square-ish type show the side of me which i not only want to do thing my way, but i want to finish it in a perfect matter.

Experience:
Learning about different fonts allows me to gain more knowledge about origin of different fonts. in each fonts lies a different message that it would like to bring forth. i was able to draft out some of my own fonts and might put it into use. it may be another challenging task for me to pull through, but in each time during the learning process i pick up skills to think, draw, create something out of nothing.

Observation:
I still find myself not satisfy with the draft outcome because it wasn't drawn nicely.(kill me please). i think that is the cause of wanting to finishing something in a perfect way. i tried to draw lines by free hand and the out come was better than i expected it to be.

Findings:

 My freehand drawing is having some slight improvement as mentioned previously, i rely a lot on tools that is available. also i'm able to do things my own way for instants, using my own way to draw,create new patterns that is needed to accomplish the task given. 

Typography : Week 1

14/1/2016 (Week 1)
JOSHUA LOW WAI PENG (UIU 300 414 734)
Typography

Lecture: Basics and introduction of typography
 the first lecture session given by Mr. Vinod was about the general introduction of what typography is all about and also discussing the assignment outline with fellow students in the classroom. On that day itself, Mr. Vinod gave us our first task of assignment which is having the spare time to watch a 2 hour documentary on the history and the origin of alphabet. Also, students are required to design a 27^th letter and also write up a 250 word explanation behind the letter created.

Task 1 (5%): No 27.
Instructions: Your first task is to understand the written letter, its origins and evolution over time. You will complete viewing the following youtube video, understand, analyze and reflect on the knowledge in your e-Portfolio under the reflection tittle. Please view the sample e-portfolio to understand how to write your e-portfolio (and reflection).

After viewing the video and other videos of your own finding (please document the other videos you watched in your e-portfolio under the lecture title) design the 27th alphabet. You will present this new letter to the class and describe your thinking or reasoning for its introduction.

Please draw the final 27th letter on an A4 graph paper using black marker or ink. Ensure that the letter is centered within the A4 graph paper and does not exceed 7cm in height or width. Please document the entire process; research, explorations, trial and errors, thoughts and epiphanies in your e-portfolio.

Marking criteria: You will be judged on your creativity: the rationale (in writing 250 words) behind the 27th letter and the argument for its consideration. The aesthetic appeal of the shape of the letter and the process work behind the outcome. It’s visual and logical relevance when compared to the other 26 letters.

Main research:
 my primary source was following back or going back to the basics where all I take the 26 letters as my references. In the video that the lecturer provided, I notice that each letters was then simplified into a square box or half a square box to keep it tidy and in order. I also notice that the last few alphabets such as “W, X, Y, Z” does not have any curve patterns, hence I tried to follow so the continuity of the pattern is present.

Below are the sketches that i did before proceeding in choosing the final outcome.

             

top left- diagram 1
top right- diagram 2
bottom left- diagram 3
bottom right- diagram 4

Other research done:
I tried to think outside the box by referring and getting some inspiration from the alphabet used in the movie “The hobbit” created by J. R. R. TOLKIEN. The language he creates was referred to as the “Elvish” language. As you can see, the tolkien language's alphabet was also created using the same concept which is writing in the "box". some of the alphabets takes up half of the box, some occupied fully. it may seems easy to write one of these alphabets, but it may not be easy to understand and memories at first glance.

diagram 5 shows that the respective alphabet created by Tolkien to replace the roman letters.

Final outcome:

I chose this as my final 27^th letter design because with just a few strokes, you are able to write it out. It also stays within the concept of writing in a “box”. It was perfectly align and utilizing almost the full box. Reason of choosing this as my finalize letter is because of the patterns that maintain the continuity of the letter “Z” which did not have any curves in the letter itself. I tried to keep it as simple as possible so that the pattern can be easily recognized and to remember about it.  In terms of the pronunciation of the letter, I came out with term “zie”. When the pronunciation is being projected, it may start with the sounding of “Xha”. Maybe this can replace letters that starts from Z but has sounding like X”. For instants, ZIG-(xha)ag. This is by far a concept of what I’ve been trying to accomplish.

FEEDBACK:Joshua, your research was ok, could do with a little more, do look at Derry's eportfolio as an example. The letterforms you created in my opinion was to complicated with too many strokes. Your rationale underpinning the letter may be acceptable.

Reflection
Experience: it was very challenging to create the 27^th letter as we are already dealing with 26 letters since the day we are born. When creating a new letter, everything looks the same, or it shapes up really weird and you don’t really like it, this doesn’t really fall in place.

Observation: I never knew that thinking and creating a new letter will crack my head so hard in thinking and exploring different types of patterns and strokes because I have to keep in mind that it has to be simple, in the “box”, and pattern recognition is easy for people to remember. But once I drew the “right” one, I felt it suits the place as the 27^th letter. So, I went with the design that I finalize. It just feels right for me. Through the process of drawing and sketching out the letter, I notice that I like to draw things until I get it perfect, then only I will proceed to color the letter.

Findings: I found out that my brain storming method needs improving and also needs more broaden perspective and not just sticking on one side of the page. Also, i need to practice on sketching to further improve my free hand drawing and not relying on tools.