YiMing

2013-05-17

The History of Typography.

2013-05-02

How to present on an Exhibition

Umbrella Series

The idea is making a series of umbrella hanging on the exhibition wall. Keep the umbrella cover as clean black while inside the umbrella will be the image of the phobia.

Posters or having a distorting mirror

Another idea is to make poster series. It could has a distorting glass over it which will have a stronger visual effect.

This 12 weeks project provides the opportunity to plan and produce the practical work required to the highest prodessional standard. I chose “Phobias” as my topic. The concept is to visually communicate different irrational and weired phobias in a consistence graphic system. I have been interested in this topic many years ago, and expected to do some design while it is a perfect time for me to fulfill my dream.

I started with brainstorming about bounce ideas. I had many different ideas, but my problem is I am not confident about my ability so that I can’t choose a specialist subject area. When writing the learning agreement, this is one of the aims I really want to achieve. I think my tutors are very helpful, somehow guided me on the right track. I decided to design a book which includes various phobias for the final submission. There are several of ideas, one is a book of “A to Z” phobia alphabets which is to create 3D experimental typefaces. However, considering the limited of time, I don’t think I could finish 26 different typography design. One idea is to do series of black and white illustrations with linocuts. And another idea is to use photograph and illustration.

There are various ways help myself collecting information. I researched on different types of interesting phobias on the websites, social network sites such as twitter. Also, I did a survey to investigate what kind of phobias people suffered around me. Moreover, I analysed and record other designer’s works which inspiring me and clever ways of communicating information. To inspire myself, I did a lot of experiments with typography. I created 3D typefaces. For instance, I experimented with peanut butter to spread and print “Arachibutyrophobia”(which is the fear of peanut butter sticking on the roof of one’s mouth). I also did for the fear of vegetables, cats…etc.

I generated based on the ideas from my brainstorm and experiments. I defined my book as “a visual compendium to see, feel and explore.” The title of the book is “Irrational Phobias / Read With Caution!” The book includes 10 phobias that people probably never heard of. I made a photography-illustration montage for each phobias. I illustrated objects to metaphor each phobias with simple black lines. And combined with photos. The book was developed into a French fold style. Considering this book as a start to explore phobias, I photographed and collected the surface or texture of phobias which will be folded inside. The audience can choose to see and explore the phobias inside each pages depend on themselves.

During the process of design, troubles have never stopped popping out. I keep testing printing them out as long as I adjusted or modified the design as this is an experience through the previous projects. To keep the consistence of the visual language is not simple. But this help myself to explore aspects such as font style, colour scheme, moods, textures, imagery and materials. In terms of font style, as Richard said: “A good font changes everything.” I did further research on font system, history and really cautious to choose the font. Finally, I chose Trade Gothic which is a traditional sans-serif typeface.

A good book need an attractive cover. I had an idea of making my warning title “Read with Caution!” to be indented with no ink on the paper. To achieve this considering to keep the consistence of graphic style, I used letterpress after experimenting with linocuts. In terms of book binding, I bound the book by myself in a Japanese stab binding style.

In a nutshell, I feel I successfully fulfilled the aims I had written in the learning agreement, compared to the previous projects, another thing I paid attention is time management. As the first self directed project, I arranged my time even better than before. Also, I have never felt this sense of achievement whenever I solved a problem. I think this project not only just

develop the design skills, problem-solving skills and concept generation, but also kind of build up my confidence!

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Development Process

Letterpress Book Cover Design

As I the first print font is trade gothic and letterpress doesn’t have the same font. I fond the similar; same family fonts. I tried with Gill Sans, but the size is too large. Then, I chose Univers in 28/30 size. I tested many times to find the best layouts.

Finally, I decided to use the one printed sideways.

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Development Process

Cover Design

I was inspired by a famous typography poster: Good typography is invisible/Bad typography is everywhere.

I want to make the warning part “Read with caution” embed or invisible somehow. I tried with several ways to achieve this. But I don’t think photoshop could make this texture. It might need overlay prints or other ways.

I experimented with linocuts first. I still like the creepy feeling from the black print of linocuts. However, as the consequence of different visual language, I decided to try with letterpress.

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Development Process

First Mock up

I printed out the book to see how it looks and had a tutorial with tutors. After the discussion, there are some things were pointed out:

Some of the images need to change CMYK mode.
The order of reading should be switched. The title of the phobia should be on the left while the description should be on the right.
Inner pages had a problem of reading. It could be cropped to half and half, so people could look at the inner page in both sides.

Through this mock up, I also exercised the skill of Japanese stab binding.

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Development Process

Ailurophobia - the fear of cats

1. I used the image of cats paw print on the top right corner.

2. For the folded page, I used my old photoshop drawing.

3. To keep them all photographs, I changed to the original cat face.

4. I photoshoped cat’s foot larger in a logical way and also changed to a lighter color, considering the foot is a bit orange, so I want the background to be its contrast color which could highlight the objects.

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Development Process - Font Chosen

Trade Gothic

As I want a traditional sans-serif typeface for my book considering the visual language I am using is very graphic.

Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as many other sans-serif families (like Futura, Helvetica, Univers, ITC Avant Garde, Frutiger, Avenir, Akzidenz Grotesk, and Gotham), but this dissonance is typical of types which are — or seem to be — hand worked.

Compare to the initial font I used, it was Caviar Dreams. I don’t understand the name of this font but quite like it. It’s kind of like a simple Century Gothic type font, but with a little retro twist. But it is not a usual font for a book’s body texts.

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30 New Free Fonts for Headlines

Research Study

Today’s round-up focuses on clean, distinctive and easy-to-read fonts that designers may not necessarily crave, but will always need. Those types (no pun i

Source: inspiremyweb

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Development Process

Photography-Illustration Montage

To keep the consistence of the visual language, on the one hand, I changed the white lines int the same weight. On the other hand, I photoshoped the chin and and mouth for the fear of chins and long words. So, each page will have the same layouts and system.