30/5/2022 - 23/7/2022 / Week 10 - Week 14
Nurul Adlina Rizal / 0345429 / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Advanced Typography
Task 3: Type Exploration and Application
LECTURES
Lectures 1-4 completed in
Task 1
INSTRUCTIONS
Task 3: Type Exploration and Application
Visual Research
As I was shopping, I looked at my receipts and found the typeface for them
quite interesting. Fonts on receipts are mostly monospace sans serif which
meant they did not need kerning. It is a font that has fixed-pitch,
fixed-width, or non-proportional font, where the letters and characters each
occupy the same amount of horizontal space.
I knew I wanted to attempt creating monospace sans serifs. I looked into
the problems that receipts could possibly have and try to find a design
solution for it.
Problem #1: Receipts fade after only a few months.
Problem #2: Receipts wastes paper, take a lot of space and are not
recyclable.
The solutions that I could think of would not solve these problems
completely.
It was either create a clearer, sharper, maybe even thicker... typeface
that would not fade so easily, or if it does fade, it does not fade easily,
due to its thickness. The cause of receipt inks fading is due to its use of
thermal printing. It is susceptible to heat and UV light.
Examples of monospace sans serif used for receipts:
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Fig 1.0: RECEIPT by David Hutton (30/5/2022)
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Fig 1.1: Fake Receipt font (30/5/2022)
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Fig 1.3: How monospace sans serifs look on receipts (30/5/2022)
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However, problem #2 brings rise to solutions of using a typeface that would
take up less space and we would not need to use a lot resources.
Then, I looked at other monospace sans serifs, specifically ones that are
used in my area of interest which are video games.
It led me to my favourite genre of video games which were 8-bit pixel RPG
games which use monospace sans serifs for dialogue text and titles. It
peaked my interest that I had always wanted to create a video game and
exploring the typeface in video games (especially in the genre I like) would
be an interesting adventure.
Examples of monospace sans serif used for video games:
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Fig 1.4: Determination Mono in Undertale (30/5/2022)
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Fig 1.5: Typeface used in Minecraft (30/5/2022)
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Fig 1.6: Pixel typeface (30/5/2022)
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References:
Wikipedia. (May 3, 2022) Monospaced font. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monospaced_font#:~:text=Monospaced%20fonts%20are%20customary%20on,had%20extremely%20limited%20graphical%20capabilities.
PandaPaperRoll. (Dec 10, 2018). Receipt Paper: Why It Fades and How to
Restore It? Retrieved from https://pandapaperroll.com/thermal-paper-fades-restore/
Based on the feedback received on Week 10, Mr Vinod told me that I could
rework Idea 1 and make a typeface that instead of making a more visible
typeface which is hard to achieve due to the thermal printing process of it.
He told me that I could instead solve the problem of reducing ink
consumption. With that, I will attempt a typeface that takes up less surface
area to reduce the use of ink especially since receipts are used
everyday.
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Fig 1.7: Idea #1 Revised (13/6/2022)
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Application Idea: Receipts & Calculations
Idea Exploration
Drafts
I have only done the uppercase, numerals and punctuation. The letters I
want to revise on are Q, X and Y and work on lowercase letters.
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Fig: Numerals and Punctuation (13/6/2022)
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Fig 1.8: Uppercase Letterforms (13/6/2022)
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Fig 1.9: More Numerals and Symbols (27/6/2022)
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Fig 2.0: Lowercase Letterforms (27/6/2022)
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In terms of the problem I was trying to solve which is saving ink. The use
of circles to create letterforms will save more ink than using rectangles
and solid straight lines. Ink is saved from the spaces between the circles
that are not connected to each other.
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Fig 2.1: Rectangles vs Circles (27/6/2022)
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*To note that the divide symbol ( ÷ ) is not included despite that I designed it due to it being a symbol that
does not exist in common keyboards.
FINAL
Inkdot Mono
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Fig 2.2: Inkdot Font Information (27/6/2022)
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Preview the font:
in JPEG
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Fig 2.3: All Letterforms in Inkdot Mono (27/6/2022)
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Fig 2.4: Application #1 (27/6/2022)
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Fig 2.5: Application #2 (27/6/2022)
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Fig 2.6: Application #3 (27/6/2022)
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Fig 2.7: Application Compilation (27/6/2022)
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in PDF
Fig 2.8: Final Typeface in PDF (27/6/2022)
Fig 2.9: Application of Typeface in PDF (27/6/2022)
FEEDBACKS
Week 10
General Feedback: Decide if your typeface is for exploration,
experimentation or as a solution.
Specific Feedback: For Idea 1, instead of trying to solve the
problem of the ink fading which may be hard to solve due to the process of
thermal printing, you could try to solve the problem of ink consumption.
Your typeface could reduce ink consumption.
Week 11
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: -
Week 12
General Feedback: Think about the applications for the
font.
Specific Feedback: Calculations are needed to
see if dots take less surface area than the fonts used currently
in receipts now. Create solutions for the dots that overlap
because they may become blotted. Working on a pixel grid may
help but exceptions can be made as well.
Week 13
General Feedback: Task 3 and final
compilation should be submitted next week on Week
14.
Specific Feedback: -
Week 14
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: -
REFLECTIONS
Experience
Task 3's time period was cut short due to Task 1 and Task 2 having to
take more time. Even though this task felt a little rushed and
overwhelming, there was still enough time for everyone to receive feedback
from Mr Vinod and build their own typeface following the brief. My time in
Task 3 was very fulfilling since I was able to see from Task 1 of this
module - or even Task 1 of the Typography module - on how much I have
improved as a type designer.
Classes were fruitful since I managed to get feedback that helped me
improve my type and be able to make sure it can solve the problem I chose
to solve through design. I also believed that both online and physical
classes are suitable and fun to have. I do not really prefer one over the
other, but physical classes do make me prepare more progress that I can
show in class.
Overall, it was a good experience despite the workload.
Observation
As much as I believed that I had improved in my work ethic as a designer
and design eye, I may have been bit more than I can chew when I decided to
create both uppercase, lowercase letters along with 19 other symbols. At
the time, I believe they were important due to my typeface having to be
used in receipts and calculations, it needed many mathematical symbols. If
I were to point out my strengths was that, I thrive in tedious work
because I do not mind doing the same action again and again. This was very
evident when I had to kern and adjust the L and R bearing of each
letter.
A weakness of myself would be that I put too much trust on how much work
I could do. Sometimes, I give myself too much and sometimes, I give myself
too little. Although this is not a huge problem, it does when time
management becomes a problem. It is hard to predict how long it takes to
finish a project if I am unsure of my own capabilities and
competency.
I believe that to improve I could also start putting in the time to study
independently on the topic regarding to the assignment because it can help
me better express what I want my type or design to mean. I come to this
conclusion due to looking at my classmates work that is very inspirational
since they do a lot of research on their own.
Findings
I learned that I am very passionate in designing and that even through
tiring work, I can still have a lot of fun. I can still come to appreciate
my hard work at the end of the day and I believe that is an important
trait to have in a designer. It is not a good feeling to have spent a lot
of time on something to only hate the result. Although when the rare times
like that do happen, I believe we should not beat ourselves up too much
and take a break to see your design objectively.
To strengthen my weakness, I should learn to balance the workload I
believe I can handle, nothing too much or nothing too little. A good
balance can make sure I either don't stress myself too much or stress
myself too little. I also learned that a little bit of stress can also
help push you to reach for the best version of your work. However, we
should not have stress take over due to it can have bad lasting effects
such as burnout.
As for my strength, it is a skill I can use in everyday assignments, work
as well as in the creation of designs that are repetitive and
tedious.
FURTHER READINGS
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Fig 5.1: The cover of 'Typographic Design: Form and
Communication'
(31/5/2022)
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Reference:
Carter, R., Day, B., Meggs, P. B., Maxa, S., & Sanders, M.
(2015). Typographic design: Form and communication.
Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Techniques for displaying on-screen fonts
Pixel fonts
- designed as bitmapped type
- can degrade when used at larger or smaller sizes
- care must be taken to scale type for optimum legibility
- especially useful for very small on-screen text
- designed to maximize legibility when pixelated
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Fig 5.2: Legibility at different sizes (27/6/2022)
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Type as image.
- type converted to a picture file format such as GIF and downloaded as
an image on a website
- compatibility with almost all web browser software
- slows downloading of the web page since images require more file size
- fixed in size and cannot be selected or copied as text
- cannot be scaled or changed in size
@font-face
- inconsistent rendering of type across platforms and browsers remain a
problem
- new technologies have emerged that enable designers to link any number
of fonts to their web pages
- ensuring that users view pages as intended by the designer
- allows designers to link any number of fonts from a third-party URL to
different browsers
- users pre-read or scan the page they are on
- variety of units of text, images, rules, and dynamic variations in
white space all help readers mark their pace and place in the body of
text
The guidelines when considering typefaces for use on the web or
on-screen applications:
- on-screen type sizing
- simplicity
- sans serif and serif typefaces
- scale
- combining typefaces
- contrast
- capital and lowercase letters
- interletter and interword spacing
- line length and interline spacing
- weight and width
- alignment
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