Advanced Typography:  Class 1

This course is a continuation of Typography with a concentration on hand lettering and typeface creation using pencil, paper, pen, and the computer.  Emphasis is on applying the rules of typography, exploring visual hierarchy, and using graphic software effectively,  Making your own typeface is a great way to show off your design and illustration skills and of course a milestone for any designer!

1.  Course schedule and locations
  • 9/19/17 - MC207
  • 9/26/17 - AD226
  • 9/28/17 - AD233
  • 9/21/17 - AD233
2.  Warm Up Exercise #1:  Get Loosey Goosey!
  • Shapes and lines are the building blocks for letters so they are really good for practicing!
  • Try to keep your shapes the same and evenly spaced
  • If you want additional practice, download the handout here​
3.  Warm Up Exercise #2:  Start Lettering
  • Now that your hand is warmed up, you are ready to start!
  • Take a small word and draw it in as many ways as you can think of
  • Fill the entire page, or multiple pages, and don’t think about it too hard
  • Don’t worry about it being good or pretty!
4.  It's time to make some decisions!
  • Decide which category of font you would like to create
  • For review:
5.  Examples of previous student's font families
5.  Grab some graph paper and get started!
  • If you need additional sheets of graph paper, you can download them here​
6.  Set your boundaries
  • Start by determining your heights each for the ascender, x-height, and descender
  • For review:
7.  Start your letters!
  • Design A-Z of your font.  You may choose to create all capital or all lowercase letters
  • Using your graph paper, pencil, and an eraser, sketch ideas for your alphabet, being mindful of your x-height, baseline, ascender height, and descender height
  • ​If you don't like something, just scratch it out and move on
  • Think about what makes your letters consistent - what ties it all together?
8. The name game!
  • As your alphabet develops before you, start thinking about a name for your font
9.  Homework
  • Determine which method you will use to back up your work - USB hard drive, cloud storage, etc. and be prepared for next class
  • Pick up a black roller ink pen for next class.  One suggestion is a Sakura 38181 Pigma Blister Card Graphic Ink 1 Pen, 1-mm in black (or similar type of ink pen)
  • Bring an eraser to our next class
TEXTBOOK
  • Textbook is not required

SESSIONS
  • 4 sessions
  • Campus map can be found here.