art+tech+being

In my search for resource material for my graphic design students, I came across Thinking with Type. Thinking with Type provides clear and focused guidance for students, designers, writers and editors on how to arrange written content. Since typography plays an integral role in the realm of graphic design, I wanted my students to have a solid understanding on how to use type effectively.

The book breaks down every facet of type starting with Letter and provides interesting and pertinent historical facts which integrate nicely with the accompanying illustrations and witty examples.  The “type crimes” provide examples of what not to do when using type.  “Its not a book about fonts, its a book about how to use them.”

The author provides clear and concise information on how type has been used and how it evolved over the last half millennium.  From learning the anatomy of a letter to the ways type is used to control eye movement, the author provides an engaging and though provoking read into a topic whose advancements most simply take for granted.

Most of us perhaps think the TV,  Telephone or iPod was the most significant invention of the last millenium, but rather it was the invention of movable type by a German named Johan Guttenberg.

 

Following Letter, the next major component covered in Thinking with Type is Text.  In my classes we talked about the arrangement of type and how terms like kerning, tracking, line length, point size and leading were all various properties designers could change depending on the typographic problem at hand.

Students completed the Space and Meaning exercise outlined in the book using Gimp (Open Source Photo Manipulation Software).  After showing a few examples of works from the text, students quickly became engaged with their own ideas.  It was a bit more challenging for some of my ESL students because they were unfamiliar with the vocabulary terms.  The following are examples of student work:

 

 

The final  “comps” were cut out and mounted onto black tag paper.  This was a great introductory typography exercise that students really enjoyed doing.  Most were able to get a solid grasp on how to effectively use type to enhance the meaning of the words while experimenting with the text tool properties and surrounding negative space.

Continuing the discussion on Text, the author moves on to the typographic Hierarchy topic.  The hierarchy expresses the organization of content, emphasizing some elements and subordinating others.  The hierarchy is signaled by one or more clues, such as a contrast in spacing, style and scale to emphasize and diminish certain type.  There are endless combination’s one can use to structure a hierarchy, however, one should use one or two “clues” to emphasize content. 

The publishers website (PAPress)  has tons of great info from Thinking with Type along with additional resources for students and teachers.  The detailed high res pdf’s and project sheets rock!

Another great project from Thinking With Type is the poster project. It provided students with the opportunity to be creative and test their ability on how to structure a hierarchy.  I worked along side students and created my own poster while teaching simple techniques to show emphasis and to be consistent with styles.  The poster had to be purely typographic yet not look like an office memo so I found that using large scale numerals as shapes was beneficial and also contributed to the event info (four people).

 

 

It was interesting to see the different processes each student went through to come up with a solution to the hierarchy project.  Getting students started was a major stumbling block but showing them examples of completed projects from the Thinking With Type website seemed to help get the gears moving.  Students all have sketchbooks but seldom want to take the time to do a thumbnail sketch or a draft before jumping to the software…no surprise for most art teachers!

I urged students to “keep it simple” by minimizing typefaces and color choices and focus on the organization of the content.  Some kept it too simple and ended up with an office memo. Hand lettering the poster would be a good alternative for the “left-brainers” who have trouble thinking outside the text box.

Students have a tendency to get into the details before they having a solid composition in place so perhaps some extra time in the sketchbooks doing preliminary work might help too.  This is definitely a project I plan on doing in the future!

Look for an update in the future on the last component in Thinking With Type,  Grid.