COP3 proposal presentation and feedback

This afternoon we had our cop presentations so I put together this 12 slide presentation to accompany the script I wrote this week. Quickly it became apparent that doing the two activities in that order would result in some disjointedness between the very regimented script that answered all the questions we were given and the presentation slides which I felt had to in part be visually interesting. In the past I have added too much text to slides so I tried to really condense it down as many visuals as possible that would, in theory, jog my memory. I ended up not using the script at all really and although I may not have remembered some of the official names for types of analysis etc the overall flow of the presentation wasn't bad.

With regards to feedback, the main positive was probably the practical idea and contact established with the fashion industry. It was also agreed that it's a workable topic and playing the divide between form and function could be both visually and contextually interesting. However, the main problem as I might have expected was the wording of the topic on the first slide and therefore the actually question in general. I need to work out a better way of saying the relationship that shall be explored and make it into a more direct question instead of a statement. Gestalt was widely agreed as being a good theory, to sum up the holistics of type design so I think there are a lot of positives to build on in the coming weeks as I start writing. I think just, in general, I need to brush up on my knowledge and work out the essay plan before I'm ready to start. This session also gave me the green light to contact Emanuele again and sort out a meeting date as soon as possible in London.    

An opportunity to discuss the increasing relationship between the average person and typography 

Some more detailed questions on my general hypothesis - need to find a middle ground between these and the topic headline

An example of globalisations effects on logotypes as we progress towards one universal visual language within fashion branding

discussing cultural impact on perception of typographic forms and the considerations I must make

The main theory to be discussed and referred back to when considering form throughout the essay

Discussing the types of secondary research methods that will be employed

Discussing the attempt to contact Peter Saville  for comment on the current trend around the grotesque movement within fashion logotypes as first-hand research 

collaboration/client work for Emanuele Piarulli

Target dates

COP3 Presentation plan and script

Question: The typographic relationship between form and function within the fashion industry 

I am intrigued by the contemporary rise in custom typography as viewers have a better knowledge of type than ever before. One of the foremost questions that I aim to answer is ‘has our relationship with legibility and therefore the function of letterforms changed?’ If everyone’s comprehension of typographic techniques is improving then do we ‘read’ a logotype, for example, increasingly via its forms or still in a traditional sense entirely by its linguistic connotations. The positioning of the question within the fashion industry incorporates my main passion outside of Graphic Design and provides a wealth of branding, advertising, publication and wearable typography to analyse and reference throughout. The first consideration of my practice has been typography for some time now but this project will allow me to explore its application to fashion and hopefully gain some insight into the way in which the two industries interact.  

Contextually my study will be situated between social, aesthetic and cultural fields of research. The social aspect comes from the existing preconceptions of written language within our society, any exploration of the tools by which we communicate must be in some capacity social due to their applications. If social context represents the functional side of the discussion then the aesthetic context simplistically covers the form side. The relationship between these two elements is the backbone of the research. Finally and very much so linked to the social aspects there must be some regard for the cultural context. This will be an ethical and practical consideration throughout as it is a given that my outlook upon typography is biased towards a western Latin alphabet. However, if form is becoming increasingly important within typography then are the cultural boundaries of script comprehension becoming less important?

The first and more general theoretical approach that I shall incorporate is the Gestalt Theory. Although primarily a psychological theory Gestalt can easily be applied to art and design and has been within many prominent sources. Based on similarity, proximity, continuity, closer and figure + groud, the Gestalt concept works on the principle of perceiving reality holistically in its simplest form. This segues perfectly into the form side of my research as it gives depth and scientific understanding behind the aesthetic qualities. 

Of course, the essay will include a wide range of secondary methods of research, a large part of which will inevitably be discourse analysis. How we communicate via typographic forms is a central part of the research. Discourse analysis covers both the broad medium of our communication and is then split down into semiotic analysis covering the form side of my question. The functional element is then found within textual analysis and content analysis as I attempt to establish patterns in visual communication. Theorisation will inevitably also be encountered as psychological theories are related to a graphic context. 

With regard to primary research, there will be an emphasis on industry insight both from the graphic design and fashion perspective. This will be implemented via email, phone calls and personal meetings as part of the practical. Some primary opinions from a focus group of the target audience would also be very useful to assess the validity of the outcomes. 

The physical outcome of the essay would be a client-based brief producing a type family for Emanuele Piarulli, a 2019 fashion graduate from the university. The idea would be to produce a family of approximately 5 typefaces that both compliment his practice and explore the relationship from form to function, artistic and illegible to highly usable. These could be applied to his promotional material and accompany his existing aesthetic and logo. The working relationship needs to start with a meeting in person this month and then progress to a point where our visions coincide. Of course, completing a client brief presents problems within this context due to the potential loss of freedom and expression of the themes of the essay. However, the collaboration has formed from a place of mutual respect and Emanuele hadn’t put thought into having a custom family until I suggested leaving more freedom than you would normally find. 

I will need to access a range of resources but predominantly books from the library or sourced online and a range of online articles and studies. 

Books I have been and will be reading: 

Rudolf Arnheim - Art and Visual Perception + Entropy and Art 

Bruno Munari - Design as Art

Jason Tselentis - TYPE form & function

Jose Teunissen - Graphique Couture

I shall continue to develop my contextual understanding and work out a detailed essay plan by the 15th of October, including topics of discussion and a range of quotations to back up each topic. By the 1st of November, I intend to have a first draft of the essay completed. By November the 15th the second draft should be reformulated and a check on the relevance to the practical work conducted via a peer review. 1st of December essay check and rechecked and completed ready for hand in. 

With regards to practical, a meeting with Emanuele Piarulli to take place before the 20th of October will give a full understanding of the brief and its ability to coincide with the essay. Sketches of type and initial ideas reviewed until the end of the month. November 15th check relevance to essay and work out how conclusions of both pieces can fit better with each other. December 1st type family finished hopefully by mutual agreement between me and the client, allowing time for design boards before hand-in.   

OUGD601 COP 3 Briefing

Submission 12/12/19

As mentioned in specification https://estudio.leeds-art.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/39916/mod_folder/content/0/Module%20Specifications/Level%206/MSPEC-OUGD601-10-07-19.pdf

Studio brief https://estudio.leeds-art.ac.uk/mod/page/view.php?id=31484


Research tips:
Looking closer: critical writings on graphic design by Michael Bierut
Graphic design as communication by Malcom Barnard
Design, writing, research by Abbott, M. J. and Ellen Lipton


End of session group discussion on ethics
Ethics - moral principles that govern a person's behaviour or the conducting of an activity.

Taking into account the moral responsibility of a graphic production in accordance with that of the target audience. Considering the impacts that it may have and in what ways they shall be received.


Critical - expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work of literature, music, or art.

Giving an objective analysis of a give sources validity and application to an overarching question. 

Type form & function - basic research

Type form & function

- A handbook on the fundamentals of typography

Although this book serves as a basic overview of the entire concept of typography and its applications, I thought the title alone gave enough reason to pick it up and give a little introduction to my essay research. 

Immediately from the preface, there are hints towards themes I would like to look into in my essay with the passage: 

"Our reading habits have changed, morphing us from a culture of readers to a culture of skimmers thanks to easily digestible chunks of information found through text messages or twitter feeds. A designers job will become more challenging as the quantity of messages, information, and noise increases. The designer who possesses a sharp typographic understanding will best meet that challenge, especially during a time period when the common user knows the difference between Times and Arial, Comic Sans and Hobo". 

The passage gives reference to new challenges faced by a designer in the information age. I feel these challenges include a need to create increasingly custom typefaces so as to stand out from a crowded and well-known market. Also, the quote calls into question the way we now read things as if the average person now has a more keen interest in type than ever before, the tone and form of a typeface are increasingly considered. One of my core questions is; does this make the traditional concept of legibility less important? 

The book then goes on to give a historic summary of type from hieroglyphics through Guttenberg to postmodernism, computer type, and the influence of the internet. This information I would say I have covered in previous years essays and shouldn't need to be touched on in any detail throughout my essay. Where I may have focused on a strong factual introductory paragraph or two in past I think this essay should avoid too much boring and potentially irrelevant background. 

The next section opens up to the broad question of form. 

"There will never be a font that is as pervasive as Helvetica again, because there are going to be too many typefaces out there, too many designers wanting to do things that are specific" 

-Jeffery Keedy 1990

Keedy's quote touches on the idea of hyper customisation within contemporary design, the information age has made it possible to not only create but share typefaces with few limits across a global network. This allows us to tailor forms to exactly the aesthetic of a company or concept or source appropriate material online. 

"Graphic Designers spend time pushing and pulling existing letterforms in order to create a unique typographic composition. These one-off designs can become a simple word, rendered as a corporate identity, magazine masthead, movie title, t-shirt emblem, advertising headline, or poster graphic, among others. But, it's not as simple as it sounds. It takes skill and knowledge to create letterforms that communicate the message to the intended audience" 

The passage goes on to discuss the potential issue of typeface overpopulation or pollution and finishes with the answer/question "Why do we need more typefaces? Why not?" opening up a dialogue on whether the contemporary surplus of design is necessary but also saying that it allows for increased creative freedom with type. 

The book goes on to explore prominent features and application of type. Including the emphasis on function promoting balance and neutrality of characters in highly legible/readable 'text type' and the contrasting 'display type' which is very much so more a question of form. 

"at times, legibility may not be as important because the concept or message might call for a font with more vigor" 

this calls into question one of the themes I would like to pursue in the essay, the question of how we read display and logo-types.

Type can be characterised as having both denotive and connotative properties as explained in the following passage 

"Denotation refers to the direct, literal meaning of a sign. A drawing of a bird looks like a bird. Connotations, however, have an extended or deeper mean that lie beneath the ideas, values, attitudes, or behaviors. A person described as a bird might be deemed wimpy, but if a basketball player is called a bird, this connotes images of somebody who can soar in the air with a basketball."  

So a logotype could be read in two different ways in regards to both form of the characters and function of their semantics.  

"A typographic designer starts from the word up; a graphic designer starts from the picture down" 

- Erik Spiekermann

Amanda Altman of A3 Design said that well-executed typography "says what you want it to say without saying it"  

"Good design, at least part of the time, includes the criterion of being direct in relation to the problem at hand - not obscure, trendy, or stylish. A new language, visual or verbal, must be couched in a language that is already understood." 

- Ivan Chermayeff, 1989

Patrizia Kommerell & Gabriel Shalom of KS12 on their logotype design for German fine art gallery Mayerei with inspiration taken from the fashion typography of Milan. 

"...a lot of fashion designers create elegant forms with the repetition of the same shape. For example, Gucci is the just G and the C and the C. I'm inspired by the idea of generative grammar. We set up a kind of conceptual system, and if we stick to it, it generates all the characters. (...) With Mayerei, it was like, how can we make these letters in as few forms as possible, and make them a modular system so they can be combined in other ways to make pictograms?" 

     

Rhetoric -

the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques

Study task 9 statement and evaluation

Having completed the module I feel that my second essay and final product are closely linked therefore fulfilling the criteria well. I made sure that the essay was fully complete and checked by peers before even starting my work on the brief giving me extra confidence in this statement. Due to my brief being about typography and specifically legibility it gave me an easy and clear link between the two as I used text that is referenced in the second essay as body text for experimentation within the final zine. Although the finishing of the zine left a lot to be desired, I feel contextually the ideas was sound and the layouts were aesthetic and informative. The case study element gave me a direct opportunity to reference key practitioners within legibility, presenting a platform to share information I found interesting with peers and potentially (with a lot of refinement) customers. Specifically, Frutiger's OCR opened up my eyes to an entire new meaning within legibility and I would have loved to explore this further with more experiments if I had of managed my time better.

In the end, I would say I enjoyed writing the essays far more than the project, the opportunity to research a topic in depth was most valuable. I feel the reason for me not enjoying the task was the juxtaposition it created from our studio briefs. We've not been used to that level of independence this year on a course where we have had our hands held a little too much at time. I could certainly learn to enjoy a more relaxed style of teaching in the future but it did come as a bit of a shock and it felt like we were a little under supported. Fair enough with the essay it was all about going off and reading and doing our own thing but I did find myself very far behind on the brief due to a misunderstanding over its relevance to the module. It sorts of at times felt like a time filler to occupy us from Christmas until now.    

I will make sure to manage my time more effectively going into next year and treat cop with respect because I did really enjoy the discoveries and experiments endeavoured. 

Brief research

Essay question:

'What is the definition and the role of "legibility" in relation to contemporary practices'

My initial thought in this project what that I would have to create either a highly legible or illegible typeface or both. The prospect of this seemed very achievable although it needs some kind of unique stance and a reason behind it. I then considered the possibility of rebranding a national service from a typography perspective and settled on the NHS as unsung heroes that need bolder promotion. However as I began writing this brief out as a mock I felt very little inspiration to actually carry out the project. I decided that perhaps I should stop thinking about the end product and instead consider what other people have done that covered a similar typographic question. Exploring legibility through existing typography that is say re imagined or against varying textures and backgrounds, using different mediums has potential to be more interesting. 

A quick google search brought 'The LetterMaker Zine' by Kelcey Towell to my attention. 'The zine illustrates the conceptual heritage of the LetterMaker Stencil — a typographic stencil that enables user to create custom, analog, modular typography — and features two essays on the value of experimentation, chaos, and form'. This concept is exceptionally simple, but the zine produced has some really nice results. I love the idea of interactivity within the final zine, something that I could look to develop within my own. Through a modular system like this it would be easy to explore legibility as there are potentially loads of different combinations of components that might alter the legibility of type. An example of how I could change it would be to make amalgamations of serif and san serif faces and test which combinations are more legible. 

The introduction of case studies or essays on legibility into my zine could be a great way to fill pages and also allow for a more editorial stance to be taken, giving the publication greater depth. 

Kelcey Towell's publication then reminded me of a visually similar piece by Sascha Lobe used in a double page spread of '»hallo deutschland«, soirée graphique 10'. Lobe uses a collection of geometries to help break down and translate features of the human face and clothing that is being worn on the left hand picture. The contrast provided by the photograph is something I find really effective. Lobe is systematically breaking down a far more complex image, a process that is essentially done by language and therefor in typography. Breaking down words and letters into more minimal, simplistic forms would be an interesting direction for the project. Also the style of overlaying prints gives an idea of process and looks almost diagrammatical, removing the human element gradually. What makes a letter the sound that it is trying to portray and how much can be taken away which maintaining legibility, a very interesting concept. 

The progression from abstracting traditional letters to a series of simples shapes representing physical objects made me reconsider legibility again. Although in my essay question typography is specifically addressed, legibility does not have to be for type. Logo semiotics is exceptionally interesting as there is a clear visual memory that most people have of certain popular brands we are surrounded by. Peter Saville's Lacoste 80th birthday rebrand in 2013 involved abstraction of an already very well known logo. This project goes against logo convention that all logos must be uniform, clear and bold. Instead the collection is more of an exploration of form whilst also maintaining legibility due to our pre established understanding of the shape, size and placement of a Lacoste logo. For my project tapping into these preconceptions of what a letter is and the shape it holds couple be a good angle for abstraction. For example if it was a zine in which people were given a word and then they had to write out the word on each page but with a different restriction each time e.g. holding the pen with your mouth. The results would be a real test of legibility and could break down exactly what it means for something to be legible.   

Another exploration of form comes from the Nora Kaszanyi's 2015 typeface loc that I found on behance www.behance.net/gallery/22145423/l-o-c-TYPE-FONTBOOK. The presentation of the face explores legibility via increasing line thicknesses that over exaggerate forms and raise questions over legibility. The simple idea is executed beautifully in a publication with consideration for paper stock, showing the importance of presentation to communicate ideas.   

As I have gathered from essay research legibility is the ease with which a reader can recognise individual characters in text. "The legibility of a typeface is related to the characteristics inherent in its design … which relate to the ability to distinguish one letter from the other." Aspects of type design that affect legibility include "x-height, character shapes, stroke contrast, the size of its counters, serifs or lack thereof, and weight."

There is an important distinction between legibility and readability. Readability is the ease with which a reader can recognise words, sentences, and paragraphs. Legibility is a component of readability. Other typographic factors that affect readability include font choice, point size, kerning, tracking, line length, leading, and justification. I must ensure that is is primarily the actual legibility of the forms in correspondence to their semiotic rather than readability factors I am exploring. 

With this in mind I decided to explore some scholarly research into legibility in order to build up a greater contextual understanding of what makes things legible. Although I didn't read any of the reports in great detail I did manage to gleam some areas of legibility that I might explore. One such study talked about the size of smoking regulation signs at airports which suggests that its more of a readability level showing that there is some grey area between the two that I might be careful of. 

A test by RUDI W. DE LANGE, HENDRY L. ESTERHUIZEN AND DEREK BEATTY done in South Africa in 1993 suggested that there is no notable difference in legibility, measured by reading speed, picking out words etc between Times New Roman, a serif type face, and helvetica, a classic san serif. I found this study particularly interesting as I have always assumed one must be more legible than the other hence one of my earlier ideas being to create a typeface that is both.   https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5936/22000cdca280fb6b4df3720844ba44ba7427.pdf

Unsurprisingly there are an array of studies in basic contextual elements of type such as colour and spacing. Another common theme appeared to be way finding and retail based solutions, with others about public health. There is a wealth of resource for me to explore with this, however full reports tend to be paid for an very expensive but just conveying the basic talking points around legibility would be fine for a primarily aesthetic zine. 

Some articles tackled very real every day problems such as Sandra Grabriele's 2006 investigation into how we can solve the problem of patients mixing up similar sounding drugs with typography alone.  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e0f/267e854c10e89bfc905e49231baf5bc6da01.pdf

second essay structure

Introduction

Discussion of a couple of opinions on legibility and readability.

Examples (Legibility)

Examples (Experimental)

Discussion of experimental typography becoming more viable due to people's understanding of typography.

Conclusion