Typography

The Brief

First Thoughts

I had a look at this assignment in my book a couple of months back so that I could plan ahead and know what I was doing in advance for my assignment! I was torn between Influential book designers and Typography. I knew that I was way out of my depth doing my altered book and this was something I didn’t want to delve back into for a little while at least! I decided that I would want to do typography because that is the area I knew and enjoyed the best but I also knew that I didn’t want it to become another version of “My little book of Good typography” because I had covered a lot of the basics and the rules of typography in that. I knew that naturally my head would try and create another more or less identical version of that book because I liked the finished outcome so much! I needed to find another typography subject that would head in a new direction from the last book of typography I designed.

Something slightly different…

The idea came to me when I went to Norwich to try on my wedding dress after it came back from being made. I took my best friend with me and by the time we got back out onto the streets of Norwich out of the bridal shop it was getting dark and the streets were emptying. I had never really noticed the typography in the streets before, the graffiti struck me and I was just inclined to take cool photos of some of it (to the bewilderment of my friend!) I told her that I bank photos of cool arty stuff to use in future projects as textures or stock photos etc.. When I got home it got me to wondering whether I could make a book about the typography that is found in the streets?.. I had to really research this one, making sure that there were no holes in it. Could urban typography be classed as typography?.. I mean, I class anything that’s written as typography? Anything that communicates a message and conveys an emotion to us through type is typography, right? I just found the lettering I was finding on the streets really beautiful and I wanted to explore it further. I researched Vernacular typography and this is the lost art of sign painting and traditional methods of advertising on the streets before commercial printing came about. I found a lot of articles online by a designer called Molly Woodward who takes photographs of a lot of signs from the lost art of vernacular typography. Her kickstarter project is to try and map, document and preserve some of these fantastic hand lettered signs.

http://vernaculartypography.com/index.php/info/about/

A lot of the articles that I found online relating to vernacular typography study buildings and signs in Brazil and American states. I found a few learning blogs from OCA students on vernacular typography too which also made me a bit anxious.. was I jumping the gun, would there be a project in the future exploring this?…

I didn’t find much of the old style of vernacular typography on my travels sadly, but then I researched further online and found a University lecturer who taught a project on vernacular typography looking at the signs above hotels and B&Bs in Blackpool:

creativereview.co.uk/vernacular-typography-blackpool-hotels-sarah-horn/

Sarah Horn the designer of En Suites looked for standout typography, intricate letterforms, funny names and bold colour palettes. I quite liked the idea of how she was documenting type but also capturing time and age through her photographs; these are photos that people will be able to look back on in years to come and see what the town looked like at this point. That is another thing I found with vernacular typography; it very much shows the culture of the place and the people who live there. I also liked the fact that in the Creative Review article she states that she wanted to do a simple book in a size that reflects a souvenir guide; she is really designing for the culture of Blackpool. Blackpool is very leisure and tourism so a souvenir guide matches its aesthetics perfectly! I like how she has pretty much made a flip book of inspiring photography- it is not a sit down and read from front to back book, it is not particularly informative but its aim is to dip in and out and use as a research book. A book to flit in and out of whenever inspiration calls for it. I wanted to create something similar!..

I also bought 2 books from Amazon which are very similar to that of which I wanted to create. One book is called “Urban scrawl” and concentrates more on showcasing graffiti hand lettered styles and the other book is called “The field guide to typography, typefaces in the urban landscape” which is like a bird spotting book of Graphic Design!- it shows examples of typefaces in the wild and then classifies them into what typefaces and era they are. I liked this idea and thought that I could potentially classify any typefaces that I found in the wild!

I was very anxious though as to whether I was meeting the brief of the assignment. The brief did say “alternatively identify your own project”… this was a different kind of project but typography nonetheless?.. I wanted to think outside of the box and go exploring down different avenues.. I didn’t want to play too safe but also I had crippling anxiety of my assignment being rejected for not meeting the criteria!

I wanted to include graffiti and street art in my book too as although these are not using typefaces, they are still a personal style and they are still hand lettered words with personal handwriting. There were many conflicting articles online that state that graffiti is not typography, I can see both arguments.. it is definitely not a traditional practice of typography but I wanted to concentrate on how insignificant ramblings or graffiti scriptures hand written on a wall can inspire a future digital typeface or fresh new designs.

I felt like I could have sit by myself for hours and days trying to justify to myself how I could or could not class this as typography.. I just had to be brave and go with my instincts…

The photographs

I had already got a small bank of photos from different towns and cities but I knew that for what I wanted for my book Norwich was by far the best place I had seen for urban street typography and art! Norwich is a 2 hour drive from our house and me and Chris left at 3pm on a Monday afternoon. Chris stuck an hour on the car in the carpark and told me to fill my boots! Off we set off down every nook and cranny looking for any sort of inspiration for my book. A lot of people stared wondering at me as I photographed graffiti that spelled out “boobies” among many! I didn’t care if it was relevant or not right now!- I just needed a hefty bank of photos to choose from! We literally photographed everything! Chris turned around to me at one point and said “I didn’t even know we would find this much to be honest… when you said about coming all this way to Norwich I thought it would be a waste of time! Actually though when you look, you can find a lot!” EXACTLY! This was what I wanted the purpose of my book to be! Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to be looking!! A lot of this vernacular typography is hidden, it is there is full view of us daily but we overlook it and take it for granted. Even the graffiti has sentiment, there are messages there to be taken into account.. we just choose not to see it as we associate graffiti with bad and not good. Chris said “graffiti is vandalism though, you are just celebrating vandals ruining things..” I replied that beauty is in the beholder, we did find some lovely examples of sentimental graffiti in nice hand lettering that I could imagine being traced around in design software and being developed into a new typeface!

Chris was asking if I wanted to photograph shop fronts such as M&S that have the really nice ampersand and classic typeface; whilst this is lovely, M&S is too commercialized now. M&S in Norwich is the same as M&S in Brighton which is the same as M&S in London which is the same as M&S in Bristol!…These signs as elegant as they look with their typefaces are rather quite samey.. we have seen it before. I was looking for non-commercial beautiful typefaces. A lovely example of one I found was of an 84 in the ground of the church yard in the middle of town in Norwich:

It is a busy walk way and cut through to town but there was this beautiful 84 trodden into the ground. As I was photographing it a man hurried past me right in the way of my photograph and then looked behind him to question what on earth was I doing?.. What was I doing? What is HE doing… he is oblivious to what was beneath him! Another example of how type is everywhere but you need to choose to see it!

I really enjoyed that afternoon.. as weird as that might sound to some people. I was in no rush,..(well, the carpark I guess..) I wasn’t shopping, I wasn’t eating out, I wasn’t spending any money.. I was just walking round with my Fiancé and my iPhone being aware of my surroundings, being aware of the here and now and letting the creative vibes in.

Here are all the unedited photos that I took that night, including some that were already in the folder on my phone entitled “Urban typography”:

We definitely had fun walking around and looking at the random writings on the wall!

Some of them I was genuinely surprised by! Usually with graffiti it is just mindless ramblings and unintelligent one word scrawls.. Some of these were actual philosophical meanings that were carefully hand lettered and written onto there! I also found a lot of nice looking typefaces on our travels; there were a few with numbers and lovely looking ampersands which were rather very nice! The old pharmacy in Ely had lovely serif typeface inscribed into the building.

Now that I had banked a lot of good photos, it was time to go home and research further into what  content I was going to include in my book which would decide what photos I needed to import into Photoshop to edit to include in my book.

I started off by producing a rough flatplan of my book. I didn’t know yet how many pages I would be having in my book but I could start by planning out the beginning of the book with intro pages, contents etc..  I also needed to plan out how I was going to get vernacular typography, street art and collages into one book and split it accordingly. I had the thought at this beginning stage to colour code each section of the book which is why there are colours following some of the pages.

I also printed out contact sheets of all of the photos I took and highlighted them against their category; Vernacular, graffiti, experimental.

I also mind mapped some research around vernacular typography, street typography and experimental typography:

I figured out that my book would have three chapters: Chapter 1 on vernacular typography which would feature the shop fronts, signs and any interesting typefaces I found on my travels. Chapter 2 would focus around the street art; Graffiti and more humanist typography done by hand lettering and handwriting. Chapter 3 would focus around posters and collages that feature interesting type which would then lead into a little bit of information about David Carson whose recent experimental typography work involves collage.

It was difficult to sketch ideas around my layouts as a lot of what I am using are photographs, instead I sketched out ideas for the style of layout that my book might have.

I whittled my photographs down and organized them into their groups ready to edit and bring into my book later.

Timings for my book

The photographs that I took for my book were taken late October whilst I was on half term from school, I started this assignment on Monday 7th November and it was complete by Wednesday 9th. This is not something I am particularly proud of- but I did work my socks off for 14 hours straight on both days whilst being off sick from work, (I have been ill for 3 weeks now!). I had to really organize myself and know exactly what content was going in the book. I am so fortunate to have pre planned ahead and taken all of the photographs I took for the book! In industry I know there are fast turn arounds but nothing possibly as quick as this for a published book! In an ideal situation I would have liked to allow myself more time to add more content- more creative outcomes from the examples that I found (the end, hidden chapter in the book!). Although the turn around for my book has been quick, there hasn’t been any corner cutting. I have successfully included everything I wanted to from my initial idea and I have checked it numerous times for typos. I have just been really unfortunate this year of studying in that I have had so much personally happening.. house renovations, our wedding in 3 months which has been full on organizing!, hen parties, (one of my own, that I organised.. *eyeroll) full time work, fitness and numerous of silly little health incidences this year that have hindered my study time quite significantly! I do like the fact that I had full creative control over my book, in industry I would have been the artist, author and designer and it would have been my content and vision which would drive the book forwards.

The size of my book

I now needed to figure out the size of my book. From doing previous exercises in this unit I have a Solopress paper sample book that I quite like to keep handy for reference and I really like the size of it. I measured it up and it was 21cm x15cm landscape. This is also very similar to the En Suite book that Sarah Horn designed. It is also a very similar size to the 2 books I bought on Amazon.

I decided to go with this size and created my document in InDesign. In my last assignment I made the silly mistake (I didn’t even know what I had done until my tutor pointed it out!) of designing everything in Photoshop (including text!) and then importing it into InDesign. I have no idea why I did that because I have never done that before! I know that images are edited into Photoshop to be imported into InDesign and any text is always done in InDesign and any vector illustrations in Illustrator! I was not going to make that mistake this time! I started editing my photographs in each folder one at a time increasing the vibrance and lightening up wherever was needed. I wanted really bold, striking, bright and colourful photographs for my book!

Referring back to Solopress printing book I keep as a reference, I had a look to get my book professionally printed from there. Although I had such a short time designing my book and I couldn’t possibly have a physical copy in my hand for my final course deadline, I plan to have some copies printed so that I can present these for assessment when that date rolls around. The cost of the print depends on how big the book is. My book with all the photographs actually turned out to be a proper book! I only envisioned 40 pages maybe for my book as I have had a nosy at a few fellow OCA students blogs and seen that their work consisted of about that mark.. Mine ended up being 102!! I just had so much good photographic content for it that I didn’t want to miss any out! I also really enjoyed putting it all together.

https://www.solopress.com/perfect-bound-brochures/a5/

I inputted some details on Solopress website to see how much my book would cost to have printed:

From looking at their book I flicked through the pages to see what options would be best for my book. I wanted an A5 perfect bound brochure as these were suited for a lot of pages. I like the 170gsm gloss paper for the insides; I needed a glossy paper to show the beauty of the photographs. I also wanted a chunky, glossy front cover so went for the heaviest stock option they had in glossy for the cover. There was paper stock in silk available at 400 gsm but glossy suits the nature of my photo book more.

The costs were not cheap… but then for a full colour, big book like the one I have produced I would imagine that this would be the typical price. It is better to order more copies than less at this point! I would probably try and order 10/15… give some out as promo for my work.

For the time being the best option for my book when I had completed it, was to find an online digital place where I could house it for the time being! I refer back to part 1 of this unit where I state I am not a fan of digital books, I am still not.. but desperate times called for desperate measures and at least this way I had a fully functioning book that could be read in a digital state for the time being!

I found this website, which is actually quite good for importing in your PDFs and it creates a flipbook of your work!

You can see my book below by following the link!

https://online.fliphtml5.com/jfjgk/nurj/#p=1

Designing and making my book

I edited all of the photographs for the book in Photoshop and then created all of the content using InDesign.

My book would be primarily a photo source book to flick through for inspiration so I knew that when It came to laying it out, it needed to have a photograph a page. The front and back covers I designed last because I wanted to finish the whole of the book to see if any inspiration or cool images would be made by the end of the book to include on the cover.

This is page 2 and 3 of the book. I wanted contrasting pages so that they were bright and vivid and stood out. A lot of the photographs in the vernacular typography first chapter were blue in colour or had a blue/grey tint so I decided that Blue was the appropriate colour to start this chapter off!

I wanted a bit of an introductory to the book and a chance to self promo my work. In InDesign I worked to a 6 column grid and positioned my text over 4 of the columns.

For the squiggly graffiti page I cropped a section of the photograph below and then put a filter over the top to give a cool effect!

When I was in Bristol over the summer I took a cool photograph (and a video!) of people “jumping the fire” as the lad told me in the video I took, this is tradition in Bristol.. a right of passage and means that you belong to the city of Bristol. It might be complete Saturday night drunken bollocks but I really liked the photo I took on this random night! It is very urban with the lights and the graffiti and the people in the groups and walking by. It has atmosphere and a vibe if nothing else! I had to use it for the opening page of the book! I edited the photo in Photoshop to increase the vibrancy and added a little bit of a posterise effect.

I opened the book also with a short piece I wrote on the importance of type everywhere. I used Red for this page to mirror the dominant red colour in the Bristol photo.

For the contents I created a page very similar to the opening pages where I took a section of a photograph from my collection and overlaid a filter on the top to create a new feel. I used a contrasting colour to the yellow- red which again ties in to the previous pages and also pops out against the yellow and helps the headings stand out. The typefaces that I am using are Helvetica compressed for the main headings and title – it looks quite “street” and stencil like and then for the body text I have gone for a contrasting and complimentary typeface called Meno Text Semi Bold. This sans-serif is ideal for body copy and really compliments Helvetica.

For the Chapter 1 opening pages I have done similar again, cropped a section of a photo and then laid a filter over the top to create a cool effect and tried to choose contrasting colours. The red is very dominant in my book and the blue is the colour I chose to colour code the first chapter of my book as most of the photos have a cool, blue/grey tinge to them.

The photograph I chose to use first for vernacular typography is below; I really like this one as I’ve explained in the info I have written explaining in my own words what vernacular typography is. For each page of writing I have done I have tried to keep the background white to allow for better readability and I have either aligned the text over 4/6 of the columns or distributed the text over the 2 halves of the page depending on how much text there is as to how much room I needed to take up.

Before I started showing different typefaces from my locations in my photographs, I needed to give some information on how to tell them all apart and how to classify them to readers who might not already know.

I also did the same for serif typefaces and their classifications… This will help the reader identify which typefaces belong to which classification and better help them when they go out into their own urban environment and find some of their own!

Again, I did the same technique with the left hand page by taking a section of a photo and putting a filter over the top and then I chose contrasting colours for the facing page to make the pages pop and really stand out.

These 2 pages were a personal introductory to street art, I documented how important it is to be aware of your surroundings, live in the now and really take in everything around you because you never know what you might find! I used a photograph I took of a street light near a church yard in the middle of Norwich, I just remember thinking how pretty the orange leaves looked against the brightness of the lamp.

The same as every opening chapter I have done up until now, another left hand page created from a cropped section of a photo and then with a filter put over the top. I have used contrasting colours again to make the pages pop.

For the double pages below, I used another photo that I randomly took of the street in Norwich at dusk. It just gives an urban feeling for the opening of Chapter 3.

This is where I introduced David Carson to chapter 3. I felt like it was relevant to include him in this chapter as a lot of his new recent work is very similar to that what I found in urban posters and collages in the street. Carson takes a lot of inspiration off the street for his own designs and collages. He rips interesting letterforms off posters or packaging that he finds and incorporates them into his own work. I wanted to show in this chapter how you can take inspiration from these posters, collages and type on the street and import them into your own work to create new, fresh work.

These are the opening pages to the last section of my book which is where I try to bring some inspiration by showing how you can rip text, images, textures, patterns etc off materials you find in the urban environment and bring them into your own work to create some cool art, designs and type.

I created a few examples, I would have liked more time to spend on this hidden chapter as this is really what inspired me to create this book! I would take photos and then use them as textures or as backgrounds or inspiration for any future work! It would be quite cool in the future (even just for fun!) to create a book full of these new, fresh designs made from existing type and work.

I closed my book off in a similar way to how I opened each chapter. I used the same pattern for the inside back cover as I did for the inside front cover. There was one piece of writing I found on a wall in Norwich where someone had scrawled out a nice sentiment. I don’t know if it is religious, I would guess that is is a song lyric.. nonetheless it had an obvious effect on the person who chose to carefully write it out on a random wall! For someone struggling with a hard time and looking for a sign or something to tell them things will be ok, this is it! I’m not sure if we can class it as typography?… its humanist, its hand writing, we could take the hand writing and create a typeface from it… what a nice little quote though if nothing else and it is a nice way to close the book.

I designed the front and back cover last of all and I’ll be honest I almost totally forgot to!..

I created these using one of the collages I put together for chapter 3 using snippets of type, snippets of mandala/floral inspired paper and clips of posters. The head of the angel was actually on one of the posters I took a photo of, I have no idea what it might have been, it was just a head! I then went onto Google and found a body to try and best match up to this angel! It is eccentric and weird but I kinda liked it! It is like the word of God! I couldn’t help resist balancing a capital A on his/her finger either!

It is not a typical cover for a Graphic Design typography book and after I designed it I was a bit unsure whether it would actually work… I started to design a back up cover which had a photo of the vernacular typography on that building in my hometown (the first photo in my book!) but then I reminded myself that I wanted to do something I hadn’t previously done.. I found myself moving closer to “My little book of Good Typography “again with how I used a photo for the cover of that. Nope, I would carry on with this cover.. if nothing else it intrigues you as to what it is all about! It almost looks very Punk!

Another one of the quotes I found on a wall I included on this cover and in the book “Do not return to the ones who hurt you the most”, who would have thought you would read these little messages on a wall? Coming from someone who was once in a violent relationship I cannot relate more. It is hauntingly beautiful. The handwriting also had potential to be imported in and turned into a typeface..

I mean, it would be a very childlike typeface but I can see it! I really like the curved shapes of the rounded letterform.

In Fact!.. Let’s just create a page for it! Writing this blog made me decide to create 2 extra pages for it because it shows how you can take inspiration and then create new designs and type and potential typefaces with it!

Conclusion

I really enjoyed designing and making this book, it was a shame I couldn’t see it professionally printed before I submitted this assignment but for my formal assessment I shall have a copy to photograph and include in my portfolio. I am pleased I managed to find somewhere to upload it as a digital flipbook though, it gives a sense of what it will look like when it is professionally printed. I am disappointed with how little time I have had for this assignment, although I am pleased with how hard I have worked to achieve the final outcome that I have. At the beginning of my journey with the OCA and even at the beginning of Creative Book Design, I was very much a perfectionist and just couldn’t leave my work alone. I would reach a final outcome and then have to constantly perfect it. This short assignment has taught me to create designs very quickly and to be content with the outcome I reach just so that I stick to deadlines. I am pleased that I used photographs that I personally took in this book, it makes it more personal to me and knowing that I put the hard work in to source the photos. I really like the photos I took as well, there is a broad range of different styles and typefaces to keep the reader enthusiastic throughout the book. My only worry is that I will be graded down for not using traditional typography, especially as I haven’t even studied vernacular typography in this course at all! I just wanted to show how typography can exist outside of the design studio and is available 24/7 for everybody at any level of training regardless of whether you have design knowledge and experience. How inspiration can be found from the unlikeliest places and how very often we overlook graphic design that is around us daily. I gave my mother in law the link to my book and she said she forgot that there was so much design around her daily and that next time she was out and about she would pay attention more often… Chris even sent me photos whilst on his Stag do of unusual typefaces he found on his travels! It’s contagious! everyone soon shall be observing type out and about in the wild!