CRITICAL THINKING

               

    Typography, is the putting together of type in a systematic order, which is legible and easy to visualize and  comprehend, the word takes origin from Greek, "typos" meaning impression and "graphia" meaning writing  . Anatomy is also the study of part of a structure, in order to understand their functions and their importance to that structure. In accordance with these definitions, anatomy of typography is the studying of the different parts of a type, type face, text or even letter.

ANATOMY of  TYPOGRAPHY

Like the human body, all types have parts which perform different duties. These various parts and functions are as follows;                                                                                                                                                    

                    i) ascender - the part of lower case letter above the x-height

                ii) descender - this part is the line that falls below main line

iii) serif - strokes that start and end a letter               

iv) san-serif - strokeless letters                                       

                  v) spur - smaller than serif but emphasizes on larger strokes

                       vi) stem - vertical strokes joining the top and bottom of a letter

     vii) crossbar - horizontal stroke connecting two stems

                     viii) counter - white space that partly or fully encloses a letter

                               x)  ligature - two or more letters combined to form a single letter

The anatomy of a type, also has elements. These elements are as follows;                                                  

i) mean line / x-height - midpoint between cap       

                                 line and base line

      ii) cap line - invisible line on top of capital letters        

iii) acsent line - invisible line above cap line              

iv) descent - invisible line at the lowest point           

of descending extenders

v) base line - the line the letter sits on                           

Lastly every type has characters, some of these characters have been explained above;

i) ascender

ii) bar

iii) baseline

iv) bowl - curve strokes around a counter

v) bracket

vi) contrast - amount of variation between thin and thick lines

vii) counter 

viii) descender

x) loop - bottom part of lower case roman "g"

xi) san- serf

xii) serif

xiii) shoulders - part of curved stroke from the stem

xiv) stem

xv) stress - direction in which a curved stroke changes weight

xvi) terminal - end of stroke which does not translate into serif

xvii) x-height

The anatomy of typography helps us know how to combine the various parts characters of a type so they can be readable, that easy to be depicted by the eye to bring understanding and legible , that is being bold but not crowded in order to be seen. A collection of  types with same features is known as a type .

Typography has existed since as far back as the second millennium BC. Prior to this we shall look at two typographers, who developed some of the fonts we use in our modern setting today.

Robin Nicholas                                                                                                                                                                           

He was born in 1947, in Westerham, Kent, England. His entire adulthood, has been about working with font. After service as an assistant, he went further to work with Monotype, Type Drawing Office, but that was when he was still a teenager. He later left the company after initial training. He invented the type faces for the company's phototype setting.

He improved on his skills two years after leaving the company, by learning how cut fonts from metal for designing. He also became the manager of  Type Drawing Office, and also the head of typography at Monotype Imaging, in the United Kingdom.

He developed fonts such as nimrod, arial, felbridge and ysobel type face. His sole aim was to address communication problems with no set backs.

Nicholas, still till date finds solutions to typographical problems with expertise he has acquired  for more than forty years. Below are a few examples of his fonts, some of them may be familiar to you.

                                                                               

EXERCISE

This exercise is going to show you how you can creatively come out with your own typography.

In this exercise I chose to use a single word which describes me as my subject , that word is  GENTLE . I also used the alphabets to show how my type font would look on other letters.

The tools needed for this exercise include two or more colored papers, a pencil, an eraser, a paper cutter, glue, a paint brush, some paint, mount boards, color pencils and graffiti spray.

As a designer you just do not have jump to your final work without having a design process. This shows how you started and what your final work must look like. So for my design process, I cut out my graffiti like fonts on double colored paper with a paper cutter without marking . After I stuck the papers together using glue, this is to give the front paper a shadow like effect. After that I dipped my paint brush in some water color paint and sprinkled the paint unto the work to give it a colorful effect.

After viewing what my final work would look like, I decided to make it bigger. I now cut out my graffiti like fonts on A2 size color papers. First i did my alphabets then after i did my GENTLE description. In my final work after cutting out my GENTLE word I  added a drawing of a leaf and gave my word a water like effect. This was to bring out the meaning of my chosen word.  I used color pencils to do this. After I  mounted my final work on the mount board and sprayed sprayed them with the graffiti spray. Now the only difference between the design process and the final work is that for the final work i used some marking tools like the pencil and rule for accuracy, also I had to think outside the box by adding other creative ideas to my work like the leaf and water effect in order to make it more attractive and to send out my message. Also the arrow ends of my typo are to indicate that even though I am gentle I can be very fierce. 

              

Reflection

  From this task I been able to know more about the typography and fonts I see everyday, where they are from and their creators. I also had the chance to create my own fonts. This exercise is one which is suitable in advertising agencies and as a designer it is my duty to know my fonts.