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Introduction to Typography September 21, 2009

Posted by kd49 in : Class 3 - Introduction to Typography, Classes , comments closed

Review of signage assignment

review of Business Week article. A few relevant links:
Flash abuse: Leo Burnett

An overview of typography including an introduction to type, the terminology associated with it and guidelines for its use.

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FONT ART
4 Dead Celebrities

Integration of Farci-Arabic and Latin alphabet

Typography is:

  1. The art or process of printing with type.
  2. The work of setting and arranging types and of printing from them
  3. The general character or appearance of printed matter.

A typeface refers to a group of characters, such as letters, numbers, and punctuation, that share a common design or style. Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica and Courier are all typefaces. There are over 300,000 typefaces.

Fonts refer to the means by which typefaces are displayed or presented. Graphic designers choose typefaces for their projects but use fonts to create the finished art. Typefaces are selected. Fonts can be purchased at type foundries.

Character, which is any individual letter, numeral or punctuation mark. The capital letters are called caps, or uppercase (u.c.). Small letters are called lowercase characters (l.c.) Numbers are called numerals or figures.

Type Families The different options available within a font make up a type family. Many fonts are at a minimum available in roman, bold and italic. Other families are much larger, such as Helvetica, which is available in options such Condensed Bold, Condensed Black, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, etc. The univers font comes in a large family of over 30 options.

example of Helvetica type family

Classifications of type:

Font Book on a mac is a good resources for viewing type libraries. Demonstration of Font Book

The elements of type and seven classic typefaces (ppt)

How type used to be set.
The typography school

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ASSIGNMENT

Listen to: Please Explain: Typography, The Leonard Lopate Show
 (scroll down the page to find it)

Create 6 examples of your name choosing font preferences with at least one example of serif, san serif, decorative and script: example

Create 2-3 expressive words: ppt example

Read: About Typeface

Look at Tables of Contents and The Professional Gallery on Designing with Type

Excellent reference:
Designing with Type

Elements of  Typographic Style

Thinking with Type