Random Type Stuff

Multicolumn grids are especially useful in formats where more flexibility is needed, instances with complex hierarchy or uses of both text and illustrations. The format becomes more and more flexible the more columns you create.

Baseline grids are used to anchor the content in a common pattern. It gives a sense of better flow and rhythm to a design.

A hang line is when a designer chooses to use a horizontal grid line from which items can "hang". This can create uniformity across a page format.

Centered text:
-Is formal and classic
-Is used to create elegant, organic shapes
-Should always utilize variance in line length

Justified text:
-Creates a clean shape on the page
-Uses space efficiently
-Can create ugly gaps between words
-Should always use a line length that is long enough to conform to the type size

Ragged text:
-Respects the organic flow of language
-Avoids uneven spaces
-Doesn't need excessive hyphenation
-Needs to be checked to prevent weird shapes forming in the ragging edge

Typographic rivers appear when coincidental line spacing lines up from one line to the next, creating ugly gaps in type running down the page. They can be especially obvious in justified text.

Type color or texture is the term used to refer to the value of a block of copy on a page. Depending on the font, the block of text may seem black or gray, or nearly colorless. This is something to take into consideration when examining page hierarchy. Reducing leading can lend a denser color while expanding leading has the opposite effect.

There are a number of ways to indicate new paragraphs. The most common way is by indenting the first line. However, adding extra space between paragraphs is cool, too. Just don't ever indent and add extra space. Also, never indent the first line of the first paragraph.

thinkingwithtype.com/

An Interview with Richard Misrach

Here's a great video interview with Richard Misrach about his work, his inspiration, and the ideas he hopes to convey through his photography.

Richard Misrach, Photographer

Richard Misrach is a photographer who was very influential in the 1970s and helped pioneer color and large-scale photography. He is currently the most well-known for his ongoing series, Desert Cantos, a complex photographic study of how man relates to nature. He also did a series called Cancer Alley, a series of photographs taken within the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River, and On The Beach, aerial photos of human interactions on the beach.

50 Words that Describe His Work:
color political landscape time story communication composition beauty effective emotional researched thorough process study light inspired sublime	response    tragic    aftermath    cause and effect    disaster    life    death    vantage point    weather    desert    beach    fire    hurricane    cancer    industrial    irresponsibility    society	nature    documentary    detailed    clear    ominous    relationship    waiting    patience    propaganda    contemporary    environment    radiation    aesthetics    sociology    ecology    historical

Compound Words:

Beautiful-communicative

Human-tragedy

Industrial-ecology

Time-story

Flawless-detail
Environment-propaganda

Some links:
http://ellies-creative-works-vu.blogspot.com/2010/04/huge-fan-of-richard-misrach.html
http://potd.pdnonline.com/2010/01/3367
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/08/01/richard-misrach-a-focus-on-the-after-story/
http://seesawmagazine.com/misrachpages/misrach_interview.html
http://www.high.org/Art/Exhibitions/Richard-Misrach-Exhibition.aspx

The History of Typography

The History of Typography by Ben Barrett

Type is Power.

Type is Timeless. But always changing.

Barrett-Forest describes the evolution of fonts, where they came from, how they've changed, and why they've changed. It all started with Gutenburg and the very first printing press, but changed over time due to need to more legibility, less density, and more contrast. The First Industrial Revolution brought exciting changes because of the ability to print more precisely. The Second Industrial Revolution brought advertising, which made demands for larger, bolder typefaces. With the 20th Century came the simplification of fonts. With the invention of the computer, more experimentation was allowed, and gave anyone the ability to design their own typefaces.

To me, it is extremely fascinating how closely the evolution of typography is tied to the events in history and how those events shaped and dictated the formation of new typefaces for various uses according to the specific needs of the time and the technology that was available!

FUSE Designers

Tobias Frere-Jones is an American typographer based in NYC. He graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a Graphic Design degree in 1992 and joined the Font Bureau in Boston. It was there that he created some of the most well-known fonts of the company including Interstate, Poynter Oldstyle, and Poynter Gothic. In total, he has designed of 700 font faces for retail, clients, and his own experimentation! Top clients have included The Boston Globe and The New York Times and his work has been featured in numerous leading art journals.

Website: http://www.frerejones.com/
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Frere-Jones
http://www.frerejones.com/about/


Gerard Unger was born in the Netherlands in 1942. He studied graphic design and typography at the Gerrit Rietvald Academy in Amsterdam from 1963-1967 and has gone on to work in many aspects of the field, as a free-lance designer, a teacher and professor at various universities, and a type designer. He has done work in a majority of arenas from stamps and coins to magazines, newspapers, and books, to corporate branding and identities. One of his books has been translated into 5 different languages. He is now based in Brussels, Belgium and is a frequent lecturer on type design and other design topics.

Website: http://www.gerardunger.com/
Source: http://www.gerardunger.com/biography/biography.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Unger


Barry Deck is an American designer from Iowa, born in 1962. He graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1986. After pursuing his masters degree at the California Institute of Arts, he moved to New York and was recognized for his radical new ideas in the field of type design. He has been known for his distorted typefaces that play with and blur ideas of legibility. In 1995, he established his own company and has worked for companies such as Pepsi, Reebok, and Nickelodeon.

Website: http://www.barrydeck.com/
Source: http://www.identifont.com/show?1HV


Rick Vermeulen was born in the Netherlands in 1950. He graduated with a degree in graphic design from the Rotterdam Academy in 1972. After college, he often did work for the publisher, Bert Bakker, and worked with Rotterdam's Graphic Workshop, who worked to organize cultural events such as the Rotterdam Film Festival. From 1978-1982, he worked for the magazine Hard Werken, with a small group of other designers. Eventually, the group established their own studio under the same name. Vermeulen moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and continued work for Hard Werken. In 1995, he moved back to the Netherlands. More recently, he has designed typefaces for FUSE and has done collaboration work as well as freelance work for a number of clients.

Source: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-rick-vermeulen

Paul Elliman is a Brittish designer, born in 1961. He is well-known for his typeface Found Font, which is an ongoing project to create a typeface using found objects such as plastic, wire, and metal. He is also known for his font, Alphabet, which he designed for FUSE. He first came to fame for his work with the Brittish jazz magazine, Wire. He doesn't produce a lot of work, but the work he does is always well received.

Source: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/other-spaces

Anna-Lisa Schoenecker is a designer based in Mainz, Germany. She received her masters in Communication Design from the Royal College of Art. Her career began with Pentagram where she worked on editorial and corporate design. Her work for FUSE consists of her typeface White No Sugar and she has been recognized for her work in Women of Graphic Design 1890-2012. She now lives and works in Germany and is a teacher of Information Design and Interactive Media at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz.

Website: http://www.schoenecker.com/
Source: http://www.schoenecker.com/index.php?/in-brief/about-me/

More Meta Characteristics

The font, FF Meta, has many characteristics that are typical of computerized fonts. The Meta font family includes small caps font faces. Small caps are very different from all caps and the difference is very important. In all caps writing, the words shout at you from the page. In small caps fonts, however, the words are emphasized, but do not stick out extensively.

Ligatures are also included with the FF Meta Font. Ligatures are when two letters are combined to make one character. Common examples are fl, ff, and fi. The latest versions of FF Meta contain ligatures, but they are not contained in the older version that I have. An example of this can be seen in my previous post.

A foot mark is sometimes also called a "dumb apostrophe". It is a line that extends straight downward in the place of an apostrophe. A "smart apostrophe" however, is curled to the left. Smart apostrophes are far more visually appealing and are encouraged in typography in almost all circumstances.

This same difference is seen in inch marks versus quote marks. Inch marks are quotes that extend straight down, while quotes curl right to open and left to close.

A hyphen - is used only to hyphenate words or add line breaks. An en dash – is approximately the width of a capital N and is used to denote duration, such as in October – December, or 3 – 5 years of age. An em dash — is twice as long as the em dash, about the width of a capital M and is used in ways similar to parentheses or indicates an abrupt change in thought.

Typfaces and Definitions

Old-Style Typfaces:
-were originally developed in the 15th and 16th centuries
-are based off of handwritten letter forms
-are generally characterized by angled serifs and low variance in stroke weight
Example:
Garamond

Transitional Typefaces:

-bridge the gap between Old Style typefaces and Modern typefaces

-are characterized by more vertical axes and sharper serifs

Example:

Baskerville

Modern Typefaces:

-were originally developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

-were considered a radical difference from traditional typography

-are characterized by stark contrast in stroke weight, straight serifs, and straight vertical axes

Example:

Bodoni

Definitions:

Stroke Weight: the measurement of a stroke based on how thick or thin it is

Stress or Axis: the diagonal, horizontal, or vertical transition from thick to thin in a stroke

Small Caps: when a typeface uses smaller versions of the capital letters as the lowercase

Lining Figures: numerals that are the same height as the rest of the typeface and rest accordingly on the baseline

Non-Lining Figures: numerals that are not the same height as the rest of typeface and may at times extend below the baseline and vary in height

Ligature: two or more letters combined into one character. Popular examples include fl, ff, and fi

Type Measurement: type size is usually defined by points. Typically, 1 point=.013837 inches and 12 points=1 pica. Hence 72 points=1 inch. While typefaces do not follow this system religiously, in theory, a letter set at 72 points will be approximately 1 inch tall.

Type anatomy: terms include baseline, cap height, x-height, ascender, descender, arm, shoulder, leg, tail, eye, apex, crossbar, counter, bowl, link, ear, loop, aperture, and more... Best described by a picture

Sources:

http://www.designishistory.com/1450/type-classification/

identifont.com

http://tympanus.net/codrops/2012/05/09/understanding-the-lingo-typography-glossary/

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/Lining-Figures.htm

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/Non-Lining-Figures.htm

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/Ligature.htm

http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/intermediate/a/measure_type.htm

FF Meta

FF Meta is a Sans Serif font, developed by Erik Spiekermann in 1985. It is classified as a Humanist Sans Serif font. Spiekermann has designed many other fonts, including Berliner Grotesk, the Officina font family, Info font family, and Unit font family. The FF Meta font family includes over 60 fonts, including Roman, Italic, Bold, Black, and variations of these. There are also MetaPlus fonts, which are Small Caps fonts.

Spiekermann has also released a separate font family called FF Meta Serif, the counterpart to FF Meta.

Infographics

This is a collection of infographics that I believe to be successful images of how infographics should function. Presenting ideas and statistics in a reasonable and understandable way, yet with aesthetic attractiveness as well.

Dead guys

Paul Rand
Paul Rand, born Peretz Rosenbaum, lived from 1914 to 1996. Just a month ago, there were people celebrating his would-have-been 100th birthday. Rand was an American designer, and was one of the founders of the Swiss Style of graphic design. He studied at the Pratt Institute, the Parsons School of Design, and the Arts Student League between the years of 1929 and 1934. His family did not support his decision to pursue art as a career and, as a result, much of Rand's learning he taught himself by studying magazines of European art and design. He changed his name to Paul Rand at a young age to distance himself from his Jewish community, which was somewhat condescending of his work. Beginning in his college days, his reputation as a designer grew throughout the rest of his life. He was well known for his work of the 1950's and 60's doing corporate logos for companies such as IBM, ABS, Ford, and UPS, which are still in use today (except for UPS, which caused a huge controversy when they decided to change their branding after Rand's death).

Sources:

http://www.paul-rand.com/

Max Huber

Max Huber was a Swiss born graphic designer. He was born in 1919. At the age of 17, he entered the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. He was full of ideas and, along with a few friends, helped launch what is now referred to as the International Typographic Style. This system relies heavily on a grid system, use of right and left margins, sans serif fonts, and clear, structured layouts. At 21, Huber moved to Milan, which gave him the opportunity to experiment with merging together illustration, printing, photography, and painting. He went on to do a great deal of freelance design and enjoyed working in tandem with his clients.

Sources:

http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Max-Huber/

Emil Ruder

Emil Ruder was born in Switzerland in 1914. He worked alongside Armin Hofmann in developing what is known as Swiss Design. Ruder began his design career at age 15 with a design apprenticeship. He went on to study at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. In 1947, he became a typography instructor at the Basel School of Design. In his work with Hofmann, they together began to steer away from the former stylized designs and focus more on precision, cleanness, and legibility. Ruder ad a love for sans serif fonts, and clear and concise typography in his work. He also embraced asymmetry, paying close attention to weight and white space. The Univers font family, developed by his friend, Adrian Frutiger, inspired him and he and his students did numerous experiments with mixing the various font weights.

Sources:

http://www.designishistory.com/1940/emil-ruder/

http://www.thinkingforaliving.org/archives/932

El Lissitzky

Shying away from the Swiss born designers, we have El Lissitzky from Vitebsk, Russia. Lissitzky, born Eleazar Markovich Lisitskii in 1890, was an artist, typographer, designer, photographer, and architect who did a considerable amount of work for Soviet Russia in early 1900's. He studies architecture in Darmstadt from 1909 to 1914. In 1921, he became a professor at the Moscow Art Academy. In addition, between 1921 and 1925, he worked as Russian propagandist in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Much of his work involved propaganda for the Soviet Union including posters, books, buildings, and exhibitions. In his work, he contributed a lot of ideas that gave aid to the Suprematist, Bauhaus, and Constructivist art movements. Lissitzky did a lot of work with abstract art, using various shapes, which he called proun, to balance the space in his works.

Sources:

http://www.el-lissitzky.com/

http://www.designishistory.com/1920/el-lissitzky/

Piet Zwart

Piet Zwart was born in the Netherlands in 1885. From 1902 to 1907, he studied at the School of Applied Arts in Amsterdam. Teachers were not always present or active in the classroom, so much of his education at the School was self-imposed. After graduating, Zwart applied his education to furniture, interior and fabric design, but after World War I, decided to pursue a different route. In 1919, he began his graphic design career as a draftsman for a well-known architect of the time. Though formally trained as an architect, Zwart is now best known for his work as a designer. He was heavily influenced by the De Stijl style of art, but began to move away from its strictly abstract form. In the early 1920's, he began to experiment with typography. He would go on to refer to himself as a typotekt, a mixture of the words typographer and architect, saying that he built pages with type.

Sources:

http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Piet-Zwart/

http://www.designishistory.com/1920/piet-zwart/

Some Cool Designers and Creative Peeps of Today

Neville Brody
Neville Brody is one of the leading graphic designers of today. Brody was born in London, England in 1957 and studied design at the London College of Printing between the years of 1976 and 1979. Because Brody enjoyed experimenting with non-traditional methods and designs, his work at the college was met with much criticism. However, in leaving college, he stepped into the freelance designer and did a lot of work for the music industry, designing record sleeves. He became the designer for The Face magazine in 1981 where his experimentation gained global praise. In 1994, Brody was integral in developing the company, Research Studios, which is currently undergoing a name change to Brody Associates. Since its founding, Research Studios has done international work in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Barcelona, and New York! Brody continues to work extensively in typeface integration into design and the aid and usefulness of technology in the field of design and typography.

Sources:
http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/designer/neville_brody/
http://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/professor-neville-brody/
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-neville-brody


Wolfgang Weingart
Wolfgang Weingart is known for breaking from the mould of the accepted standards of typography and pioneering new ideas, contributing what is known today as 'Swiss Punk' or 'New Wave'. Born in 1941 in Germany, and studied applied art and design at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart. It was after graduating, during his apprenticeship at Ruwe Printing in Stuttgart that he met designer Karl-August Hanke who was instrumental in introducing him to design outside of Germany - particularly that of Switzerland. These styles and methods began to influence his work as he continued his apprenticeship. This especially included the use of grids and other methods of logical placement of information on the page. However, Weingart began to expand upon the Swiss ideas and developed his own style. Whereas the Swiss were concerned with logic and meaning, Weingart began to take those logical forms and introduce more creativity and variance. Sort of a "know the rules and when to break them" type approach. Weingart transformed typographic and design world with his ideas which quickly became international. In 2000, he published a book entitled My Way to Typography, which - in and of itself - is a design masterpiece.

Sources:
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-wolfgang-weingart/
http://keithtam.net/writings/ww/ww.html


Armin Hofmann
Armin Hofmann is known to be one of the most significant teachers in the graphic design field. Additionally, he is one of a number of great Swiss designers of the 1900's, aiding in revolutionizing the design world. Hofmann was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1920. He completed his studies at the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich and went on to work as a lithographer's apprentice and open his own studio in Basel. In 1947, at the age of 27, he returned to the School of Arts and Crafts as a teacher and remained there for 40 years. Hofmann's legacy as a teacher is unprecedented. Students in his classes were impressed by his charisma, energy, and extreme patience. He absolutely loved the design process and wanted students to fully flesh out their ideas and designs, regardless of the amount of time it took. He was a constant encouragement in the classroom, allowing students the freedom to do their own work and generate their own ideas while he directed and guided them. Students who spent time with him outside of class recall that he loved to have fun and crack jokes. In terms of his typographic and design style, he was known for purity and simplicity. There is a certain timelessness to his work, not tied down to the fads of the day. He wrote a book, Graphic Design Manual, which continues to influence and inspire designers today.

Sources:
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-arminhofmann/
http://www.designishistory.com/1940/armin-hofmann/


Erik Spiekermann
Erik Spikermann is an information architect, type designer, and author numerous books and articles on the subject of type and typography. He was born in 1947 and studied History of Art and English in Berlin. At the age of 32, he founded MetaDesign, Germany's largest design firm, which now has offices in Berlin, London, and San Francisco. Big name clients have included Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing, as well as many German companies and organizations. He is also the founder of the well known site, FontShop, a font production and distribution center. He continues to work extensively in the field of typography. In the past 10 years, he has received many honors and awards for his vast contributions to the work and study of typography. He is currently a professor at the University of Arts in Bremen.

Sources:
http://spiekermann.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/bio_en_1208.pdf


Jessica Hische
Born in South Carolina in 1984, Jessica Hische grew up in Pennsylvania. Her parents were not artistic, but were encouraging of her ambitions. In college, she was a star student and absolutely poured herself into her work. She graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2006 with a degree in Graphic and Interactive Design. Fresh out of college, she was hired by Headcase Design in Philly as a freelance designer where she helped design books and grew in her love for illustration and image-making. When the Headcase cut her hours, she developed a promo for herself and was hired by Louise Fili's studio in Brooklyn, where she stayed for two and a half years. Since leaving Louise Fili's, she started her own company and continues to be quite successful as a freelance artist. One of her most recognizable works is the logo and branding redesign for MailChimp.

Sources:
http://jessicahische.is/anoversharer
and... the dreaded Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Hische