Active Booter

Here are some of the past variations of the online source for the Caffeine Campaign. From the last couple of classes I believe that I have made a lot of progress formally.

From the round 6 my campaign was not looking very good. I have problems with proximity, hierarchy, and making the content clear. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, but as a junior I should not be having these problems, and I see what they are now.

In round 7 is when the campaign started coming together more. Even though I struggled with this before it was really helpful in class to have the opinions from my other classmates. I really narrowed down my ideas to make it simple and clear. This is not suppose to be a site that is overpacked with information. The concept is to tell the female coder to cut down on caffeine, and to use easy steps. I was creating overly complicated visuals for them to look at that was not tailored to my idea.
Campaign r07

Type Questions

1. What is the relationship between analog made type and digitally crafted type?
2. What experience can the arrangement of type bring to the audience?
3. What different dimensions does analog made type of digital type make?
4. What different aesthetic qualities are in analog verses digital type?
5. How can analog type influence the content?
6. How can digital type compliment analog type within a framed space?
7. How can you change the mood of the scene with the addition of typography?
8. How can typography change the language of the words within its space?
9. How can "analog made" type's message be only understood in motion?
10. What is the spacial relationship of digital and analog typography to motion?
11. How can movement effect the arrangement of typography?
12. Could an object conform into analog made type? (For example, making a cube and rotating the camera around so that the cube reveals letterforms?
13. In motion, is there a way to arrange type so that it doesn't just have to be shot straight on?

Type Topic

Through the research that I have done I have narrowed down my ideas to looking at the arrangement of type on a composition. What can happen in physical space type verses digital type? This interest is based around how type and video function together. My interest is to blend digital type and physical type together to create an experience for the audience. From my research I have not found any specific examples that do exactly what I am interested in, however bits and there are bits and pieces that I have collected that have given me a push to the “experimenting” part. The traits would be putting text or words in front of the camera and then when editing to see if I can unveil more text, and what can that relationship be. Can the relationship be influenced by the distance in space, how the words are executed in a formal way, does it heighten a story that can be told.

There is a wide range of examples that I found, 3-d digital type, type in perspective, hand made type. In all of the examples the type would inform the viewer on the content (like type should do). But what I am wondering is how can type bring out an experience for people, or what can it influence the story behind the content.

One of the places that I have seen this happened (in the motion world) would be title sequences to movies, commercials, studio reels, and entertainment videos ( youtube, vimeo). There are no exact places that are doing exactly what I want to be doing but there is plenty of motion graphic studios that are placing type within the environment of the subject like Stardust, MK12, and DesignKitchen. Some Graphic Artists would include Kyle Cooper (who was involved in the title sequence for Seven) and Maurice Binder.

From the places that I have seen type been used it usually is in informative way. Meaning they are explaining people that are involved in the movie /t.v show, or explaining the content. My approach will be to think about how the meaning of type and the arrangement can function as a main component to the narrative. Through my research I have found it is how people film type that can be interesting, in different angles, and from different spaces. From my other type classes we have expanded on how typography can change the meaning of something or influence the content. With my experiment I want to see how this can be expressed through video.

I believe that these are important questions to answer because it talks about the arrangement of type in a digital form, that I have not gotten to expand with. More and more people are starting to look for information within the digital world, and by giving information through video its a way, I can start to build an experience for people. I also believe that it is important because it helps me as a designer to explore what the arrangement of type can be in motion. I think that with this experiment it will also help the timing issues that I had in narrative class, and to clarify what comfort level the audience can read type as.

categories

experimental type reading

1.) Bil'ak's Experimental Typography. Whatever that means took the initiative to separate experiment and typography. He reflects on how the crucial the designer's process is and how our experimenting belongs is different that what a scientists would call an experiment. Process verses the end result, is it fair to ask what is more important?

A scientist comes up with an idea, researches, evaluates and creates a question: thus hypothesis. When testing the question there are variables that impact the experiment. Designer's make a similar occurrence of events. First there is an audience that we research, and base our concepts around. Then we brainstorm ways to communicate in a visual way. Our variables are the aesthetic qualities.

One particular thought I had while reading was our resources, as people and designers. Bil'ak's discusses the alphabet and its progression into simplified letters, and optical corrections made to give clearance to the typeface. Even as children we are structured to be centered by letterforms, they help us engage in the world. Just like a child, when taking Typography I we learn the "basics" of examples: letterforms/ grids/ hierarchy. From this time we are constantly experimenting with how type works with a composition. Learning what does work and what does not.

However in "experimental type" Bil'ak implies that there should not be a preconceived notion of what the end result is. Experimenting Type should be a "method of working" with a production. When completing the experiments, I hope to keep this in mind. That is to be in the middle, with a narrowed approach, but producing a vast amount of things. Not for a quantity sake, but to be more engaged than contemplating what the solution should be.

2.) Reading the Radical Type chapter on experimental typography Triggs makes some really unique points. He discusses how the process to experimenting with type, is one of the most important values. As time has gone on, we understand the value of process, to see our work grow. With this project the process will be a little different because it is undetermined what the "final" result will be.

"Type design is not only about the way in which the individual letterforms are constructed, it also involves the systematic application"

I thought this quote was really interesting, because it introduces the idea of taking a direction to go with, and pulls away from the design standard letterforms. With our experiments we can take a direction to go with and from those questions, and ideas construct the letterforms; and focuses less on the medium were using. This allows the process to really expand.

"Also about exploring the arrangement of type"

This was a really interesting point to me, because with first thinking about experimental type my thought was hand made letterforms. It is another concept to question what the relationship of word/letterform is to the space around it.

Triggs also discusses the Times New Roman and how that was meant to push boundaries as far as confortable reading was. Today many people would say that Times was not an "experiment", but any typeface was created through series of trials. I like this point because it highlights how designers are always experimenting, we push the boundaries to give a new way of "seeing".

Readings

Meggs reading was a great source, she gave many examples on how researching the audience is essential to well developed design. She discusses the pictograms and how they symbolized the culture behavior. She also gives examples of how humans learn vocabulary through trial and error, and this has an impact in how we become accustomed within our cultures. Going back to last semester and the communication mode, this system should always be in effect. As the designer is sending a message out, it is up to the designer as well to give a clear communicative way for them to decode the message. Understanding that multiple people take in the design and will respond in different ways by opinion. By looking into Status, wealth, values the designer becomes familiar with what is appropriate and functional to that audience.

Featured Story - David Bulter by Linda Tischler discusses the global impact of Coca-Cola. The story is centered around David Bulter who is producing the designs for Coke to go larger than it already is. This house name beverage has transitioned from a brand to a system. Bulter reflects on how Coke has gone international without loosing the original identity. She gives examples that within Coke there are branches that reach out to different audiences like the carbon foot print. The story includes ways that Bulter "simplified" coke designs, and slogans to reach out to the audience to a deeper level. Like the "Open Happiness". Or how he was given a post-it with three main tasks and the first was get to know a lot of people. Bulter reaches out and discusses how design can improve sales and design with a purpose is beyond just a volleyball banner. His ideas surfaced around thinking in a larger scale with maintaining the identity. It was decided to get people into the designs, coke is a personal product, to attract sales the design must communicate to people. Tischler reflects that Bulter's new job was creating a new language to see coke in. By targeting what is valued to people in different parts of the world he was able to reach out to different audiences.

Dainty Hankie Update

My overall approach is to create a site that projects a collection of delicate handkercheifs with a modern crisp twist.

Home page, but needs to have the whole collection present.

Another exploration of the home page. This could work if I work on the navigation and bring the top layer of hankies down.

Sorting page; the fabric's need to have more interaction with the hankies.

Banner's

Macro view

I have narrowed my rendering style down to illustration, and possibly photograph of the hankie in an environment. I made the illustrations by scanning the hankie and then tracing over. For my process I narrowed down three major outcomes that I need to focus on to make this a great piece

1. Navigation,(/banner) since the navigation is present through out the whole site, I am starting to understand that it is probably the most important component because it carries all of the information within it, and also sets the tone for the website.

2. Info-graphs/ rendering; since my collection is illustration's, most of my info-graphs will be illustration's as well. I want to carry this rendering style within the site for cohesion, but also for an enjoyable experience for handkerchief lovers. The content within the info-graphs is important too, not to be too complex, but create a whimsical experience for the audience.

3. Layout; this indicates a set of stylistic choices that have been made though out all of the pages. For me, this is an important process because it shows typography rules, grid structure, and image choices. The layout is what makes the rest of the site function with designed principles. Strict choices such as color pallet, roll overs, and the "outline" we flushed out in the wire frames.

To complete the illustration part of this project, I think that these are my three navigations to focus on.

A type ical Reflection

For the blog I wanted to reflect on different assignments that I felt helped me understand what it means to build an identity or brand.

This is an example of the "desk tags". The idea is for the audience member to come over and read this, before or during the interaction with the experiment. To me this was an important step because it not only clarifies the ideas of the experiment, but it makes it easier on us as the designer. These tags could clear up any questions the high schooler might have. It would also help us to not have to repeat ourselves over and over. In my mind I believe that the audience member could then ask further engaging questions, rather than- what is this? The dialogue and questions could be more in depth.

Here are the final name tags that I created for the symposium. The design for these seem practical and simple. Using the circular shape to represent the logo. and rules that we came up with as a class. When collaborating as a class, it is not unknown that we all approach typography in different aspects. By the end of the identity journey we were starting to frame the "lock up rules", and regulations that helped keep atypeical as a cohesive whole. We decided as a class to use Futura condensed medium, and for headers to capitalize. It was a new experience for me, because usually I am the one making all of the "rules" up and following them, but as a class it was interesting to see all the details in type and collaborate to complete the identity.

These are some explorations of the name tag, placing the logo within the traditional name tag. I wanted to put the name within a circle, but it ended up looking like a bulls eye. One important quality I did not know before was not to interrupt the logo. Before, in any of the design class we would designing for that particular company, so it was obvious not to further put design elements in. In this project we had built our own logo, but the underline rule still remains. Not to say that this observation is always correct, but it was a valid point I saw.

After this critique the decision to make these into a circular shape was made. Also to take out the logo. Not to say that the logo was not important, but the need for it to be on every piece, didn't always have to be.

Here is one of the first rounds of name tags. I know I wanted to be experimental, and include the imagery that we had all made and collected. Looking at them now, I see the problem with writing a person's name, even if it is typed. Also the variety of name tags might be confusing to our audience member's.

The name tags might not seem to be a huge part of the identity, but listening and contemplating with the others is what I found to be useful. When reflecting back to the AIA conference we presented on, I remember looking at all the different parts that went into making the conference. Little physical parts from website information to how the signage is developed. Now when reflecting and looking at branding I am starting to notice the strict choices that these agencies had to make. It is not about what typeface, or image you choose but the idea of building a structure. This includes how to view the post card vs the HTML mailer. When should the sub header break to a second line.

From weeks back these are the experiments that I made using rubber cement and some water colors. I had a lot of fun making these letters, and bending them into different spacial relationships. I know we are not suppose to have an idea at mind yet, but the concept of depth into space with letterforms has me very curious (possible more experiments). These images however are cropped in at a specific angle so the audience gets a sense of letterforms, but not "Atypeical" written out, because that's typical.

This is an example the images before editing. For this random experiment I really wanted to focus on what it mean to be abnormal. One aspect I like about these photos is I believe they have that quality, almost animal skin like texture with bright pigments. In the future I want to push myself to let letterforms like this be explored in different environments. It would have been interesting to look at these in a completely green environment, vs a metal background. However, for the Atypeical, at the time I felt it was the most appropriate way of displaying the images, focus on the cropped in letterform.

Thinking back to the process and mind set I was in when first exploring the "experimental type" aspect, I was a overwhelmed with all the different components that were going to be executed. It helped me to focus all of my random ideas onto a mind map. This was a good exercise for me to do because it gave me the chance to focus on all the different categorizes, yet visualize what needed to be accomplished.

Working though Atypeical, there was a lot of good and bad challenges. One that comes to mind would be working with a large group of people, and within that, working with a smaller group. Sometimes I questioned if I was doing the correct task. In the end, I believe that the communication between us as designers was better. I felt I was able to voice my input on a various amount of channels, and allowing feedback in. This different than being in a formal "critique" where it is bases on an individual. It was a good learning experience to interpret how the high school or freshman would come across Atypeical, and beyond that we had developed layers of information for them to grasp.