Category: Reflection

Mid Point Evaluation of Aims and Goals

My discussion with Sally helped to solidify the aims of my project as well as define the goals. With that in mind I felt it was helpful to explicitly state my current aims, audience and perceived outcomes as although my work and thinking has been progressing in this direction for many months I have not stated it within my journal.

Pitch

My project revolves around the construction and recognition of letterforms and the creation of a set of tools to allow amateur typographers to explore the process of typeface creation.

This will be implemented through the construction and promotion of the ODD Foundry project. This will be a website that hosts and sells these tools as well as providing information about how to make use of them when designing letterforms.

The tools will be based around the exploration of the basic forms and shapes that reoccur throughout the alphabet (strokes, bowls, serifs, stems etc) as shown in this image by Ellen Lupton (2010).

Anatomy of a Letter (Lupton 2010)

The tools themselves may be digital (fonts, interfaces, brushes) or physical (3d Printed Blocks, Stamps, Stencils) dependent on what is most suitable.

Whereas, in the proposal stage, my aim was more commercial in intent (with the creation and selling of a typeface being the metric that would allow me to gauge success). My desire now is to create tools that will be useful in the education of individuals interested in the subject. With this in mind my evaluation of success will be based on aiming to get these tools into as many users hands as possible. This will give me a base of users to discuss the success of the tools with, as well as a body of work created using the tools.

References
  • LUPTON, E., 2010. Thinking with type. 2., rev. and expanded Ed. ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Pr

Mid Point Presentation – Sally Hope

A transcript of this presentation can be found here – Mid Point Presentation – Sally Hope Transcript

Feedback and Reflection

Sally Hope is a Designer and Educator with a specialism in Typography. She was happy for me to present my current project to her for feedback.

Overall this was a productive meeting. Right from the start Sally recognised the value inherent in design through play, commenting that “when you do go through these exercises, and you have a set of component parts, and then you start playing with them. I think, for me, that’s the most exciting thing, because then you start to get a real feel of how everything works together”. Sally was also able to understand my historic reference points in the designs of some of the forms, noting the presence of the “mark the hand” in relation to the angles of the strokes in the curves letterforms and the “Circle Square Triangle” forms within my EL Blocks 3d printed experimentations.

We discussed the importance of details and oddities within the forms, for instance the small circular notches cut out in some of the strokes in the curves experiment and how these relate directly the quirks and intricacies of different typefaces. It’s these quirks that set one typeface as being distinct from another.

There were a few areas Sally suggested I look at. One is the relationship between these components I am making and patterns. With being grounded in geometry, the exploration of them as abstract patterns may be interesting. The next point was to consider that the forms have both a positive and a negative, so when overlapping or combining the forms there may be further shapes that can be created. Finally she suggest I look at the work of, Graphic Designer, Sooji Lee who has similarly looked at deconstructing letterforms into their component parts.

In many ways the preparation for the presentation helped me to focus on what my aims for the project were, and also what is achievable within the module itself. Sally helped me to understand that often a project like this may start in a Masters and then grow further into a larger research project. Before the presentation I was worried that with working on the project for so long I might have lost sight of whether it was relevant/interesting to my target audience. However Sally’s enthusiasm for the project was a helpful incentive to feel like I am progressing in the right direction.

Sooji Lee – in process of_ making Bodoni typeface

Sooji Lee’s work, in process of_ making Bodoni typeface (2019) seems very relevant to my project. In it she has deconstructed the Bodoni alphabet into it’s component parts and created a physical tool from wood that you can use to attempt to drawn the Bodoni typeface. It is an intersting exploration of the difference between a letterform and a typeface, Lee writes “The two basic essences of a letter are ‘writable’ and ‘readable’. On the contrary, Typefaces can be read, but cannot be written.”

References

Perception of Letterforms – The Brain and Gestalt Theory

My project focuses on the development of western letterforms based on latin alphabets. In the 2014 documentary about her by Edward Tufte, Inge Druckrey posits that “the classical Roman letter is the ancestor of all later formal developments of our alphabet.” From these original letters you can trace a direct connection from what we see as the latin alphabet to the progression into formalising these letterforms via mechanically reproducible typefaces. Druckrey believes the connection between the hand and tool, and of the marks it makes on the paper are important in understanding letterforms, that since the “letter was originally written. The written letter is a memory of motion.” Before we can write, we can draw. So to understand this movement and the way we perceive these marks we can look to the act of drawing.

To draw is not too simply make marks on a substrate with a tool, there is intent in the meaning produced by the drawing of the marks. In his book Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain (2013, p.18) Edwards explores how the human brain perceives forms. The concepts he explores are primarily linked to drawing skills, believing that the skill “is basic to training visual perception and is therefore the entry-level subject —the ABCs—of perceptual skill-building.”(p.18). The low economic barrier of entry and availability of the materials allows anyone, of any skill or age, to become learned in the process. However in outlining the series of five subskills needed Edwards realised they “were not drawing skills in the usual sense; they were rock-bottom, fundamental seeing skills: how to perceive edges, spaces, relationship, lights and shadows, and the gestalt. As with the ABCs of reading, these were the skills you had to have in order to draw any subject.”(p.10).

At its most basic a letterform is made of a combination of black strokes, arranged together in varying weights and angles. But alongside seeing the black of the letter, we also see the internal white space that these strokes encapsulate, as well as the strokes interaction with the space around it. This white space is called negative space. Where the negative space meets a stroke it creates an edge, Edwards believes “In drawing, the term edge has a special meaning, different from its ordinary definition as a border or outline. In drawing, an edge is where two things come together, and the line that depicts the shared edge is called a contour line. A contour line is always the border of two things simultaneously—that is, a shared edge.”(p.151). This concept of an edge or boundary is further explored by Martin, Buskist and Carlson in their book Psychology where they discuss our perceptions of forms, stating that “one of the most important aspects of form perception is the existence of a boundary. If the visual field contains a sharp and distinct change in brightness, colour or tex­ture, we perceive an edge. If this edge forms a continuous boundary, we will probably perceive the space enclosed by the boundary as a figure”

So to perceive a shape as a letterform we first see it as a combination of strokes and space, joined by edges. We must next recognise that combination of shapes and space as being related to our pre-existing notion of the different letterforms that make up our alphabet. One of the exercises that Edwards instructs his students to do is to draw a portrait from memory and then to analyse the work, commenting that drawing from memory “brings forth a memorized set of symbols, practiced over and over during childhood… by countless repetitions.” (p.52). This set of childhood symbols seems very applicable to our understanding of a shape as a letterform. In order to write language we must first learn how to make marks, then shapes. Finally we learn to write a letter through the repeated practicing of a series of these fundamental shapes.

The act of recognition relates to the idea of an objects gestalt. Edwards believes gestalt “emerges as comprehension of the thing itself or the thingness of the thing, resulting from intense focus on the parts that make up the whole, and the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.”(p.31).

The theory of gestalt was first outlined by German Psychologist, Max Wertheimer. In his lecture about the subject, David Hogue, describes how when Wertheimer’s viewed a theatre marque covered in lights that “a series of blinking lights creates the illusion of motion.”(2018). Even though it is just the individual lights turning on and off in sequence, our brain perceives it as being one illumination that moves from light to light. This interaction highlights two of the key laws of Gestalt; the Law of Figure-Ground, that our brain can perceive foreground objects as different from background objects, and the Law of Simplicity in which our brain seeks to “organize our perceptions into the simplest possible experience. We will interpret ambiguous, vague, or complex objects in the simplest way possible, because it is faster and easier to perceive things in a simple rather than complex way”.

These laws further inform other principles relating to our perceptions of form. The most relevant ones to the understanding of letterforms as words are the principle of Proximity where “objects near one another in space or time are perceived as being a group and belonging together”. This can very easily apply to the grouping of letters into words, sentences and paragraphs. The next is the principle of Similarity which states “that objects with similar characteristics, such as form, color, size, and brightness, are perceived as belonging together.” So for a series of letterforms to be perceived as either a word or, in a more abstract way, a typeface the repeated characteristics in them must be similar (ie similar stroke width, use of angles etc).

References
  • EDWARDS, B., 2013. Drawing on the right side of the brain. the definitive, 4th ed, expanded and updated. London: Souvenir Press
  • MARTIN, G.N., W. BUSKIST and N.R. CARLSON, 2013. Psychology. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson
  • Interaction Design Foundations Gestalt principles, 2012 Directed by David HOGUE. Linkedin Learning. Oct 2,
  • UX Foundations: Interaction Design Gestalt principles, 2018 Directed by David HOGUE. Linkedin Learning. May 31,

Mid-Point Reflection

In my reflection at the start of this journal I stated my aim is to “Explore randomness, legibility and process in typographic design through the expansion of the Odd Foundry website and the creation of a new range of experimental typefaces informed by experimentation and modularity.“. One of the things I struggled with in my proposal was that I prepared myself with the knowledge of “how” to create a typeface but not the “why”. In retrospect my discussion with Chris Wilson at the start of the project was very helpful as it prompted me to look further into methods of teaching and the “why” of the project is begging to centre on the creation of a typeface as a tool for learning about typography and graphic design.

My initial explorations into the construction of a collection of shapes to be used as a modular typeface were limited to the elementary shapes, the square, triangle and circle, as I felt I required a simple baseline from which to construct further shapes from. These simple shapes served the dual purpose of being simple enough to learn the 3D software required to create the blocks as well as being complex enough, being made of corners, curves and lines, to test how these different elements printed on a printing press.

A selection of letterforms created with my first set of 3D printed shapes.

It is not my aim to create a tool that teaches students about the history of specific typographic movements. I believe, as Paul Shaw in Steven Hellers book, The Education of a Typographer, states that in order to understand the subject it is best to “put practice first” and then allow “history to place current typographic practice” in contemporary context (p.12 2004).

Printing with these blocks was enjoyable and taught me much about the complexities of their use and the various forms preparation I needed to go through in order to print with them. When presenting these images to my classmates I showed them the compositions without introducing them as letterforms and their reactions were interesting, some saw houses, some saw toy blocks and some saw a letterform once I had show repeated variations of the same letter. This has prompted me to consider the further designs of the component shapes I should create for my modular type so I endeavoured to research into the ways in which we perceive shapes and forms.

If I want to create tools to understand typography I should in fact be looking at tools that first help to explore the concepts of how a shape is perceived as a letter by the viewer as that provides a strong foundation for then creating a successful typeface.

After this period of experimentation with 3D printing, discussions with other designers and research into learning I realise that the connections between randomness, legibility and letterforms has a connection with the theory of gestalt and how it affects our perception of letterforms.

With this in mind, whereas I had originally conceived of a finished typeface of conventional recognisable letterforms, the typeface I will produce for this project will be a selection of components that can then be reconfigured via various tools to help understand how a letter is formed.

References

How We Learn and How We Teach Design

In her book Teaching Design, author Meridith Davis comments that todays “design fields began as trades, rather than professions” with many of the practical skills being acquired through making (2017). The rules of graphic design are not enshrined or enforced by any governing body, in the same way that a profession such as medicine may be. This view of the practical being intrinsic to the teaching and learning of design is reinforced by designer and educator Paul Shaw in Steven Hellers book, The Education of a Typographer, when he states “I put practice first, not only because it is what students…desire the most, but also because I believe history and theory must play supportive roles. I use history to place current typographic practice in a continuum that extends back to the invention of the codex. Finally, theory is introduced as a means of better understanding the practices of the past and their continued relevance today.” (p.12 2004). Shaw believes the best approach is “to intertwine practice, history, and theory-in that order.” The idea of making is intrinsically linked to the idea of craft, of creating something by hand with skill. Christopher Frayling in his book On Craftsmanship (2011) when discussing the term craft and it’s importance he states “to educationalists…the word is associated with learning by doing-experiential learning – rather than learning from books or from screens”(p.12). Within my own experience, as a student and then an educator, the ability to physically manipulate and interact with an object relevant to the subject has always enabled me to deconstruct and understand the concepts relating to it in a deeper manner. Though I had read about baselines and line height when I was a student, it was only once I started experimenting with letterpress blocks that I understood how the space a letter takes up on one side of the page can affect the layout of the type on the other page.

Influential design teacher Inge Druckrey believes that in order for a student to learn design they must first learn to see. In the 2014 documentary about her by Edward Tufte she states “Training the eye is very very important. You can’t come up with ideas if you don’t see first.” In order to create designs of aesthetic value they must be taught to observe current forms and to analyse the forms they create in their own work. Central to Druckery’s form of teaching are manual exercises that involve giving students some kind of restriction, whether it is on font, layout or image. One example is she “gave students a 9-square grid, which as ordering principle allowed them to come up with a coherent composition.The actual design elements were up to them.” She believes that key to this style of learning are the restrictions, “The limiting is important so that students have a very clear playground set up and it helps them to focus.”. I feel this is especially relevant in current Graphic Design teaching environments where when asked to complete a design task digitally a student can often be faced with a paralysis of choice with a seemingly infinite choice of typefaces and formats available. By placing a restriction on the exercise it is easier to guide a student towards the intended learning outcomes.

Galt Toys (GARLAND, K., 2020)

This style of learning through play and learning through doing can even be seen in the toys designed by Ken Garland and Associates for the toy brand, Galt. The version shown here uses a set of printed cards with strokes in different shapes and terminations that can be combined in various different ways.

Galt Toys (GARLAND, K., 2020)

I became aware of Kolb’s cycle when working on the Associate Fellow of the HEA award when I began teaching. The cycle is outlined on Kolbs website (2021) as a four stage cycle:

“1. Concrete Experience – a new experience or situation is encountered, or a reinterpretation of existing experience.
2. Reflective Observation of the New Experience – of particular importance are any inconsistencies between experience and understanding.
3. Abstract Conceptualization reflection gives rise to a new idea, or a modification of an existing abstract concept (the person has learned from their experience).
4. Active Experimentation – the learner applies their idea(s) to the world around them to see what happens.”.

Kolb believes that an effective learning experience sees an individual progress through the cycle in order. This order can be broken down into experience > reflection > conceptualisation > testing > repeat, the cycle is repeated throughout a learning experience to enable a growth in knowledge. In an article about the subject, author McLeod states that learning is an “integrated process with each stage being mutually supportive of and feeding into the next. It is possible to enter the cycle at any stage and follow it through its logical sequence. However, effective learning only occurs when a learner can execute all four stages of the model. Therefore, no one stage of the cycle is effective as a learning procedure on its own.”

I believe this syncs well with Druckery’s concepts of seeing. That in order for a student to progress in their learning and accumulation of skill they must observe and create as part of the concrete experience phase before progressing to analyse (Reflective Observation of the New Experience), refine (Abstract Conceptualization reflection) and repeat (Active Experimentation ).

Paired with Kolbs learning cycle is the setting out of four distinct learning styles. These styles are based on the the stages of the learning cycle and they are used to help understand that different people prefer different learning styles. McLeod explains these styles as the “product of two pairs of variables, or two separate ‘choices’ that we make, which Kolb presented as lines of an axis, each with ‘conflicting’ modes at either end. Kolb believed that we cannot perform both variables on a single axis at the same time (e.g., think and feel). Our learning style is a product of these two choice decisions.”

Kolb’s Learning Styles (Mcleod 2017)

When reflecting on my own project and how it could be used to teach, I must consider contemporary teaching environments. Many of Inges methods rely on the use of physical spaces and mediums. At the moment with so much of our teaching being online due to the pandemic how could the tools I create be used as part of online or hybrid teaching? The way we learn online and interact with digital resources is very different to that of learning on a physical campus. Professor Gilly Salmon outlined a framework for online learning called the “The Five Stage Model”, though it was originally written while working for the Open University and published as part of her book E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning (2013) it has since been updated and built upon to be inclusive of many different learning environments as detailed on her website (2021). The stages are as follows:

“1. Access and Motivation
2. Online Socialisation
3. Information Exchange
4. Knowledge Construction
5. Development”

The first stage of the model, “Access and Motivation”, is an important stage to consider for my project. This stage is about introducing the learner to the environment, giving them access to the logins and tools needed and demonstrating early on how they can progress through the different stages. If I wish to teach students about typography and letterforms how can I give them access to the tools I wish them to use? If I built some kind of online tool I could make use of social media, encouraging users to create something and share it online. This would allow them to progress through the Online Socialisation and Information Exchange stages. Knowledge Construction and Development could be cover by weaving some theory into the tool to allow the user to evaluate the work they have created against other examples.

References

Discussion with Ryan Molloy

A transcript and audio file of this discussion is available here

I became aware of the work of Ryan Molloy after watching the Letterpress United – Making Type (2020) presentation. A graphic designer, typographer and educator, Ryan presented a series of his experimental typefaces that he designs and cuts using a CNC machine.

What attracted me to Ryans work was his very different perspective on the medium of letterpress printing which I beleive is informed by his background in street art. Much of his personal work shows evidence of the fluid letterforms of graffiti writing (fig 1) which he has then formalised, refined and transferred into his professional work (fig 2).

Fig 1. El Chupo Print (Ryan Molloy 2018).

Fig 2. Arts Cal Poster (Ryan Molloy 2017)

This freedom of movement and experimental approach is also mirrored in his work using letterpress blocks and printing methods. Gblox (fig 3 and fig 4) is a typeface created by cropping into hand drawn letterforms, which are then CNC cut into blocks. The resulting prints merge the non-standard shapes of lettering with the rigid structure of a letterpress print.

Fig 3. Gbloxs (Ryan Molloy 2020)
Fig 4. Gbloxs Print (Ryan Molloy 2020)

With having access to his own router Ryan has been exploring the creation of type that orientates in none standard ways. In my proposal journal I comment that “conventional type for letterpress printing is created to be linear, that is at runs from left to right in a straight line. These type faces are cut into different shaped blocks that interlink to create forms that are normally unheard of within letterpress printing.”

Modular Circular Ornaments (Ryan Molloy 2020)

Some key parts that came out of our discussion were that, like myself and Chris Wilson, Ryan is an educator himself who works with degree equivalent Graphic Design students in the USA. We spoke of the benefits of having access to various tools like CNCs and laser cutters while working as part of a university as well as a desire to be creating new forms of type that push the medium on ward. We discussed how letterpress as a medium will remain attached to 0.918″ being the height of printing blocks until a new style of adjustable press is created that is affordable and accurate enough to replace vintage presses. The part I found most helpful was the understanding that new technologies allow much more freedom and control over the cutting/shaping process. With traditional processes such as pantographs you are limited by the detail of the pattern you use as a template as well as the patience of the operator controlling it. Whereas with a computer controlled CNC the digital pattern can be incredibly detailed due to the high quality modern router tips and the fact that it will be cut via the CNC.

Initial Reflection

A large period of my time on the Visual Communication course has been affected by the Corona Virus Pandemic. This has had an affect on my ability to access certain resources (such as closures at the University and other academic institutions like specialist libraries) as well as on my overall motivation to create new works. It has been a struggle at times to push onwards and generate my own insight through experimentation. On reflecting on my feedback from my proposal it was suggested that “there is a little too much context and existing (past tense or factual) than proposed material.”, which I would agree with. Always in the back of my mind throughout the course has been a desire to not half do things, to not only rely on my own knowledge and to push my skills further. Autumn 2020 left me quite uninspired and I felt it was better to generate secondary research that fills in gaps in my knowledge (as this was something outlined in my SWOT analysis), so that at least I was moving forward with something.

In the time since I submitted my proposal I have circled back to my initial statement of intent:

Explore randomness, legibility and process in typographic design through the expansion of the Odd Foundry website and the creation of a new range of experimental typefaces informed by experimentation and modularity. 

When I teach typography to my graphic design students I often make use of analogies to explain concepts relating to types use so to borrow from my own teaching process here’s one:

“Typefaces are a vehicle, they are designed to do different things. Some are pretty, some are fast, some are comfortable.”

I think my proposal research has focused too heavily on the design of a typeface (the car) and it’s construction and not enough on the journey and destination. Any written language is designed to communicate a message, the typeface it has been set in would be picked to aid and reinforce the communication of this message. So what am I actually aiming to do with my proposed typeface? What is the journey that I want the viewer and designer who uses the typeface to go on? These are questions that I aim to answer in the next stage of my research

Reflections on SWOT analysis and SMART objectives

In my SWOT analysis, many of my weaknesses revolved around a lack of knowledge about the creation of a typeface.  I feel I have successfully gained the knowledge I was lacking in this field, but in aiming to remedy this my research has narrowed my perspective and made me focus too much on the micro detail of the design of a typeface and not enough on what I want to create my typeface to do. Now I need to focus on my strengths of experimentation and research in order for me to enjoy the Masters Project and engage with it at a level when I will feel personally happy with what I create.

At the proposal stage I set myself SMART objectives and worked to complete them throughout the project. They were a great aid in providing methods to address the weaknesses I had previously outlined. I will need to cultivate a new set of objectives for the project ahead to ensure I remain on track.

Legibility

Example of Atkinson Hyperlegible (Applied Design 2020)

As part of my further research for this module I attended an online lecture presented by Applied Design about the development of their typeface Atkinson Hyperlegible(2020). The typeface was designed for the Braille institute to be read by people with low vision and one thing they identified was the need to prioritise a distinction between individual letterforms that appear similar to people with low vision, for instance r, n, f and t. As noted in an interview with Dezeen about the publication of the typeface (Crook 2020), Applied Design aimed to “break with the longstanding tradition of letterform harmony and focus instead on letterform distinction to increase character recognition.”. So rather than creating a typeface of similar forms, a readers recognition of the single characters was prioritised.

Throughout the lecture Applied Design, a 3 man design team, detail the level of focus that they brought to the construction of the letterforms throughout a 1 year development period and their breakthroughs. It was during the lecture while making notes I realised that perhaps the mention of legibility within my proposal confines my output to something more mathematical and scientific than I’d like. I think it will still be a metric with which I will judge my outputs but I don’t want it to adversely restrict my creativity. Though something that I did take from the lecture was a renewed focus on a readers perceptions of individual letters and how a typeface should be designed for a specific reason and specific audience.

Prompts for Further Research

1.Frameworks for Analysis, Criticism and Evaluation

With working in a medium that I feel comfortable with (Typography and Letterpress) there have been times in the proposal stage where I found it hard to critically evaluate my work. I feel I need to research further methods of criticism and evaluation in order to help push my work forward, this is something I aim to revisit throughout the course of the module.

2.3D Printing

During my proposal I experimented with many different ways of creating type, from carving to casting. My proposal aimed to integrate that research into the final outcome by continuing to explore technologies available at the university such as laser cutters. With the University shut I have decided to explore consumer grade 3D printers as a possible avenue for exploration. If these seem suitable, the purchasing of one will allow me to continue to explore the intersection between digital and analogue type design that I started in my earlier work on the course.

3.Redefine the aims of my project

What am I aiming to do with my proposed typeface?

Who am I designing my typeface for?

What is the journey that I want the viewer and designer who uses the typeface to go on?

References