GRPH223 / Typography
This studio course will introduce students to the practice, history, and theory of typography. Through design research, independent project work, and collaborative exercises; students will produce typographic solutions to applied and experimental problems using typography as their primary, if not exclusive, design element.
Course work will include independent student research, sustained project
work, and critiques, emphasizing the perceptual and contextual properties of typographic design. Lectures, readings, and guided discussions will supplement project work, introducing students to the topics of letter form design, printing history, typographic classification, and textual representations.
To successfully complete this course, students will be expected to understand and emulate the principles of typographic practice that began in the early Renaissance and continue with contemporary digital design. Students will also be expected to demonstrate both leadership and collaboration skills while working with their fellow students towards the completion of project work.
{T / August 25}
Course Syllabus
Course Deliverables
Projects, Assignments, Exercises
Textbooks / Resources* ~
Typographic Design: Form and Communication, 5th edition,
by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Phillip B. Meggs, The Evolution of Typography
[required]
Typographic Design: Form and Communication [web site]
Typography (Graphic Design in Context), by Denise Gonzales Crisp,
William F. Temple
Thinking with Type, by Ellen Lupton [web site]
The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst,
Foreword, Historical Synopsis
Adobe’s Creative Cloud Software Update~
Link to UNL Box Folder / GRPH 223 / Typography Fall 2015
Introductory Readings~
Who becomes a graphic designer?
What a graphic designer needs to know?
Eric Gill’s Process Book
*See links in syllabi for additional resources related to Typography. There you will find an extensive list of suggested readings and resources, links to design organizations, and type foundries.
{TH / August 27}
Tour Love Library / Design + Social Justice Symposium Exhibitions
Tour Richards Hall exhibition space to visualize the installation for the Design + Social Justice Symposium
Walking tour through downtown Lincoln to the Nebraska State Capitol
Exercise 01
Words on the Street / Signs of Equality
You will construct a one word or short phrase to visually communicate about equality or freedom. The composition will be designed with found typographic form. This includes letters, or typography that you see on the streets or in a designed environment that is not the internet.
The exercise includes a group field trip to the Nebraska State Capitol to observe the designed world and hunt for visual communications in typographic form that can express equality, freedom and justice for all.
{T / September 01}
Eyes Open: A Pop Up Exhibition of Graphic Design at Prairie Pines
Present process for Exercise 01:
Review found typography / type collected from the walking tour etc.
Discuss what you have accomplished and how to go forward.
Review creative direction and what will be turned in for Exercise 01
Discuss printing in oversize format and the installation in Richards Hall.
Type and Authority
Assign Readings:
Typographic Design: Form and Communication, 5th edition,
by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Phillip B. Meggs, The Evolution of Typography, pages 1–27, The Anatomy of Typography, pages 29–43
Anatomy of Type
{TH / September 03}
Review Exercise 01
Refine Exercise 01
Prepare to install research and design solutions in Richards Hall
Upload your found typography folder and the final solution as a .pdf
to the designated box.unl folder for the exercise.
Anatomy of Type Presentation
Evolution of Typography Animated Short
Type History Overview
What is a zeitgeist?
Activity~!
Watch this film and then collaboratively draw a map of its contents. Outline the highlights of the film and what people, concepts and thoughts you were inspired by.
Present your map to the class for review.
“Helvetica”, the Documentary
{T / September 08}
Organize research and design solutions in Richards Hall.
Celebrate process and design research.
"Helvetica” map
Exercise 02
Typographic Joinery / Forming a Perfect Union
{TH / September 10}
Install work in Richards Hall.
Review process for Exercise 02
Work on Exercise 02 / Typographic Joinery
{T / September 15}
Emory Douglas
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Revolutionary Art of the Black Panther Party
SHELDON MUSEUM OF ART
SEPTEMBER 11 - JANUARY 03, 2016
The featured guest speaker and visiting artist is Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture and graphic artist of the Black Panther Party. His work will be exhibited at the Sheldon Museum of Art from mid-September through early January. Emory Douglas will be an artist in residence in the Department of Art and Art History, September 15–16, 2015.
Emory Douglas’s imagery is accessible and powerful; it inspires people to action. He is a revolutionary artist and agent of social change. The struggle for justice continues, and Emory’s art and what the Party fought for are as pertinent as ever.
Emory Douglas will present a free public lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 5:30 p.m. at the Sheldon.
(left) We Shall Survive Without a Doubt, (middle) Afro-American solidarity with the oppressed People of the world, (right) Our people’s army should be built up..., by Emory Douglas Back covers of The Black Panther: Black Community News Service, offset lithographs, © Emory Douglas
{W / September 16}
Design + Social Justice
Panel Discussion
5:30 P.M.
LOVE LIBRARY AUDITORIUM
Panelists include Emory Douglas, Billy X Jennings, Suzun Lucia Lamaina,
and Justin Kemerling. Moderated by Professor Patrick Jones.
{TH / September 17}
Review Exercise 02 - Process
Turn in Exercise 02 design solutions, process book [Exercise 01 and 02], 250 word statement at the end of class.
Demonstration~
How to package an InDesign document and transfer fonts to your laptop.
Assigned Readings To Date~
Typographic Design: Form and Communication, 5th edition,
by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Phillip B. Meggs
Chapter 01:
The Evolution of Typography
Chapter 02: The Anatomy of Typography
Chapter 03: Syntax and Communication
Chapter 04: Legibility
Chapter 05: The Typographic Grid
{T / September 22}
Remove work in Richards Hall.
Assign Project 01
Attend workshops to get up to speed with Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. See Digital Lab sign up.
{TH / September 24}
Quiz over the assigned readings ~ open book [25 pts.]
Typographic Design: Form and Communication, 5th edition,
by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Phillip B. Meggs
Chapter 01:
The Evolution of Typography
Chapter 02: The Anatomy of Typography
Chapter 03: Syntax and Communication
Chapter 04: Legibility
Chapter 05: The Typographic Grid
Work on Project 01
Grid Examples / Square Format~
More on the grid / typographic space
Assigning pt. size variation / establishing visual hierarchy
using Fibonacci sequencing.
{T / September 29}
Review Exercise 02
Print iterations as a multiple page .pdf. In class demonstration.
Review them in the hallway crit space.
Review Process for Project 01 - Layout 01 + Layout 02
Project your design progress / research on these layouts using Mac Airplay. Participate as a viewer, make observations and advance your level of thinking about the project.
In class activity:
Revisit a solution from Exercise 02 and integrate 1 – 2 lines of copy from Project 01 into the layout.
Work on Project 01
{TH / October 01}
Project 01 Process Review
Review Process for Project 01 - Layout 01 + Layout 02 + Layout 03
Project your design progress / research on these layouts using Mac Airplay. Participate as a viewer, make observations and advance your level of thinking about the project.
{T / October 06}
Work on Project 01
{TH / October 08}
Work on Project 01
Print layouts and trim to size. Pin up work in WAB 2nd Floor hallway.
Discuss content changes to make the reading more engaging, entice the audience to READ the typographic forms.
{T / October 13}
Assign Project 02
A Survey of the History
of the Western Alphabet
Research + Booklet Design / E-publishing
Work on Project 01
{TH / October 15}
Project 01 Review
Richards Hall / 2nd Floor
{T / October 20}
Fall Break
No Class!
{TH / October 22}
Work on Project 02
In clas activity: Write an outline of your group’s booklet contents.
Design a strategy for meeting the deadline for the project [production timeline]
Set up times to meet as a group to review progress.
Document these meetings.
Assignment~
Start to design a template for your booklet layout. Sketching will help you understand how to shape the page and build in the levels of information you want to include. [Titles, Subtitles, Headlines, Subheadlines, Body Text, Captions, Pull Quotes, folios, footnotes, annotations]
Create several pages with various applications of the grid and establishing levels of information. Use lorem ipsum text as copy for now. You can start to play with headline design and incorporate more “logical” text.
Assigning pt. size variation / establishing visual hierarchy
using Fibonacci sequencing.
{T / October 27}
Work on Project 02
In Class Activity~
Grid Deconstruction
Break down how a publication is designed. Discover how visual heirarchy is built in the process and how the grid provides structure for communicating.
{TH / October 29}
Work on Project 02
Review layouts for booklet design. Everyone will present their layouts for review and the group will determine how to decide on a typographic system and layout for the booklets. Combine components and design the publication as a group.
In class demonstration on printing to booklet.
{T / November 03}
Work on Project 02
{TH / November 05}
Work on Project 02
Late Medieval-early Modern printed books
Special Collections of UNL Love Library / Rare Books!
Typography, Authority, Audience, History
Who were the early readers of the Medieval times?
How did type look and how was it made
Field trip to Love Library Special Collections.
SDSU Visiting Artist
Off site research
{T / November 10}
Work on Project 02
{TH / November 12}
Review mock-ups of booklets, discuss contents and direction
Review how to combine pages in InDesign.
Prepare to publish:
Survey of the History of the Western Alphabet
by the students of~
GRPH 223 / Typography
Department of Art + Art History
University of Nebraska-Lincoln / Fall 2015
Some thoughts on the project~
Booklets = Form + Content
Content = Text
You do not have to write a "dissertation" about the topics, just 2 - 3 concise paragraphs will be sufficient. It is OK to use quotations as long as they are cited properly. Remember to keep track of all your resources, web sites, journals, books, articles, etc. to include in your bibliography. Note that 5 of your resources must be annotated.
Some words about Content~
Enjoy discovering narratives about your assigned study topics. Find some interesting things about the topic and write about it in your own words. Be informed by what you read and find inspiring, however, the writing [content] or body text for the booklets that you include must be in your own words. Learning to engage in design research and developing skills in writing about design history and cultural theory are outcomes for the course. Designers as writers! Designers as journalists! Designers as Authors!
Keep it simple and let the visuals “do the talking.”
Content = Visuals / Representation
[image, illustration, type specimens, ‘good looking’ graphics]
This booklet is about the development of the western alphabet so seek out unique and beautiful examples of the typefaces mentioned. Creating type specimens are a good way to illustrate the typographic forms. It is also fun to enlarge a letter from the typeface and talk about the visual properties of the typeface and how it is classified. This is also a good review for the final, guiding your audience to better understand type classification.
Project 03
Part one of design research will be assigned.
Between now and Thursday, 11.19, collect various threads of conversation between you and someone else. The threads can be from text messaging, social media chats, and email as long as they are text based. Select threads based on the variety of the content and the tone of the voices. Think about how the words resonate and how the syntax [the sequence in which words are put together to form sentences] effects the communications.
Imagine typesetting the conversation threads. “Private” messages will become “public” as the text will be used for your typographic studies. Select text threads based on ones you feel comfortable sharing.
Cut and paste the threads into an InDesign document and export it as a .pdf.
Print it out for class on November 19.
{T / November 17}
Project 02
Review
Woods Art Building / 208
{TH / November 19}
Project 02 Review
Woods Art Building / 208
Groups 5 + 6
Launch Project 03
Review bodies of text from your research [various threads from IMS, social media, email]
In class activity.
Using a template of the cube flattened, sketch, map, ideate, and conceptualize what your box could communicate.
{T / November 24}
Project 03 process review
Review rough layouts for each cube required.
Print, trim, fold and glue all 6 cubes into rough layouts for review.
{TH / November 26}
Thanksgiving Holiday
No Class!
{T / December 01}
Project 03 process review
Review round 2 of 3D Mock ups [6 minimum]
These are to be more developed than the first round and illustrate an evolution in your process.
Continue to Work on Project 03
Prepare round 03 of 3D mock ups [6 minimum]
Document your best results with photography and use gorgeous imagery to design a poster.
Reminder about Deliverables~
Exercise 03 [25 pts.]
Publicize your message. Designing it for an audience.
Type organization - Refining Project 02
Review collective booklets for Project 02. Organize revisions and turn-ins for final publishing of the project.
Exercise 04 [25 pts.]
Classify your type [example in google docs]
Organize your type samples you have been collecting since the beginning of the semester into the categories outlined in the example. Include at least 10 examples for each classification.
Final Examination Preparation
Review
Study Topics from the Syllabus
“Test yourself on typesetter’s terms and definitions, from the esoteric to the everyday, and see whether you measure up in picas or points”
{TH / December 03}
Final Exam Review
Continue to work on Project 03
{T / December 08}
Student Evaluation Forms
Each group from Project 02 writes 2 questions that would be good to be
on the final exam.
Project 03 Final Review
Install posters in Woods 105 for review.
Place the last version of your cubes on the table in Woods 105
Turn in Process books for evalution
Turn in a designed page [.pdf] with a screen grab and a link to your online Type Library with Classifications to the Box folder.
Link to UNL Box Folder / GRPH 223 / Typography Fall 2015
Deliverables
Projects, Assignments, Exercises
Projects 1 - 3 @ 100 points each = 300 points
Exercises 4 @ 25 points each = 100 points
Quizzes 2 @ 25 points each = 50 points
Final Examination = 100 points
Process Book / Documentation = 100 points
Participation = 100 points
Total possible points: 750 points
All exercises, assignments, readings, quizzes and activities are intended to contribute to the success of your visual solutions for the projects and will enhance the over all quality of your visual communications.
Link to UNL Box Folder / GRPH 223 / Typography Fall 2015
{TH / December 10}
Final Exam
Last day of class
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.”
Noam Chomsky
First Things First Manifesto, 2000
Course Deliverables + More Possibilities
Stacy Asher
Assistant Professor of Art
209 Woods Art Building
Department of Art + Art History
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
stacyasher@unl.edu
stacyasher.com