Tuesday, September 30, 2008

TypeTypeType


Type 1

Project 04- Font Mannerisms (continued from previous post)

Part 2: Digitally handset descriptive words
Choose two descriptive modifiers for each of the four family members. Hand-set and hand-kern (move the letters individually as an image) the eight words in the respective typefaces.

Part 3: Visual analysis
Select appropriate type aspects to compare and contrast family members, one aspect to one composition. Using letters in outline form, create four compositions documenting comparisons across family members.
stroke variable:

Cap-height vs. x-height:

Serifs:
Bowls:
Ascenders:
Descenders:

Part 4- Expressive compositions (last part)
Select two of the eight descriptive words from part 2. Create one composition of each to successfully express the connotations.



Project 05- Wood type book
Each person submitted sentences about type to be used as the sentence in the book. The sentence chosen was "These are images not words."
In your designer team, design the "designer spread" using your assigned typeface corresponding to your assigned word in the sentence. In your print team, typeset the "printer spread" corresponding to one-half of two designer spreads on letterpress. Print 30 copies of the spread. Bind the pages into a book.

My group was assigned the word "are" and the typeface "don".... something. Lame typeface. The teacher said she gave it to us because it was THE advertising typeface of the 70's. bad reason, i say. Also, we only had one point size available (everyone else had like 3 including a large one) ours was tiny. Anyways, we made do with what we had. We didnt want to make our spread to bold because our word was "are" and it was not the most important word of the sentence, probably the least important. Its like being a backup singer for a famous pop singer. You cant out shine the lead singer, but you still gotta be good. So we decided upon this little mixture of letters and thought it fit quite nicely with our ideas. The we got together with our printing team and spent a total of 8 hours in the letterpress (2 one night, 6 the next night). And on a weekend of course! Then during the next class we all binded our 11.5 x 17" books (which include every groups spreads) with the saddle stitch machine.

To be honest, i didnt really enjoy this project. Which makes me sad because the letterpress is cool. And i do like letterpress, and i love the final product of this project. There were just a bunch of things that added up to me disliking this project. From its timing (Hunters birthday weekend, forcing me to stay in raleigh instead of going to kville for his bday. but being the person he is, he came to raleigh and was in the letterpress with me for all 8 hours), the math involved, the typeface/word assigned to my group, and the disorganization. 30 kids printing in a 3 day period having to print on the backs of each others pages with each page having to dry for 24 hours and no one knowing when anyone else is printing = HEADACHE.

printing spread 1

printing spread 2

Cover of book. (.918 is "type high" the height of the metal or wood letters) The two guys that did the cover designed that paintbrush image and cut it out on the laser cutter onto a block of wood and used it as a block print. awesome, i know.


(CMYK = cyan, magenta, yellow, key {black}- pure process colors)
The bottom has a little image of the bell tower and it says NC State published. and then the name of our class, and date below it.

Life outside design: i have no life outside design.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

3 newsies

New finished projects:

Imaging 1
Project 03- Tableau
Compose a photograph that tells a story, including a caption.
The caption says "And that's when I knew he had chosen her."
Project 04- Illiterate Instructions
Create workable instructions on how to create a task or activity, without benefit of the written word, through image sequence. Select a resonant task-location combo for the instructional flyer. Use a color photocopier as compositor to create formally engaging instructions (live photocopying). Each flyer is posted in chosen location and the studio walks around campus to see them in action.
I decided to show instructions on how to ____. I thought this activity fit best on campus at a dorm. So i posted my flyer with the other alcohol/sex education flyers in Welch. Basically, i cut out everything i wanted (people, boxes, etc) and arranged them in layers on the photocopier, printing over and over on the same composition. Its a very interesting new technique they taught us, and if it werent so expensive (25 cents a copy) i would like to play around with it more.

Studio
Project 01- Concept Map

Typography project and another studio project in the works...

Life outside design: BEN FOLD'S FIVE CONCERT!



Thursday, September 11, 2008

Projects, Projects, Projects!

Ooook. So we're already what, like 5 weeks into school? Bah time flies. And so do the projects...

I won't post all the projects i do, because some of them are just exercises to teach us things, not all that interesting to look at. But ill probably post most of them. I also decided to do this blog a little different so as to be more organized. I'm only going to post about a project when its done. This way I wont have so much stuff on here, just the essential stuff.

Imaging 1
Project 01- Exercise aka boring to you
Project 02- Environment-Behavior
Basically, we had to take photographs to create 5 sets of 6 pictures to create 5 sequences that showed behavior within a specific environment. I chose Pullen Park, and more specifically the playground. At first I wanted to just document other peoples behaviors, like little kids. But i was unable to get the angles and closeness i wanted for fear of creeping out the kids mothers. So i brought along Hunter to be my lovely subject. I did keep one sequence of a kid though, he was just so cute and contemplative. Point of project- to gain knowledge about photography and imaging sequences (action-to-action, moment- to-moment, subject-to-subject, etc) We had to turn it in via Flickr, and its much easier to just look at it there rather than me posting it here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/christinefleming/sets/72157607061259818/


Typography 1 (Type)
Project 01- Scavenger Hunt
Instructions: Complete a formally cohesive alphabet within a theme (my group's theme was minimal). Collect entire alphabet (26 letters plus ! ? $ *) through any source available using a digital camera to capture the letterform. Point- to see letterforms in all things and discover what formal characteristics create unity and cohesiveness in typographic form. Heres our final alphabet at pin up. We tried to get the photographs to be all structure related.

Project 02- Web blog
This is a semester long class blog, and i might post something from it every now and then.
Project 03- Constrained Systems
Design a letterform system that communicated the connotations of the two words
(adjective and noun) assigned. Use only one basic shape (circles, half circles, squares, or
same-length lines) to the letterforms. Once the letterforms are designed, arrange them to
form the words you were given. My two words were graceful and magnification. As soon as
i saw graceful i was excited because i immediately knew i wanted to do a script typeface. I
then chose to use squares to make a sort of pixel type.Then to incorporate the connotation
of magnification, i made the size of the words smallon the page (compared to a normal
display typeface) and off to one corner. During critique people that walked by mine leaned
in close to see it (even though it was still like 5 inches across), which is exactly what i wanted
because that is the word being magnified!

update: i made an A-!
Project 04- Font Mannerisms
Assigned a font family to analyze. (I got Chaparral)
Part 1: Set up the master document and typeset the alphabet in four members of the family
(typeset= individually move each letter to the correct spacing according to
self-made guides put in place according to x-height, cap-heigh, ascender-height,
descender height, etc.), members of family= regualr, bold, italic, bold italic.)
Then create another page showing the font family as a whole using whatever words
we like. Parts 2-4 are still in process, so ill explain/show them as i finish them.






Studio 1
Project 1- Concept Map
not finished!

Well, i think ill go to bed now. I'll post my tableau and studio project monday/tuesday.

Life outside design? What? Sushi Blues at 1 am! Too bad you cant see my shoes... they were
awesome. My friend molly bought them at Prague, and let me borrow them. WE HAVE THE
SAME SIZE FEET. ive never been able to trade shoes with someone because no one has feet
as small as mine. finally, i met molly. and she had bright red pumps from prague.

Continuation!

Hello, hello. Me being the forgetful person i am, i have forgotten my password for my old blog/wanted to start a new one anyways. 

So this blog is a continuation of my time at NCSU Design School-- Graphic Design. Heres a link to the blog i had before. (freshman year)

http://christinefleming.blogspot.com/