Typographic type and adjustments

In this session we looked at some basic typographic principles. We discussed what is Alignment, Kerning, Adjustment, Tracking, Leading and Baseline. After that we had to pick a quote related to art and try different adjustments to it. First we had to write the quote in Illustrator using the Helvetica bold fond and leave it as it is, then we had to make it as how we think it should look right and last to make one with messed up line spacing, kerning, alignment and leading. All of that using the  ''Character panel'' 

Designed by Shahir Zag, this “How to Piss Off Your Designer Friends and Give Them a Migraine” poster is made of Helvetica Bold with messed up line spacing, kerning and alignment. 

Leading 

Leading is the distance between the baselines in the paragraph. A baseline is the imaginary guideline that type sits on. The standard porportion of leading to type size is typically 120%. So if the type size is 20 point, then the most standard leading would be 24 point.

 Expanding the line spacing, or increasing the leading from 120%, creates a lighter more open text block. As leading increases, lines of type become more independent graphic elements rather than parts of a paragraph.

Reducing the leading from 120% creates a denser element while risking collisions of ascenders anddescenders (see the "Eye of the Tiger" above). 

Kerning

Kerning is an adjustment of space between two specific letters.  The goal of kerning is to create a consistent rhythm of space within a group of letters and to create an appearance of even spacing between letters. Fonts have exact amounts of spacing between letter combinations already built into it, which is called Metric Kerning. Type takes on Metric Kerning as a default. 

Manual Kerning - One helpful way to look at kerning is imagining that each space between kerning pairs is filled with liquid, and the same amount of liquid should put poured into each space.

Kerning can be manually adjusted in the kerning field in the character palette while the cursor is between two letters. But the faster and more commonly-used way is to use the shortcut by placing the cursor in the space you would like to kern, then hold down the option key while pressing the left/right arrow keys. Each click of the arrow key will adjust the kerning a little bit at a time.

Tracking 

Tracking is generalized: It uniformly affects the spacing between all the characters in a range of text. Tracking is normally adjusted to compensate for spacing problems caused by changes in point size (especially in very small and very large type). It is also used to adjust badly spaced passages of text.To adjust tracking, use the tracking field on the character palette.  For a shortcut, select the text you would like to track, and hold down the option key and press the left/right arrow keys.

Difference between Kerning and Tracking 

Typeface anatomy:

Typeface anatomy written down in notebook

Typeface anatomy  down in my notebook 

Different alignments: 

Left, right, centred and justified alignments

Justification without fine-tuning can result in gaping holes, loosely spaced lines and 'rivers' of white space. By adding word spacing it likely to get 'rivers' of white space, which can distract your reader's eye 

Typographic alignment

In this session we discussed the typographic alignment and how important it is for the good page layout. We discussed how difficult it's actually to assess what is a well placed text and what is the best alignment, as we have used with the computer where the fonts are well calculated and the alignment is automatic. We do not have to think about these things. 
After that we had to find a quote related to art and design and then to choose a typeface and print out the alphabet. We had to use the letters from the alphabet to build the quote on an A3 page format considering where to place the text and what to be the distance between the lines and the letters to get as final result a well placed on the page text that is well aligned on the page. 

This is a picture of the process before printing out the page with the alphabet and the quote. Afterward I've change the fond and chose the one on the photo below. 

Here's an example of typographic alignment: 

Positive&negative space/typographic exercise at home

In this session we talked about negative and positive space in typography. Then we had to choose 2 random words and with printed alphabet to arrange the letters to form the words we had chosen while playing with the negative space. I chose the words ''Brat'' and ''Sushi''. I have tried a couple of times, but I found it hard, then I decided that  I'll try again at home, when I have enought time to think about the idea of the negative space and to use it properly. The firs picture I've uploaded is the work I did at college with the word ''Brat'.' 

Brat

Brat/Sushi

The Last three are sketches I did at home with the same words, while figuring out how to use the negative space 

The other photos that I've attached are some works I did at home, some of the photos are not that related but somehow they represent the idea of the negative space: Mouse Cold                                                                                                             Book Art

I did this at home as an positive&negative space exercise with typography. We had the same exercise but on paper; I wanted to try using illustrator to create the same effect. Technically it's not perfect as I'm still learning Illustrator, but I've tried to show my idea. 

Positive and Negative space

In this session we discussed what is Positive and Negative space, and how to use them in correct way in the composition.
Positive and negative space always work together when we create composition of art.
In a composition there can be a balance between the positive and negative space or there can be mostly positive ot mostly negative space.
Positive space are the areas in a work of art that are the subject or in other words positive space is the space occupied by the Subject or areas of interest.
Negative space is the area around the subject/s or in other words negative space is the space that is not the Subject/s
For every positive shape there is a negative shape surrounding.
 Here's some examples:

Faces or a Vase? 

In this picture if we see a Vase, then we se the white space as the positive space and the black space as a negative space. however if we see faces, then we see the black space as the positive space and the whites pace as the negative space.

''Negative space can be used to depict a subject in a chosen medium by showing everything around the subject but not the subject itself. Usage of negative space will produce a silhouette of the subject. Most often, though, negative space is used as a neutral or contrasting background to draw attention to the main subject which is then referred to as the positive space.''

In his 2001 book The Art of Looking Sideways, Alan Flethcer discusses the importance of exemplifying ''space'' as a substance:

''Space is substance. Cezanne painted and modelled space. Giacometti sculpted by "taking the fat off space". Mallarme conceived poems with absences as well as words. Ralph Richardson asserted that acting lay in pauses... Issac Stern described music as "that little bit between each note - silences which give the form"... The Japanese have a word (ma) for this interval which gives shape to the whole. In the West we have neither word nor term. A serious omission.^''

Well balanced positive and negative space 

                                Shigeo Fukada

In this poster, negative space (red) is used cleverly against the positive space (white), to create new meaning

The Guild of Food Writer’s logo is a wonderfully simple design incorporating the essential aspects of the organisation: the nib of a pen representing members’ scriptural endeavours with a spoon in the negative space signalling their subject matter. The guild is a professional association linking food writers and broadcasters in the United Kingdom.

The Bronx Zoo. We can see how the negative space forms the shapes of skyscrapers 

'Moby Dick' book cover design by Alexander Johnson

Carrefour is a French worldwide hypermarket chain whose trading logo contains a negative space letter C.

Animal Rescue Sofia is a charity founded with the aim of saving and caring for homeless animals around the Bulgarian capital, with particular focus on the problem of stray dogs. The organisation’s charming logo combines a dog’s face and a carer’s hand forming a heart shape.

Building letters from simple shapes

In this session we had to made the whole alphabet  in Adobe Ilustrator by chopping, overlapping and rotating circles, squares and triangles. We were shown how to work with Rulers and Guides, as well as the scissors tool in order to chop bits of the shapes.  I worked mostly with overlapping, and the pent tool to delete anchor points, also I used the pathfinder tool to divide object and delete the bits I did't want. After we had finished with building the letter we had had to coloured them and work with the transparency tool to transparent the colour so we can see the different parts of the letter. I've attached photos of my work.  The last one is the work I did in college. I was not happy with the results as I was in rush and didn't have much time to think of it,  that's why I've try a couple of time at home and as result I did the letters from the photos 5, 6 and 7.  I like them more as I used less colours with more cool shades and not so bright colours in which you could get lost.

done at home

done at home

done at home

college work 

Formalism