Graphic Design Typography Vocabulary

bar- horizontal or diagonal lines in a letter that are open on at least one side

Upper-case character- Capital letter

baseline- Where the type begins on a line

lower-case character- lower-case letter

terminal- the rounded ending of a letter on the bottom side of a letter

counter-the interior space in a circle

bowl- circular line that creates an internal space

serif- a projection off of a letter only in certain typefaces

ear- the rounded ending of a letter on the top half of a letter

stem- the main body of a letter

ascender- part of a letter that goes above the meanline

descender- part of a letter that goes below the base line

descender line- guideline showing the height of a descending letter

ascender line- guideline showing the height of an ascending letter

x height- distance between the baseline and the meanline

apex- a point or climax in a letter, the topmost peak

crossbar- horizontal stroke across a letter

ligature- when two or more letter are joined together as one

diacritical mark-a mark added to a letter to indicate a special pronunciation

spine-The main curved stroke of a lowercase or capital S

superscript- when the letter, number, or symbol is written above the line

subscript-when the letter, number, or symbol is written below the line

proportional oldstyle numerals-Style of Arabic Numerals where the characters appear at different positions and heights as opposed to the modern style of all numerals at the same size and position

GEF Greeting Card Post-Assingment

 Our assignment was to make a holiday greeting card for GEF that is appropriate for all religions and also incorporating the hands from the Gloucester Education Foundation logo. To do this we had to take their logo in Photoshop and separate the hands and put them in a new picture with our original design. This assignment required a lot of Photoshop skills and techniques like using the magic wand tool, creating new layers, creating original designs using colors, shapes, and lines. My ideas came from searching "holiday cards" on Google images. Many of the cards said "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays". It was hard to find a design that went with all religions as well as incorporating the hands. The first card took about ten tries before I could choose the right color combinations and get the present the right color and shape. A lot of the shortcut commands like ctrl-d, ctrl-j, ctrl-t are easy to use but it is hard to remember them and know how to use them all correctly to make the image you want. There is so much about Photoshop I don't know and if I kept learning about Photoshop I'm sure my cards would come out much more advanced and intricate. My small knowledge of Photoshop limited my cards and made them very straightforward but hopefully someday in the future Ill know how to use Photoshop like a pro! 

Here are my final GEF Greeting Cards

Blog Questions

1.) What is the smallest unit of measure in typography?
The smallest unit of measure in typography is a point. The point is the subdivision of larger unit, pica. 


2. )How many points in a pica?
There are twelve points to a pica. 


3.) EM square -- ask me about it it's confusing in this article.
EM determines the appearance of how large the typeface is. 


4.) In graphic design, what is a grid and how is it used?
In graphic design, a grid is a two-dimensional structure composed of intersecting lines (vertical, horizontal, and angular) or curved guide lines that is used to structure content.

5.) Who is Josef Muller-Brockmann? (find samples of his designs, and post on your blog)
Josef Muller-Brockmann was a Swedish graphic designer who studied architecture, design and history of art. he is known for his clean use of typography, most commonly, Akzidenz-Grotesk.

6.) What is a typeface?
A type face is a "set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share common design features." A typeface is also known as a font family. 


7.) What is a font?
A font is a specific set of glyphs with specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, italicization, ornamentation and design or foundry.   


8.) How are they different?
A typeface is the whole family of fonts. The fonts within a typeface all have common characteristics but they are all unique.


9.) What are glyphs?
Glyphs are the specific shape, design, or representation of a character.

Pre-assignment (Constructivism)

This our next assignment focusing on constructivism

"You will create one large image -- 8" x 11" to hand in as a unit test on the elements and principles of design. 

Using only geometric shapes you will create a design composition.  Unlike your six designs, you may vary your geometric shapes in this way: 1. you may add one other color. and 2. you can use 50% transparency on some of the the geometric shapes.  3. you may use a color background. "

Constructivism

Constructivism is a Russian type of art that focuses on angular lines and geometric shapes. It was a post-World War 1 development that is defined as a combination of faktura-material properties of an object- and tektonika- it's spacial presence. Originally, constructivism was used for 3D designs like buildings but later on the theory was moved to 2D designs like books and posters. Artists looked to replace the traditional concern of composition with the idea of constructivism.
Here are some examples of constructivism:

My personal favorite:
Alexander Rodchenko



Lazlo Moholy-Nagy




Vladimir Tatlin

Post-Assignment Evaluation

Geometric Design Post-Evaluation

This was really our first design assignment for the class and it was actually very fun and enlightening. We had to create six original and unique design templates made from only geometric shapes. Each template would focus on one of the elements of design. I found that some elements are easier to portray than others, emphasis and repetition were easier to create than harmony. The most likely reason to this is because all my life I've been exposed to repetition, I know what that is, but something like harmony or movement  is harder to create because you have to capture that action in something two-dimensional. I can see now how hard it can be for designers to get their emotion or element across to the viewer because sometimes people don't see what you're trying to portray in your design.  I definitely had to re-start a lot of my designs. I am new to Photoshop and it took me until the very last design to find out how to use the triangle tool. I I found that you actually get a sense of achievement when you successfully finish a design. I was always looking for ways to make them bigger and better but I learned that sometimes the designs look better with less. I still need to get out of my box and get more creative and take more risks with my designs but overall I think that learning the elements and principles of design was a success.

Geometric Design Inspiration

Here is a website with some really cool geometric graphic designs. My personal favorites are the Nacho-Gil zebra made out of triangles and the Gretchen Nash owl. What's really cool about this website is that you can click on the artist's name and it brings you to a page that has more information about them. Looking at how such simple shapes can make up abstract pieces of art is really cool. i think that if i could master Photoshop a little bit more and learn how to move the shapes to where I want them more accurately than I could create some really cool designs. Overall this website just gave me some great inspiration and also a goal to work forward to.

(here's the website: http://www.noupe.com/inspiration/gorgeous-geometric-designs.html )

These are my two favorite designs from this page

        

Geometric Designs

Here are the geometric designs I created.

BALANCE

EMPHASIS:

 HARMONY:

 MOVEMENT

 REPITITION:

 VARIETY:

Pre-assignment

For this assignment we are supposed to make six design templates that portray the elements of design using only geometric shapes. The elements we are making are balance, emphasis, repetition, variety, movement, and harmony. We will be using Photoshop to make these designs on a  template we got from online. This is important because after this project we will know the principles and elements of design but also how to create these elements by using only shapes. We will look at examples to get inspiration, but our imagination is truly what will make these designs come to life.