GRA2131C Assignment - Typography Part III

This is Part III of the Typography assignment will consist of creating a project using both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. 

This project will consist of creating two-sided business cards using InDesign with additional design elements created in Illustrator. These business cards can be of fictional companies.

Below are some examples:

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS AND REQUIREMENTS:
1.) create two (2) two-sided business cards using Adobe InDesign
      - use the standard 3.5 inch by 2 inch size, but add a bleed, as shown in the examples below
      - create one business card using a Serif font and create the other business card using a San Serif font
      - be sure to adjust the kerning and tracking of your type as needed
      - you may create either typical horizontal business cards or vertical business cards 

(above) to begin, go to "Start a new file fast"

(above) pull down to "US Business Card"

(above) choose 2 facing pages - you can select Page 1 or 2

usually Page 1 is the front of the card and Page 2 is the back

you will create text and layouts on both sides

but only one side needs an Illustrator design

(above) the default margins are set to 0.5 inch

change them to 0.25 inch

NOTE: changing one will change all since they are locked

(above) notice that the "safe" layout area becomes larger

while the margins become smaller

NOTE: for best results, keep all important text inside the "safe" layout area

(above) now set the bleed area from 0.0 inches to 0.25 inches

your Illustrator design will extend beyond the actual edge of the card to the the bleed area

(above) since these are locked, changing one dimension will change all sides

(above) keep your text within the artboard, but when you place your Illustrator design

allow it to extend to the edge of the bleed area

2.) Using Adobe Illustrator, create the illustration designs that will be placed on your InDesign business cards.

You will need a separate, individual Illustrator design for each side of your business card. Since you will place a design on both sides of each business card, you will need a total of four (4) Illustrator designs.

NOTE: Your Illustrator file will need to be larger than your InDesign file, since we added a 0.25 inch bleed to each side. Thus, your InDesign file will be 3.5 inches wide by 2 inches high, while your Illustrator file will be 4 inches wide by 2.5 inches high to accommodate for the 0.25 inch bleed on each side.

 

 (above) open Illustrator and choose "More Presets" as this will allow quick customization

  

 (above) choose "Letter" and the default increments will be points

(above) change the points to inches and set the measurements

4 inches wide by 2.5 inches high

 (above) your artboard should look like the above sample

create each of your designs on a separate artboard

save each file and "Place" the file onto your InDesign business card layout as the bottom layer

place all text on top of the design

 

WEBSITES FOR FREE FONTS:

www.dafont.com

www.fontsquirrel.com

www.fonts.adobe.com

www.fonts.google.com
 

KERNING:

Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairs of characters. You will probably need to apply kerning to your next typography project.

This link describes in detail the process of kerning using Adobe InDesign:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/how-to/adjust-letter-spacing.html

GRA2131C Assignment - Typography Part 2

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and typesetting software application produced by Adobe Systems. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, books and ebooks.

InDesign can also publish content suitable for tablet devices in conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Graphic designers and production artists are the principal users, creating and laying out periodical publications, posters, and print media.

It also supports export to EPUB and SWF formats to create e-books and digital publications, including digital magazines, and content suitable for consumption on tablet computers. In addition, InDesign supports XML, style sheets, and other coding markup, making it suitable for exporting tagged text content for use in other digital and online formats.

BE SURE TO READ ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM AS THE ASSIGNMENT IS LOCATED BELOW THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES.

The first time you open InDesign, you will see a screen similar to this:

Click on the 'X' in the white circle to close the tutorial screen and you will see the following screen:

We are going to create a letter-sized document, but if you click on the letter icon pulldown menu, you will see that there are several other page sizes for your choice:

Click on 'Letter' and you will get the following screen:

Notice the Document Properties box as outlined in the image below:

 Notice that many of the tools are similar to those in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, but there are some differences, such as the Rectangle Frame Tool which creates a frame layer that is transparent:

 Another tool which should look familiar is the Text Tool:

When you select the Text Tool, you can easily adjust and apply changes to the color of the text:

ASSIGNMENT:

Start by creating a Rectangle Frame that is exactly 7.5 inches wide by 4.0 inches in height with and X coordinate at .5 and a Y coordinate at .5 - you will find the Rectangle Frame Tool located on the left hand side of your screen (as shown below) and the Frame Properties on the right hand side of your screen. The dimensions of the frame as well as the X and Y coordinates are located in the Transform section of the Frame Properties section. If your frame size and/or X and Y coordinates are not correct, you can type in the required information into the Transform section and the rectangle will adjust to these dimensions.

Click on the Text Tool (located on the left hand side of the screen) and then click inside the rectangle frame and you will see your text cursor appear in the upper left hand corner of the rectangle frame. Also, notice that a new Properties section appears that is specific to the Text Tool. Click inside the dropdown menu that is under Character and your Font selections will appear (Minion is probably the default font if you are on a Mac). Pull down until you see either Times or Times New Roman and choose that font.

Notice that when you scroll through the dropdown menu, there will be a sample of each style of each font so that you can see a preview of the font.

Type a sentence such as "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy black dog" and notice that the rectangle frame has now turned blue since it has been selected. Also, notice that Character section of the Properties section contains data on your Times or Times New Roman font. Times and Times New Roman are known as SERIF fonts. There are two general categories of typefaces: serif and sans serif. Sans serif typefaces are composed of simple lines, whereas serif typefaces use small decorative marks to embellish characters and make them easier to read. 

 

Arial, Helvetica and Tahoma are sans serif type.

 

Times, Times New Roman, Georgia, Palatino and Garamond are all serif type.

 

TAKE A SCREENSHOT AND POST IT TO YOUR BLOG. Title the post Typography Assignment 01. You will be coming back to this post and editing (adding) more screenshots.

Using your mouse or trackpad, select the sentence your just typed, as we are going to edit the font character. The sentence should highlight in black with the type reversed in white while it is selected.

In the Character section, you will see an icon that has a small 'T' next to a larger 'T' - this is the area to change the size of your font. 

Change the type in your sentence to 18pt (which stands for 18 points), take a screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.

There are approximately 72 (72.272) points in one inch or 2.54 cm. To be extremely precise, 1 point is equal to .013836 inch, so 72 points are actually .996264 inch. For practical purposes, this is rounded up to one inch.

If you look at the Paragraph section of the Properties section you will see the adjustment for Text Alignment. The default is Align Left (the first icon). The other icons in order are:

- Align center (all sentences aligned center)

- Align right

- Justify with last sentence aligned left 

- Justify with last sentence aligned center

- Justify with last sentence aligned right

- All sentences justified

- Align towards a spine

- Align away from a spine

Change the type in your sentence to ALIGN RIGHT, take a screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.

Change the type in your sentence to ALIGN CENTER, take a screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.

To the right of the Font Size adjustment icon is the Leading (pronounced led-ding; short e sound, not long e sound) adjustment icon. It looks like a vertical line with an arrow at the top and bottom next to to two letter A's stacked atop one another. 

The spacing between the baselines of the typeface is referred as Leading. The default, or Auto, setting for leading in most font software is 120% of the type size. For example, the auto/default leading for a 14 point font will be 16.8 points. 

Type a second sentence directly underneath your first sentence within the same rectangle frame. You will probably have to use the 'return' key to move below the first sentence. Once you have the two sentences, one below the other as shown below, Select All of the text.

 

With your two sentences of text still selected, go to the Leading adjustment and change it to 6 pt (6 points). The two lines of text should now overlap as the leading has been set too close, as seen below.

TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.

With your two sentences of text still selected, go to the Leading adjustment and change it to 72 pt (72 points). The two lines of text should now be spaced far apart as the leading has been set to a larger number than normal, as seen below.

TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost. 

 

 

Directly underneath the Leading adjustment is the Tracking adjustment. The default setting for tracking is usually '0' zero.Tracking is often confused for kerning. Tracking, like kerning, also refers to the distance between letters, but tracking involves adjusting the spacing throughout the entire word. 

 

Tracking can be used once you have determined the right spacing between each letter to change the spacing equally between every letter at once; hence, it should be used with caution.

 

 Go to the tracking adjustment and set it to -100 (negative or minus 100) and watch the letters scrunch together as seen in the example below.

TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost. 

With your two sentences still selected  go to the Tracking adjustment and set the tracking to 200 (plus 200) and watch as the letters spread apart in the entire sentence, as seen in the example below.

TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost. 

 

Reset your tracking to zero, go to the Character section and the font selection dropdown menu, and choose Arial as your font. All of your text should change to the new font. As we discussed, Arial is one of the Sans Serif fonts. Notice how the sentence changes in style and readability, as seen in the examples below. Notice, too, that the Character section now shows Arial in the font selection dropdown menu area.

TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost. 

 

GRA2131C Assignment - Typography Part 1

As a simple description, typography is the arrangement of type, but how typography is used in a design is deeply rooted in its overall theme, tone and message. It works within the layout, grid and color choice to create a well-thought-out and well-rounded design.

The choice of typefaces and technique of setting type give compositions their character, style, and pace. Besides making the text more legible, the correct typography helps the viewer understand the subject of the design.

Notice how typography can define and alter the message by looking at the same text with different typefaces:

BASIC TYPOGRAPHY TERMS AND CONCEPTS:

LINES: A line of characters has at least five lines that it can be aligned to. These horizontal lines are guides for capital letters, ascenders, lowercase and descenders.

Below are examples of these five lines:

 - Baseline: the line you may be most familiar with is the baseline - the line that the text sits on
 - Cap height (or cap line): the cap height or cap line marks the top of the capital letters
 - Ascender height (or topline): the ascender height or top line shows where the top of letters such as k and h touch and, in a lot of cases, this line is slightly higher than the capital line, which means that capital letters are NOT the tallest letters in text
 - Midline (or x-height): the midline or x-height shows the height of the lowercase letters (excluding ascenders and descenders) and is typically measured using the height of the letter x
 - Descender height (or beardline): the descenders are the parts of characters that go below the baseline (such as the letters p and y) and the descender height or beardline shows where the bottoms of the decenders are located

LEADING (pronounced led-ding): Leading is the amount of space between the lines of text and can be measured by obtaining the distance between two baselines - in CSS, such as in building websites, leading is called line-height

Leading can affect whether or not long blocks of text are easily readable.

 - when leading is decreased, the lines get closer to each other and make a block of text appear more compacted or squished together
 -  when the amount of leading is lowered, it can cause descenders and ascenders to collide, and this could it difficult to read the text, however, as a visual style, low amounts of leading can increase the pace of the reader and invoke the feeling of cramped conditions and claustrophobia, which can sometimes be desirable
 - increasing the leading can reduce the pace of a piece of text and slow the reader because there is more white space and relay a more relaxed feel in the text blocks
 - too much leading can cause reading problems, as the eyes of the reader is required to travel a greater distance between lines of text.

In the examples below, all are set in the same typeface, weight and measure, but each one has been given different leading values:

GRA2131C Assignment - Illustrator Single-Line Portraits

Apart from being an exceptional painter and the father of Cubism (along with Georges Braque), Pablo Picasso was also one of the best draftsmen on the 20th century.

 

To Pablo Picasso, sketches served as mean of discovery and engagement with masters from the past that in many ways contributed to the creation and the development of his unique art style. In his later years, Pablo Picasso developed a single line drawing technique that was able to depict the very essence of his subject matter in only one opened line. 

Assignment: create three (3) continuous, single line portraits using Fresco, Illustrator, or Procreate and the pen tablet

 

One portrait MUST be a SELF-portrait

1.) create a poster-size image from the Illustrator templates

2.) create or select a textured background for at least one of your images; the background can be color or monochromatic

3.) use a single line to draw your portraits; the line may be in color or monochromatic

4.) post your creation to your blog as a screenshot or an Illustrator file

See the continuous-line example by Pablo Picasso below:

See other examples below:

GRA2131C Assignment - Illustrator Multi-Line Portrait

Illustrator Multi-Line Brush Portrait Project

The purpose of this assignment is to explore the pen tablet. When set up properly, the pen tablet will allow lines to be drawn that can have varying thicknesses, dependent upon the amount of pressure exerted on the pen.

1.) create a portrait using ONLY lines with a Wacom Pen Tablet - use NO fills

2.) use a MAXIMUM of SIX (6) colors, including your background color

3.) use highly saturated COMPLEMENTARY colors that “pop” from the background

4.) you may “trace” over a photograph on an underlying layer if you do not wish to draw freehand


To view a tutorial on using the Wacom Pen Tablet:

Wacom Tablet tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIW_oeUcO2E


FREE Alternate Illustrator Brushes:

https://www.sessions.edu/notes-on-design/6-free-illustrator-brushes