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

GRA2131C - Assignment - GIF Animation

Photoshop Frame Animation GIFs - Step-By-Step Tutorial

1.)   Open Photoshop, go to Window, and pull down to Timeline:

 2.)  Using Command N on a Mac or Control N on a Windows computer, create a new document with the following parameters:  

Name:  Animation-1

Width:  800 PIXELS (make sure it's PIXELS and NOT inches)

Height:  600 PIXELS

Resolution:  72

Color Mode:  RGB Color and 8 bit (it should default to this selection)

Advanced - Color Profile:  Working RGB:   sRGB IEC61966-2.1

3.)  A drop-down menu will appear in the Timeline with a choice of either Create Video Timeline or Create Frame Animation:  select CREATE FRAME ANIMATION and CLICK on the "Create Frame Animation" button. The button will disappear and you will have a Key Frame appaear at the right hand side of the Timeline:

4.)  IMPORTANT:  from this point on, EVERY element MUST be on its own separate layer!

5.) Create a new layer and title it gradient. Make sure the gradient layer is active, select the Gradient tool, and draw a gradient on the layer. You choose any color of gradient you desire by clicking on the gradient tool options in the menu bar:

6.)  Create a new layer, title it ellipse-1, and using the Elliptical Marque tool, draw an ellipse on the ellipse-1 layer:

7.)  Under Edit, pull down to Stroke, choose a contrasting color from your gradient, and add a stroke that is about 6 pixels thick. IMPORTANT:  after you have added the stroke you MUST DESELECT the "marching ants" from the stroke by using either Command D on a Mac or Control D on a Windows computer:

 

 

8.)  Under Edit, again, pull down to Transform, choose Rotate, and rotate the ellipse to any position you desire as long as the entire ellipse is shown:

9.)   Create a new layer and title it "circle" or "dot" or "sphere" or "orb" or something similar. Using the Elliptical Marque tool again, create a small, perfect circle by holding down the Shift key while you draw your orbiting object. Under Edit, pull down to Fill, choose a completely different color to fill the orbiting object, get rid of the "marching ants" again, and move the orbiting object to one edge of your ellipse:

10.)   In the layers palette flyout, pull down to Duplicate Layer, then move the new orbiting object along the ellipse to a new place. Continue to do this until you have a set of orbiting objects circling the ellipse. IMPORTANT:  remember to continue to go in the same direction!

11.)  Now turn off the "eyeballs" on every layer EXCEPT the background, gradient, ellipse-1, and original orbiting object layer (dot, circle, orb, sphere, etc.):

12.)  Now, do the following steps in order until you go through every single layer of your orbiting objects:

     a.)  Click on the flyout at the upper right hand corner of the Timeline and choose New Frame

     b.)  Turn ON the eyeball for the orbiting object (dot, circle, orb, sphere, etc.) layer ABOVE the current orbiting object and turn OFF the eyeball for the current orbiting object (dot, circle, orb, sphere, etc.)

    c.)  Continue this process until you go through each and every layer of the orbiting object

13.)  When you have finished, you should have created a frame in the Timeline for every layer that contains an orbiting object (dot, circle, orb, sphere, etc.). So, if you have 23 copies of the orbiting object, you should have 24 frames, one frame for each copy PLUS a frame for the very first orbiting object.

14.)  Press the PLAY button and watch your animation. At this point, SAVE your work as a Photoshop Document (PSD) as you will need these layers for the second part of the assignment.

15.)  To complete your project and turn it into a format that can be uploaded to your Behance account, do the following:

     a.)  Go to File, pull down to EXPORT and across to SAVE FOR WEB (LEGACY) and a new window will open:

     b.)  Click on the PREVIEW button located in the lower left hand corner of the new pop up window and you will be able to see if your animation plays correctly:

16.)  If it plays correctly, click the SAVE button:

 17.)  A new window will pop up. Name your animation (NO spaces; use a hyphen - or an underscore _ if you want to separate words, and tell the computer where you want to save your animation. Then, upload your file to Behance and you are done with the first part of the assignment.

 

18.)   For the second part of the assignment, create a SECOND ellipse, a second set of orbiting objects and have the second set of orbiting objects orbit in the OPPOSITE direction of your first ellipse.  NOTE:  you MUST create EXACTLY the same number of orbiting objects on your second ellipse as there are on your first ellipse or your second animation will not work correctly, as every time you move an orbiting object on your first ellipse, you must move a corresponding orbiting object on your second ellipse within the same frame.  SEE EXAMPLE BELOW:

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