Design Exploration

TYPOGRAPHY: PROJECT 1

18.09.2019 - 02.10.2019 (Week 4 - Week 6)
Maisarah bt Muhd Zamri (0335576)
Typography
Project 1

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LECTURES

18.09.2019 (Week 4)
Lecture - Indicating Paragraphs, Widows and Orphans, Highlighting Text, Headline Within Text, Cross Allignment
So there's this symbol people used to use to indicate paragraph. It's called "pilcrow" (¶). There would just be a block of text and we would see this symbol just appearing every now and then in the text to indicate that it's a new paragraph. Another way to indicate a paragraph is "line spacing". If the line space is 12pt, then the paragraph space is also 12pt. People often put line space and leading in the same class, but they are actually very different. "Leading" is the space between two lines, whereas "line space" is the end of a line to the end of the next line. The most common paragraph indicator we see nowadays is the indentation where the first line of a paragraph is indented. The opposite of this would be extend paragraph, where the first line of a paragraph is extended. 
A "widow" is a short line that is left alone at the end of  a column, while an "orphan" is a short line that is left alone at the beginning of a new column. These two are very big no-no's when creating a text in columns, so we should really put care into the texts we're making to avoid this abominations. 
There are multiple ways to highlight a text, for example:
- Change the type face
- Change the type family
- Change the colour
- Put a light coloured box behind the text
- Put quotation marks
Cross alignment is when sentences in a text next to each other are parallel. And this is when I zoned out.

25.09.2019 (Week 5)
Lecture
We got a lecture on how to use the InDesign Software.

02.10.2019 (Week 6)
Lecture - None

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INSTRUCTIONS



Project 1 - Editorial Text

For this project, we were given three article to choose from to compose an editorial text. The options were:
- The Impact of Bauhaus on Modern Culture
- A Designer's Code of Ethics
- First Things First Manifesto 2000

I decided to go with "A Designer's Code of Ethics" because that kind of speaks to me more. If I do this article dirty, then I'm sorry.

Fig 1.1 (1st template before trafficking) 

 Fig 1.2 (1st template after trafficking)

Fig 1.3 (1st template with headline)

My first design looked too plain so I decided to adjust and move around the text boxes. 

Fig 1.4 (2nd template without headline)

Fig 1.5 (2nd template with headline)

I am surprised that my lecturers actually liked the layout of my 2nd attempt. Honestly, not much effort was put into this. But like, they said they can tell if we've only started doing this project a day before showing it to them and that they can see how much effort was put into it and Mr Vinod legit looked at me. Excuse me, I may have not put any effort into this, but I did not start doing it last minute. I start pretty early but just gave up really quickly.
Anyway, lecturers said the whole compositions looks kind of dark, so I should add more leading in the text. They also said that the title doesn't scream "A Designer's Code of Ethics" so I should express that more either in the headline or in the whole layout itself. I vote to change the headline because changing the layout would be too much work.

Fig 1.6 (2nd template after increasing leading)

Fig 1.7 (2nd template after leading adjustments and the still boring headline)

I decided to take back the very first template and do some adjustments on it because who knows, maybe i can do something about it.

Fig 1.8 (1st template [4 columns] with more leading)

Fig 1.9 (1st template [4 columns] - text boxes placement adjustment)

Fig 1.10 (1st template [4 columns] - final result)

Fig 1.11 (1st template - final work)

Fig 1.12 (2nd template [4 columns] - headline design changed)

Fig 1.13 (2nd template - final work)

Fig 1.14 (3rd template [4 columns] - headline position changed)

Fig 1.15 (3rd template [4 columns] - layout position changed)

Fig 1.16 (3rd template - final work)

Fig 1.17 (4th template [4 columns]  - layout change)

Fig 1.18 (4th template [4 columns] - bigger headline)

Fig 1.19 (4th template - final work)

The text boxes seem small with four columns in  a page, so I wanted to try making layouts with three columns in a page.

Fig 2.1 (5th template [3 columns])

Fig 2.2 (5th template [3 columns] with headline)

Fig 2.3 (5th template [3 columns] - right side of spread sheet is right aligned)

Fig 2.4 (5th template - final work)

Fig 2.5 (6th template [3 columns])

Fig 2.6 (6th template [3 columns] with headline)

Fig 2.7 (6th template - final work)

Fig 2.8 (7th template [3 columns] - layout changed)

Fig 2.9 (7th template [3 columns] with headline)

Fig 2.10 (7th template - final work)

And while I still have time, why don't I make layouts with two columns per page, too, right? At least now they can't accuse me of not putting effort into my work :')

Fig 3.1 (8th template [2 columns])

Fig 3.2 (8th template [2 columns] with headline)

Fig 3.3 (8th template [2 columns] - headline position changed)

Fig 3.4 (8th template [2 columns] - smol headline at the bottom right because it looks empty)

Fig 3.5 (8th template - final work)

Fig 3.6 (9th template [2 columns] - text position changed)

Fig 3.7 (9th template [2 columns] with headline)

Fig 3.8 (9th template - final work)

Fig 3.9 (10th template [2 columns] - layout adjustment)

Fig 3.10 (10th template [2 columns] with headline)

Fig 3.11 (10th template - final work)

 Fig 3.12 (11th template [2 columns])

Fig 3.13 (11th template [2 columns] - after trafficking)

Fig 3.14 (11th template [2 columns] - texts and headline position changed)

Fig 3.15 (11th template - final work)

  Fig 4.1 (Editorial text final work _ PDF file)

"ChAnGiNg ThE wHoLe LaYoUt WoULd bE tiRiNG," I said as I made a few more different layouts with different numbers of columns. Aren't I just a hardworking student.  (❁◡‿◡) It's because they said they can see the efforts put into the works we've done so I decided to put a lil bit more effort :')
I used ITC New Baskerville Std typefamily for all the templates; headline and text all the same. It's because I like to be consistent, not because I was too lazy to fix the trafficking and leading after changing the typefamily haha. I don't even know if we could use different typefamilies for different templates because it's the same article, and we were told to choose one typefamily we think suits the article. Maybe we can, but I'm just playing safe here.

After all those efforts put into making these templates, my lecturers think the best one to be printed out would be the 2nd template (Fig 1.13). 

Yeah. One of the very first few. Literally the one from last week, only with more leading and the headline design changed. 

Oof. I guess I work better with the first initial ideas I come up with. Lesson learned; less effort put into work, the more likely said work to be accepted.

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FEEDBACKS

25.09.2019 (Week 5)

• Specific feedback: Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul think that my layout is nice. But I should express “A Designer’s Code of Ethic” better in either the layout or the title. Also, my text looks a bit compact and dark so I should increase the leading so it’s easier to read.
• General feedback: Bodies of texts must be connected so if the length of a textbox extended to another textbox, the flow has to be linked. When using justified text, be careful of rivers. Paragraph space, alignment, indentation is not a good combo. To use indentation, there should be no paragraph space, and should be left justified. If making more than 1 layout for Project 1, don’t need to have different files; just add some pages and do another layout in the same file. 

02.10.2019 (Week 6)

• Specific feedback: Mr Vinod and Mr Shamsul went through all the different layouts I have tirelessly made for this project and they have decided that the third layout I made out of 13 would be best to print out. They preferred it more than the rest. At first they were telling me to make the texts cross aligned, but then changed their minds, saying that it showed a little bit of contrast in the template. SO. I don’t have to change anything and I’m good to go. 
• General feedback: This has been said a few time; text boxes cannot be separated, they should be connected. All designs should be in one file.

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REFLECTIONS

Experience: Making editorial texts isn't easy :') I feel sorry for the designers who made texts like these to be put into a magazine and have most people not appreciate it because they don't know the effort put into designing it.

Observations: Obviously everyone has different ways of expressing things. But with only 3 topics to choose from, some are bound to come up with similar designs if they choose the same topic. Plus, I noticed a lot of people chose the same topic that I chose too.

Findings: Even if we came up with similar designs, it doesn't mean that we were copying each other. That just means we have the same idea of how we want to interpret it.

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FURTHER READING

im not even going to try anymore