IAMPETH

I really wasn't planning on these all being about hand lettering but I just have to share this one.

IAMPETH is the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting.

I heard that they are no longer teaching penmanship in elementary schools. Only typing. Which is a shame if it is really true and not just a rumor. ALL letters used to be written. Type has evolved from hand writing. When you look at typefaces like Robert Bringhurst defines the word Humanist in "The Elements of Typographic Style" as letterforms that show the clear trace of a broad-nib pen held by a right handed scribe. A Humanist Axis is an oblique stroke axis reflecting the natural inclination of the writing hand. Handwriting is important. There is my soapbox. Aaand back to my point.

This website has .pdfs of books on penmanship that someone has painstakingly scanned in! Amazing images and all really high res. It is an amazing resource for anyone wishing to improve their hand lettering or even just handwriting skills.

http://www.iampeth.com/artwork.php

http://www.iampeth.com/books.php

Project 2: How to plant for children

This is my project 2, an educational game. I made a game called how to plant for children. The major audiences of this game are 1st and 2nd graders. Children learns how to plant in several different plants with this game. 

http://fs.finearts.utah.edu/~syang

Magnet Lettering

Magnet Lettering

Ever since we did our illustrated letter assignment, I've been super interested in all the different ways that type can be produced other than a simple hand drawn letter.  I love all the different ideas that are out there, and when I came across this one, I loved it because of the effect that it creates in the type.  The type is really clean, but at the same time, it's messy, which I think makes it look different and achieves a feel that I believe can be difficult to create.  The type is made from magnets that were cut out and then glued to a paper.  Another paper was put over them and then iron shavings were sprinkled over the top until the letters formed.  Its cool to watch something form from what seems to be nothing - but that's technically how all type is created I guess.  Sometimes using the smallest and sometimes most insignificant things can allow you to produce something magnificent.

Comic sans shooting game

Here is a fun little game I like to play, give it a try. These guys really hate Comic Sans.

bancomicsans.com/main/

Project 1: How do I go green?

http://fs.finearts.utah.edu/~syang
This website is obviously for eco-friendly people. This website has great tutorials to save the earth by following the tutorial.

Go Gawdy

Here are some fun tutorials on how to create even more illustrated text. Although I don't believe in using them in any body text, each of these tutorials would look great in stand alone characters as well as titles.

How to create Balloon Text

How to create an environmental Green text

How to create furry panda text

How to Create Layered Paper Text

How to create 3d Text

Hope you enjoy, plustuts.com is a good site for other tutorials, these all happen to be part of one of there series.

Drawn to type

Illustrated Type is everywhere, a trend seems to be forming lately teamed with artist determined to either make a typeface out of a bicycle, or create a single B out of bicycle parts (or whatever else is available.) The result of everyone's experiments is this enormous plethora of resources for every kind of artist, especially typographer's. It's as if we're faced with this hive of new ideas and emotions all begin to be put onto paper. But, the questions remains on whether or not that is appropriate.I couldn't even find a bicycle alphabet, frogs will do though. 

Think back to the reading of Bringhurst in using typefaces appropriately. Imagine you're writing a compilation of short stories about bicycles should we expect to see all of the O's in there with tiny spokes drawn in them? Or perhaps those tiny handlebars on the Y's? The truth is is that if we dared to fill our bicycle book with all this fluff and ornamentation our readers would be so overstimulated they probably wouldn't even make it past the first page. There eyes would circle around the "letterforms" in this endless cycle (no pun intended) that would take away from the point you were trying to make in the first place. Now, this doesn't mean that one should never use a flower ridden 'S' in their gardening book or an 'O' with the bat symbol in it, but think about the message you're trying to deliver, are you trying to show off the exquisite artistry or are you hiding your work behind flashy lights to jazz it up? The answer may surprise you. My opinion? Our work doesn't need shine and glitter to show it off, and as professionals the fact that we can take eloquence above gawdy is what will separate us from your everyday wanna-be. Illustrated Type is a beautiful medium, but let's show it off for it is, an image to compliment a letter form, and not a letter form to compliment an image.



My own personal favorites of Illustrated Type are those single letters redrawn, much like our assignment, here are some examples.


These are cover material, I'd put that 'A' on the front of my article, instead of on every 'A' in sight. Which do you think would be more appreciated?

Hand painted signs

Lately I have been so interested in hand painted signs. Margaret Kilgallen is one of my favorite artists and her work with hand painted type has been so inspiring to me. I recently attempted to hand paint a sign for a local gallery and even though it is very frustrating at times, I would love to continue to give it a try and improve. These are just a few of my favorite hand painted signs that I have found over the past little while.

Learn it from my hands

it is easy to learn by making or touching something with your hands. I, for studying the typography,  chose the letter R, and started draw and design it. Here is my result:

Type motion

Type Motion

I always loved animated or illustrated type. I found this poster and video for the Spanish Department of Finance, designed by the Madrid based Cocoe Studio. I found it fascinating that something as mundane as finical documents could be designed seemed interesting. Anyway, here is the poster below and the link for the video is here

Octave

Octave

I have always had a fascination with taking an element and infusing something completely unexpected into it. Two of my favorite things are Typography and Music, I thought it would be fun to explore the infusion of these two ideas for my blog posts. This exploration was inspired by the illustrated type Octave. Octave fuses the graphic elements of musical composition with the English alphabet.

Octave is illustrated by Ana Gomez. http://www.anenocena.com/1578/123434/_-projects/octave

This is a short blurb she wrote about the idealization of Octave.

“Octave has been created with the intention of fusing together the graphical elements of written musical composition with the English alphabet. My passion for illustration and typography made me naturally lean towards lettering, while music is a very important element in my creative process. When reading the newspaper or a book, a designer might unconsciously stop acknowledging the content due to the very nature of the letters. Often in observing the fonts used in books I've read, I've thought that for those of us who work with these fonts, they are analogous to the notes on a score in the eyes of a musician. They represent the graphic structure that builds the music by which emotions, ideas and feelings are communicated. In the same way, letters are the graphic structure with which texts are composed, making them tools to communicate emotions, ideas and feelings in their own right.”

Her website is http://www.anenocena.com/ where you can see more of her works.

30 Essential typefaces for a lifetime

The book, '30 Essential Typefaces for a Lifetime' explains what 30 most famous typefaces are and how they are used. This book contains information of Akzidenz Grotesk, Avenir, Bell Centennial, Bell Gothic, DIN, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Gill Sans, Helveticam Meta, Myriad, Trade Gothic, Univers, Vag Rounded, Adobe Caslon, Adobe Garamond, Bembo, Bodoni, Clarendon, Courier, Excelsior, Lucida, Minion, Perpetua, Sabon, Stempel Schneidler, Times New Roman, TRAJAN, and Walbaum. I have worked with most of typefaces from the list, so I decided to choose Bell Gothic that I have never worked with before.

     Bell Gothic is a typeface that designed by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1937. It was first designed for use in American telephone directories.Therefore, the main purpose of this typeface is for very small text containing large amounts of information. Milk Studio (top) is actually an example for a use of Bell Gothic in a way to have lots of information within a small text. Then, I tried to followed that 'Bell Gothic Main Purpose' with my birthday information (bottom).

 

Optima

A friend sent me this article and I thought it was interesting to share. I don't use it that often, but Optima is one of my favorite typefaces. The flare at the terminals are a little weird sometimes to work with, but that is one of the qualities I personally like. Some typophiles consider Optima to be seriffed. Either way, there is a certain dignity that the typeface carries and I found it fascinating that such care was put into the selection. There were other faces that could have sufficed as well, but then not thought could have been used other than using default Times. Enjoy!

http://www.bamagazine.com/v/vspfiles/recommend/aYDT9rLand.html 

typography in my days

I am a graphic design major student at University of Utah. Since I am a graphic design major student, I have to live with all kinds of graphic arts including typography. I have never learned typography before this semester, but then I decided to take Typography 1 class--which was the requirement for my major. Anyway, I have been doing some assignments from that class. Typography is more like designing layouts. It is very simple, but there is a rule before that. YOU NEED TO KNOW THE TYPEFACE YOU ARE USING. There are tons of typefaces out the world, and all individual typefaces have their own characteristics. Every typeface has a place to be used. For example, helvetica works great with the subject title, on the other hand, garamond is perfect for a long body text.
So, I study one typeface a week besides the class study. There is no typeface to blame. All the typefaces are great and beautiful. People should learn more about typefaces too!

De Stijl, Theo Van Doesburg

             It was in 1917 when the De Stijl movement occurred throughout until 1931.  This movement called for simplicity, geometric, abstracted, clarity, harmony, and unity within the arts, whether it is in painting, architecture, and type.  Theo Van Doesburg was a chief founder of the De Stijl magazine.  The magazine featured works of many different Dutch artists who strived for the same abstraction and clarity in their art.  They simplified their works to the point where they just utilized the essential forms and colors in hopes to “re-idealize and achieve equilibrium through out the world.”  Black, white, blue, red, and yellow were about the only colors they used, and grids overcame organic forms completely, using only vertical or horizontal lines.  

Herb Lubalin

 Typography was the technique of arranging type to inform as the word itself. However, now days, typography covers a lot more than that. The new typography had been dominated the world of typography in American advertisement industry. That story begins with the famous graphic designer, Herb Lubalin (1918-81). In 1950’s and 1960’s, several designers including Herb Lubalin had brought the new typography to America from Europe. Enormous posters had been produced during that period, and they had followed the style of new typography. With the new typography style, letterforms became objects, and also objects because letterforms. A lot of designers started to use typography for more uses since that period.

  Herb Lubalin’s fantastic idea will also affect more and more to the future typography world. I disagree with the idea that is saying there has to be a way to agree or disagree with anything. I am saying this because I agree with Lubalin while I disagree with Lubalin too. That is, I think the design has no limit to anybody. Lubalin’s style was blamed at first. However, he kept working on his style to develop the style as the one perfect idea for typography. People tend to dislike unfamiliar things. However, after I read and studied about Lubalin is that the time and effort I spent to work on arts never betray me. Although he was limited in graphic design industry, it gave me a confidence to work on every part of art while reading thtough his essay. As I finish this essay, I, again, want to give a big applause to the great designer, Herb Lubalin, and hiw typography style. And his name will last forever as the master of typography.

Words don't always mean what they say.

Typefaces?

Typefaces?

Typefaces are the artistic representations or interpretation of characters. 

Letter—using typefaces—is our main method to communication with other people. Everything has a name and if you want to write about it, then you should choose a typeface to use. Typeface is not only for writing but also for design. Many graphic designers spend times to just choose the typeface that they will use.