Advanced Typography: Task 1 Exercises

22 April 2025 – 13 May 2025 / Week 01 – Week 04
Sara Patel / 0362876
Advanced Typography / Bachelors in Creative Media Design / Taylors University
Task 1 : Exercise 1 & 2

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• INSTRUCTIONS
• LECTURES
• PROGRESS WORK FOR EXERCISE 1
• PROGRESS WORK FOR EXERCISE 2
• FEEDBACKS
• REFLECTIONS
• FURTHER READINGS

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INSTRUCTIONS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vzg1EITc2Gm1rrGTWvB48RvMWETfEA1B/view?usp=sharing

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LECTURE

WEEK 1: Typographic System

The 8 major variations of the structural system are:

1. Axial System (all elements and organised to the left or right of a single axis)
2. Radial System (all elements are extended from a point of focus)
3. Dilatational System (all elements expand from a central point in a circular fashion)
4. Random System (elements dont have any specific pattern or relation)
5. Grid System (a system of vertical and horizontal division)
6. Modular System (a series of non objective elements that are constructed in a standardised units)
7. Transitional System (an informal system of layered banding)
8. Bilateral System (all texts are arranged symmetrically on a single axis)

This organization is essential for effective communication, relying on hierarchy, legibility, and contrast. This helps designers move beyond rigid grids, unlocking creative and flexible design possibilities.

Fig 1.1: Examples of different systems (Week 1, 22/04/25)

Quote of the day: "Typography is the use of type to advocate, communicate, celebrate, educate, elaborate, illuminate and disseminate. Along the way, the words and pages become art." - James Felici, The complete manual of typography.

WEEK 2: Typographic Compositions

Typography involves two main ideas: creating letter shapes and arranging text in a space. There are design principles such as emphasis, symmetry, and alignment which helps make layouts look good, but some, like repetition and perspective, can be tricky to use.

Rule of Third ( A photographic composition dividing the frame into three columns and rows. )

Fig 1.2: Rule of Third (Week 2, 29/04/25)

Grid System ( Structured, widely used for order and readability. )

Post-Modernist ( Introduces chaos and asymmetry, blending creativity with planning. )

Environmental Grid ( Draws from architectural elements for unique layouts. )

Fig 1.3: Environmental Grid (Week 2, 29/04/25)

Form and Movement ( Adds dynamic, sequential design to grids. )

Fig 1.4: Form & Movement (Week 2, 29/04/25)

Quote of the day: "There is a fine line between genius and insanity just as there is a fine line between legibility readability and memorability." - 1st part from Oscar second from Mr. V.

WEEK 3: Context & Creativity

Handwriting inspired the first printed letters. Middle Eastern writing might have been influenced by Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Chinese writing changed from oracle bone inscriptions to Seal Script, then to Traditional and Simplified scripts. The oldest writing found in India is from the Indus Valley Civilization. Brahmi script, which came after the Indus Script, had a big impact on later writing systems. Creativity comes from looking at the world around us and learning about history.

Quote of the day: "Looking behind gives you context. Looking forward gives you opportunities" - Mr. Vinod.

WEEK 4: Designing Type

Typeface design balances legibility and artistic expression, serving both functional and aesthetic purposes. Fonts like Frutiger and Verdana were created to meet specific needs, such as readability in airports or on digital screens. 

Fig 1.5: Frutiger Aradic font (Week 4, 13/05/25)

The design process involves research, sketching, digitizing, testing, and refinement, supported by specialized tools like Glyphs and FontLab for greater precision. Visual adjustments such as overshoot, kerning, and counterform shaping are crucial for optimal readability. Driven by a deep passion and meticulous attention to detail, typeface design is a labor of love. It continuously evolves with advancements in technology, shifts in cultural context, and real-world feedback, making iteration an essential part of the craft.

Fig 1.6: Steps of Construction (Week 4, 13/05/25)

Quote of the day: "The mindset of a type designer if clinically studied might be construed as sick, plagued by an unusual obsession to details" - Mr. Vinod J. Nair.

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PROGRESS WORK (Exercise 1)

Exercise Brief:

For this task, we were asked to explore the 8 fundamental Typographic Systems by experimenting with each system using the given content and finally documenting it in the portfolio.

Provided Content:

The Design School,

Taylor’s University

All Ripped Up: Punk Influences on Design

or

The ABCs of Bauhaus Design Theory

or

Russian Constructivism and Graphic Design

Open Public Lectures:

June 24, 2021

Lew Pik Svonn, 9AM-10AM

Ezrena Mohd., 10AM-11AM

Suzy Sulaiman, 11AM-12PM

June 25, 2021

Lim Whay Yin, 9AM-10AM

Fahmi Reza, 10AM-11AM

Manish Acharia, 11AM-12PM

Lecture Theatre 12

Sketch Work:

Before starting the exploration in InDesign, I sketched out a few ideas to develop further digitally.

Fig 2.1: Sketch Work (Week 1, 24/04/25)

Digitizing:

After sketching out few layouts started working on the digital form in Adobe InDesign. These were the process work and drafts of all the layouts.

Fig 2.2: Digitizing Process (Week 1, 26/04/25)

Fig 2.3: Digitized Draft (Week 1, 26/04/25)

Final Work:

After getting reviews from Mr. Vinod i made few changes and finalized the final 8 layouts.

Fig 2.4: Final Layouts (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.5: Final Radial System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.6: Final Dilatational System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.7: Final Random System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.8: Final Bilateral System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.9: Final Modular System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.10: Final Transitional System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.11: Final Grid System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.12: Final Axial System (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.13: Final 8 systems with grid (Week 2, 30/04/25)

Fig 2.14: Final 8 systems without grid (Week 2, 30/04/25)

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PROGRESS WORK (Exercise 2)

Exercise Brief:

For this task, we were asked to choose an image of a man made or natural object and find letterforms within it. Further we had to refine those letter shapes step by step, keeping features from the original image. Once the letters were completed, we had to combine it with an image to create a design where the letters and the image work well together.

Progress Work:

I started the task by choosing an image of gorgonian coral after alot of research and started finding letter forms in it by outlining the image.

Fig 3.1: Initial Progress Work (Week 2, 02/05/25)

After getting rejected for the first extraction i chose a new image of lava and started with the extraction all over again.

Fig 3.2: Final Process Work (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.3: Final Letters Extraction (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.4: Poster Process (Week 3, 09/05/25)

Fig 3.5: Initial Poster (Week 3, 09/05/25)

Final Work:

After making minor revisions according to the feedbacks given these are my final work:

Fig 3.6: Initial Image and Extraction (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.7: Overall Process (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.8: Extracted Letters (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.9: Reference Font (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.10: Final Letterform (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.11: Original Extraction (top) & Final Letterform (bottom) Comparison (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.12: Ex 2 Part 1 PDF Compilation (Week 3, 07/05/25)

Fig 3.13: Final Poster PDF (Week 3, 09/05/25)

Fig 3.14: Final Poster (Week 3, 09/05/25)

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FEEDBACKS

WEEK 1: 

General Feedbacks: This was the introduction week where we were informed about what all we had to do and what not to do. We went through the module information, the rules and regulation booklet and got briefed on the task 1 exercise 1. 
Specific Feedbacks: I started updating the google sheet, blog and watched the lectures for week 1. Further i started sketcing out for exercise 1.

WEEK 2: 
General Feedbacks: Mr V went through our works in class and gave general feedbacks like,  what importants things we need to keep in mind to judge our own work later, elements shouldnt be distractive, random system should be chaotic, margin is meant to be empty, always to allign texts, etc to help us understand where we can improve  our work.
Specific Feedbacks: I updated the google sheet and even revised my work. According to his feedbacks, i misunderstood radial system and my random was nor chaotic enough so i had to redo the design while others i had to revise a bit and finalize on the final designs. He told me to decide for myself to gain confidence and independance. He asked not to worry about failure and focus on the learnings and not the grades. I completed my exercise 1 and started working on ex 2.

WEEK 3: 
General Feedbacks: Mr. Vinod gave feedbacks on the letter extraction. He talked about consistency and how the image had to replicated on the letter forms which most of them did not have it. 
Specific Feedbacks: Mr. Vinod said that my extraction is not working out as my image had alot of strings in it which was not replicated properly in my letters. i had to redo the extraction with a different image. I completed the letter extraction and even the first draft of the poster. I updated the blog and the google sheet too.

WEEK 4: 
General Feedbacks: Mr. Vinod gave feedbacks on the final posters. He adviced alot of things to motivate us for the further assignments. We went through the task 2A. We can use existing fonts but need to modify. Wordmark is a logo type which is the identifier of a brand.
Specific Feedbacks: Mr. Vinod finally said that my final poster was a good attempt but it could be improved a bit. I updated my google sheet and completed my task 1 blog.

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REFLECTIONS

Experience: Over the past few weeks, I worked on two different exercises under Task 1, which helped me understand the fundamentals of typography better. In the first part, I explored the 8 typographic systems, which was fun but also challenging, as each system required a unique approach. I initially struggled understanding few systems especially with the radial and random systems. The second part involved selecting an image and extracting letterforms from it, but my first attempt failed due to the complexity of the image, forcing me to redo the extraction. Although it was frustrating and stressful, especially with the deadline approaching, it taught me that rejection is also a part of the learning process and helped me grow creatively and improve my time management skills. Weekly feedback from Mr. Vinod guided me throughout the process and helped me improve my work.

Observations: While working on these exercises, I realized how important it is to have strong layout skills, as the layout can significantly affect the message. How important it is to understand margins and alignments. Additionally, the weekly feedbacks helped me notice things which i missed out before. It really helped me make my fundamentals strong. I also observed how minor changes can make big difference in the design.

Findings: From these tasks, I found out how important it is to keep a balance between creativity and discipline. I realised how alignments, balance and consistency help make the design look attractive and professional. Aditionally weekly feedbacks from Mr. V taught me to judge my own work, make my independent decisions and not fear failure. He encouraged me to focus on the learning which made me more confident on my work. This helped me improve my Creative, Critical Thinking and Time Management skills. These tasks overall helped me be more aware and meaningful.

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FURTHER READINGS

For the first weeks I decided to read and summaries few parts of an article "Finding Type: A Novel Typographic Exercise" suggested by Mr. Vinod. These concepts helped me with my assignment, especially task 2 and also improved my theoretical understanding of typography.

One of the first parts I read about was "Finding an image" which talked about how to choose an image with a clear and consistent subject, ideally something simple or repetitive. If the image has too many different parts, it can be harder and take more time to turn them into letterforms. However, sometimes using complex image can still create attractive letterforms that are consistent.

Fig 4.1: Finding an Image (Week 1)

Next I read about "Identifying letterforms" which told about how to carefully trace images and look for letter shapes within the outlines. It told us about how the shapes don’t have to be perfect, but they should roughly look like the letters.

Fig 4.2: Identifying Letterforms (Week 2)

Next I read about "Extracting letterforms" which said how letter shapes are taken from the traced image and placed on a line to study together. Their main purpose was to check the possible design direction.

Fig 4.3: Extracting Letterforms (Week 3)

Lastly I read about "Refining letterforms" which helped me refine my work effectively. This process of refinement aims for consistant and unified letterforms while keeping the essence of the original image.

Fig 4.4: Refining Letterforms (Week 4)

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