Self Evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN	LEVEL	04
Module Code	OUGD404
Module Title	Design Principles

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME

 Joe Valentine

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I have developed the ability of looking at a grid system, taking it, and being able to figure out what type of grid it is, it allows me to effectively apply my own grid systems to my layout, and create a design that has informed decisions rather than throwing something onto a page. I have also looked into the beginnings of typography, I am able to understand the classifications of a type, how fonts are created, the rules behind typography, thus improving my designs as I can work grid layouts with effective typography.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? I have developed the use of thumbnails, before this module I never understood the various aspects of thumbnailing and how much they will help your work. They informed my design development by creating lots of designs then having a range of different designs to pick from and develop, I then used further thumbnails to develop these designs further.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? The strengths of my work are the ability to look into grid systems and produce a grid from this. I also have the strength of using thumbnails and thorough testing before creating my layout, making the actual design process for the decisions a lot more easier due to the initial research and sketches produced.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future? Weakness within my work would be the research side of the design, I should look further into other publication, other graphic designers and get different research from them, and this would make my design more informed by graphic designers, and would allow a much more professional design.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? 1- Produce cleaner and more initial designs- Cleaner work provides a more accurate and well designed piece 2-Experiment with colour more- Looking further into colour makes your design, a design with a good colour scheme will instantly stand out and look better from the rest. 3-Look further into research - Looking further into previous graphic designers and what type of grids are trending at the moment, will make my designs more informed. 4-Take more time producing designs- If I take my time I will think further into my designs and actually spend more time finishing them properly rather than rushing them. 5-Have more regular crits- Having more feedback would be able to give me opinions and improvements that could be suggested to my design.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Finished Layouts

I had completed my layouts in Indesign and had in total 11 pages, 1 double page spread being the contents and an introduction to the book. then the other 10 double page spreads being the required information that was researched. 

My Design incorporates a 3 column grid to portray my research. I chose this as the size I was doing my design (A5) the columns were able to fill these with the various research I and my fellow group has collected. 

I used Helvetica neue for my typeface and used bold for titles and important aspects of my research and regular for the body copy and less important information. I used a a 9pt text for the body copy.

The top part of the page is taken up by a banner, this is a brief description to the page and gives the reader an option whether to read further on, it is a brief summary of the page. 

The contents clearly shows each page title and the numbers they will be found on, then matching the layout of the contents on the other side, is a brief introduction to the booklet. 

Tis 

This page is an analysis of the argument whether serif is better than sans serif, the page includes a few quotes and an explanation. The say the serif and sans serif is on a different page shows the divide between the two. Serif is in a serif font, and Sans serif is in  a sans serif font to show the difference, there is also a diagram explaining the difference.

This page was layed out very simply to make sure the information is taken in as easy as possible, it is broken up into the 3 columns and allow the user to see the image, and then there eyes are lead onto the text, reading the information and then moving onto the next item.  

The hierarchy page is all about type hierarchy and how it works having a section of text on the right that talks about it, on the left, is a representation of how a hierarchy can affect the way you read something, so they would realise how the hierarchy worked when reading the information.  

This layout is a type classification, and allows the user to see the different genres that type gets classified, the type above the explanation is in the font that the classification is. It also says this is typography in the different classifications to give the design something people can read and interact with, meaning they will pick up the information better. 

The type anatomy page is a quick introduction to the different anatomys of type, it has a few of the different meanings and a quick introduction to the different anatomys, there are more but i picked the ones I found were most important. 

The pantone page is a basic explanation into what pantone colour system is, it a block of text that breaks the grid boundaries but keeps the size of the grid around the outside of the text box. The images copies the layout of the textbox. 

The layout for the three colour wheel is very simple to keep simple to take the information in, it has a 2 square images on the left, then an explanation then a text box that meets half way with the images. There is a larger image on the right that takes up a big section of the page, then a text box which describes the wheel above it. 

The next page is quite full with information, this is because of the subject. The pages has 2 larger images that are positioned in the right order of the information 

I included a similar layout with the colour harmony page, to make it quite easy to read the amount of information there is on the page. 

The effective grid system page is also text based, it is a big subject so I used the last 3 double spread pages to include a lot more information and fill the pages more than the other double page spreads. 

These were my final double page spreads, there is a contents and introduction, and the 10 double page spreads. I am pleased with these designs as I believe they effectively portray my information.

InDesign Evaluation

After putting the designs into Indesign I found how easy it was after completing thorough investigation into the thumbnail design, I understood that I needed good hand drawn designs to make it easier when going into InDesign.

One problem I did come across, was having enough information to fill a text box that was drawn on the thumbnail. If I had a block of text drawn on my layouts, but had too much information that it filled the text box, I would have to reduce some to make it fit to required location.
I had problems with that when trying to fill complete one of my thumbnails, so I ended up going back to the first thumbnail, altering it so I had the correct layout for the amount of research I had, then took that design into InDesign.

Evaluation of thumbnails

After completing the thumbnails I have realised how successful they have been, they have helped me produce good initial designs and develop my designs further. It allowed me to get all my ideas down on paper first, then go through and develop these, using the little sized thumbnails I have produced

The advantages of the little thumbnails are that they are quick, easy to produce and gives a wide range of designs. 

I then moved onto the larger thumbnails for a more precise and accurate design. It is a scaled up version of my little thumbnails. They provide a more accurate and measured out design, making it a lot easier to put into indesign and make my final designs a lot more accurate to the initial thumbnail. 

I completed thumbnails for each layout allowing me to instantly transfer these drawn up designs into InDesign. Making the whole process quicker and faster. 

Scaled up thumbnails

After producing these small thumbnails, fred instructed us to scale the thumbnails up towards a full sized thumbnail on tracing paper. This makes the design the size it will be when produced, and allows fine changes to the design. I produced these larger scale designs for each double page spread to see if the designs would work.

I have all the research ready and put together so I know how much information will be placed on a double page spread, Having the research at hand I can figure out how much would be used and how big the textbox's would need to be.  I found out that some of the designs needed to be changed as I had too much information, So I went back to the beginning and created a new smaller thumbnail that would fit all the information on.

Small thumbnail designs

For my thumbnails I have been designing at the size of:

Using this little scale allows a large production of designs in a quick and simple way, you can do 30 quick sketch designs then see if any are good enough to develop or could be used for the information. 

Below are some images of all my sketches. I have never been instructed to do this and now I have been given this skill, I will use it more as I found it very useful and the outcome benefits me.

CRIT ON DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD LAYOUTS

After being given feedback on my initial drawn layouts, I was able to take my designs further using the feedback given to me. 

Some of the comments I received that was useful to me:

Well displayed information structure 

Try including more text 

Maybe consider some of the more unusual ones

annotating the thumbnails why ones work and others don't. 

Using this information will push my thumbnails further and get the best possible designs before actually picking my designs to put on screen. 

Double Page Spread Research

Anatomy of type?
http://j-valentine1316-dc.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-do-we-determine-sizing-and-spacing.html

History of type?

http://h-obrien1316-dp.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/where-did-modernist-typography.html

Classification of type?
http://j-valentine1316-dc.blogspot.com/2014/02/where-did-type-classifications.html

Sans serif or serif benefits?

Hierarchy of informations?

Where did type classifications originate from?

Various systems that seek to instill a meaningful order to the plethora of typefaces that exist. Classification systems allow a designer to make more informed typographical decisions and to obtain a better understanding of type. There is no straightforward, standard type classification system, as several exist.

Type Classification

These classifications are general, and are the more common. The difficulty is not with classifying traditional styles, but the onslaught of new and hybrid forms with the advent of digital type design. Is a font based on a four-year-old’s printing a script? What about a font using geckos to form letters? The vast majority of recent additions can be lumped under a rather generic ‘display’ heading. Most are not suitable for text, most do not even have a full set of characters. Most are one trick ponies. 

Blackletter

Blackletter is the earliest printed type, and is base on hand-copied texts. It is traditionally associated with medieval German and English (Old English), but has recently seen more use. Blackletter was revived as a ‘pure German’ form in Nazi Germany, and is extensively used by (particularly) Latino gangs as implying officialness or deep seriousness. Blackletter dates from around 1450.

Oldstyle

Oldstyle has uppercase letterforms based on Roman inscriptions, and lowercase based on Italian humanist book copying. It is typified by a gradual thick-to-thin stroke, gracefully bracketed serifs, and slanted stress, as indicted by the red line through the uppercase ‘O’, and as measured through the thinnest parts of a letterform. It remains one of the most readable classes for text, due to the moderate stroke variations and good distinction between letterforms. Oldstyle dates from around 1475.

Italic

Usually considered a component of the roman family of a font, italic really deserves its own class. Based on Renaissance Italian Humanist handwriting, italics are casual as opposed to the more formal roman forms of a font. Italics are generally used for emphasis, captions, and the like, and not for body text. It is important to remember to use true italics as opposed to digitally generated versions. Italics for sans-serif (and occasionally other) fonts are often called obliques. Date from around 1500.

Script

As mentioned above, oftentimes anything seemingly based on handwriting is lumped under script. To be more precise, script is a formal replication of calligraphy. Script may also be based on engraved forms. As type, script is unsuitable for text, but is widely used to lend a formal element to a layout. Dates from 1550.

Transitional

As the name implies, transitional bridges the gap between oldstyle and modern. Largely due to technological advances in casting type and printing, transitional embodies greater thick-to-thin strokes, and smaller brackets on serifs. Stress moves to be more vertical. Dates around 1750.

Modern

Furthering the trends started with transitional, modern pushes to extreme thick-to-thin strokes, and unbracketed (square) serifs. Many modern typefaces lose readability if set too tight, or at too small a size, particularly with strong vertical stress. Dates from 1775.

Slab (Square) Serif

Slab or square serif was developed for heavy type in advertising. Also known as Egyptian (it appeared during the Egyptology craze in Europe), slab serif generally has little variation in stroke weight: it's generally uniformly heavy. Also with slab serif, letterforms are becoming more geometric, and less calligraphic. Dates from 1825.

Sans Serif

Although appearing earlier, sans serif gained much popularity in the twentieth century, mainly as a move towards an international aesthetic in typography. San serif can be strictly geometric, as in Futura, or more humanist, as with Gill Sans. More recently, sans serifs with a variation in stroke weight are becoming more common (Optima, Myriad). Dates from 1900 in common use.

Serif/sans serif

A fairly recent development are families of typefaces with both serif and sans serif fonts. These provide the designer with even more unified variation than an extensive family of serif or sans serif. Dates from 1990.

Grunge

Now part of the common lexicon of typography, grunge was a development spring from postmodernism and deconstructionism. Type was developed as primarily image, and less for its readability. Grunge typography was a big enough movement to rate its own category, and encompasses a wide variety of ‘dirty’ typefaces. Around 1995 to present.

Postmodern

Much like saying ‘display’, postmodern is another catch-all category, encompassing a wide variety of styles. Many, indeed, fall into display, as they are unsuitable for text. Another common theme is reproducing hand lettering from earlier eras, in particular the 30's through the 60's. Contemporary.

Handwritten

Seemingly a contradiction in terms, these fonts actually harken back to the original idea: mimicry of handwriting. These can be considered scripts, but their generally informal nature tends to separate them out. Contemporary..

With the advent of digital typography, we have been inundated with typefaces. Face it (pun intended), most are of poor quality or design, and often both. But even discounting the losers, there remains an overwhelming amount of very good contemporary typefaces to be added to traditional standards. It is even more important for a designer to be discerning, and really consider what faces are being used, and how.

How do you determine the difference between a font and a typeface?

Typeface: is the design of the alphabet--the shape of the letters that make up the typestyle. The letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. So when you say “Arial” or “Goudy” you’re talking about a set of letters in a specific style.

Font: is the digital file that contains/describes the typeface. Think of the font as a little piece of software that tells the computer and printer how to display and print the typeface.

A typeface family is a group of typefaces that were designed to be used together. For example, Goudy Old Style has Roman (upright or normal), italic (slanted and cursive), bold and bold italic versions. Each of the style and weight combinations is called a face or typeface, and together they are, hopefully, a happy typeface family (rather than a dysfunctional typeface family which will probably be more familiar to you).

According to Adobe’s type glossary: “A font is one weight, width, and style of a typeface. Before scalable type, there was little distinction between the terms font, face, and family. Font and face still tend to be used interchangeably, although the term face is usually more correct. A typeface is the letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is often part of a type family of coordinated designs. The individual typefaces are named after the family and are also specified with a designation, such as italic, bold or condensed.

John

Jack

Tom

Here, you see a family of three twins: John Smith, Jack Smith, and Tom Smith. Each brother shares the same face, but their weights vary – read: one is slim, the other is rather rotund.

Together, the brothers make up the Smith family.

Typographically, John, Jack, and Tom are each fonts and together they make up the Smith typeface.

How do we determine the spacing between a letter?

Type anatomy

Characters

The basic typographic element is called a character, which is any individual letter, numeral, or punctuation mark. The capital letters are called caps, or uppercase (u.c.) characters. Small letters are called lowercase (l.c.) characters. Numbers are called numerals or figures.

Modern, or lining numerals are cap height.

Oldstyle numerals have ascenders and descenders.

Special characters

Pi characters are special characters used for:

Math signs	Punctuation marks
Accented characters	Reference marks

On Macintosh computers, special characters can be viewed for any font with the Key Caps utility under the apple menu.

Ligatures are character pairs which have been re-designed as optional single characters.

Standard characters set in Adobe Garamond.	Ligature characters set in Adobe Garamond Expert and Adobe Garamond Alternative.

Character components

Typographic characters have basic component parts. The easiest way to differentiate characteristics of type designs is by comparing the structure of these components. The following terms identify some of the components referred to in the next chapter.

Bracket A curved line connecting the serif to the stroke.

Bracketed serifs with cupped bases

Bracketed serifs with flat bases

Unbracketed serifs

ContrastThe amount of variation in between thic and thin strokes.

Minimum contrast

Extreme contrast

StressThe direction in which a curved stroke changes weight.

Oblique, or angled, stress

Semi-oblique stress

Vertical stress

X-heightThe height of the body, minus ascenders and descenders, which is equal to the height of the lowercase ‘x’.

Avant Garde	Melior	Goudy Oldstyle
X-heights vary among typefaces in the same point size and strongly effect readability and gray vaule of text blocks.

• Aperture

  Opening at the end of an open counter.

• Arm

  A horizontal stroke not connected on one or both ends.

• Ascender

  An upward vertical stroke found on lowercase letters that extends above the typeface’s x-height.

• Baseline

  The invisible line where letters sit.

• Bowl

  A curved stroke that encloses a letter’s counter.

• Counter

  Fully or partially enclosed space within a letter.

• Crossbar

  A horizontal stroke.

• Descender

  A downward vertical stroke found on lowercase letters that extends below the baseline.

• Diagonal Stroke

  An angled stroke.

• Ear

  A small stroke projecting from the upper right bowl of some lowercase g’s.

• Finial

  A tapered or curved end.

• Hairline

  The thin strokes of a serif typeface.

• Ligature

  Two or more letters are joined together to form one glyph.

• Link

  A stroke that connects the top and bottom bowls of lowercase double-story g’s.

• Loop

  The enclosed or partially enclosed counter below the baseline of a double-story g.

• Lowercase

  The smaller form of letters in a typeface.

• Serif

  “Feet” or non-structural details at the ends of some strokes.

• Shoulder

  A curved stroke originating from a stem.

• Small Caps

  Uppercase characters that appear as a smaller size than the capital height of a typeface. Short for “small capitals”.

• Spine

  The main curved stroke for a capital and lowercase s.

• Spur

  A small projection from a curved stroke.

• Stem

  Primary vertical stroke.

• Tail

  A descending stroke, often decorative.

• Terminal

  The end of a stroke that lacks a serif.

• Uppercase

  A letter or group of letters of the size and form generally used to begin sentences and proper nouns. Also known as “capital letters”.

• x-height

  The height of the main body of a lowercase letter.Kerning
• Kerning refers to the horizontal space between individual pairs of letters (a kerning pair), and is used to correct spacing problems in specific letter combinations. Well-spaced fonts need comparatively less kerning pairs. Fonts that are properly kerned appear evenly spaced without large open gaps of white space between any two characters.
  

  

• Monospaced

  A font in which every character has the same width, and no kerning pairs. This allows for neatly setting columns of text and tables, for example in programming code, accounting, etc.
  
  

  Leading

• 
  The vertical space between lines of text (baseline to baseline). Also known as linespacing.
•