Finished Typography Project

So, I’ve officially finished my very first typography design. This is it (top)! I rather like the design, although it is only in black and white versus my originally intended spectrum of colors.

I am a bit sad that I was unable to incorporate more hues, but I made that sacrifice for the added boldness of my design. The white-on-black portion of my design honestly looked a bit silly and out of place whenever I tried to add a light green background behind the whole thing, so I figured doing this was for the best. At least I used the black from my designated spectrum :p Also, you may notice the giant triangle in the typography. This isn’t just any ol’ random triangle–it’s featured as a tribute of sorts to the band Δ (alt-J) who provided the very lyrics for this project. They commonly use a similar graphic for their logo (top), but I changed it a little (bottom) so as to have a bit of originality and not plagiarize. c;

See? Very similar, except it works better with my design, and I shan’t be sued c:

Typography Project

Before beginning my typography design, it’s important to first choose a phrase to actually design, as well as a color scheme. The verses I chose were some lyrics from one of my favorite songs–“Breezeblocks,” written by Δ (alt–J), depicted below.

Despite this song sounding so lovely and calming, it’s really about killing someone in a shower with a cinder block. There is actually a scene in the music video where the victim is hit with the cinder block and she falls backwards into a tub full of water. Because of this, I used a picture I found of a girl who appears to be drowning in order to create a color scheme on Adobe Kuler. I liked the picture, because it was not only similar to the scene in the video, but because it features several green and dark yet pretty hues that express the contrast in the song as well as colors that make one think of death or sickness. Here you can see both the original photo as well as the aforementioned colors.

I’ll be posting the finished product quite soon; you shan’t have too long to wait 🙂

Typography Terms

1. Typography  – the art of arranging or designing type or processing data and printing from it

2. Cap Height – the height of a capital letter above the baseline for a particular typeface
3. Baseline – the imaginary line upon which a line of text rests
4. X-Height – the distance between the baseline of a line of type and tops of the main body of lower case letters (i.e. excluding ascenders or descenders)
   
5. Ascender – the upward vertical stem on some lowercase letters, such as h and b, that extends above the x-height
   
6. Descender – The portion of some lowercase letters, such as g and y, that extends or descends below the baseline
   
7. Kerning – the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result.
   
8. Leading – the distance between the baselines of successive lines of type
   
9. Serif – semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols
   
10. Sans Serif – one that does not have the small projecting features called “serifs” at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French wordsans, meaning “without”.
    

10 Examples of Typography

Ah, typography. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter,” but it is more than that. It’s graphic design with letters, creating beautiful pieces that evoke feelings and emotions that correspond with each word specifically juxtaposed within the artistic masterpiece of an entire phrase or quote. Now, I myself shall attempt to acquaint myself with such a skill. I seek to use lyrics from one of my favorite songs, and arrange them in a charming image. We shall see what comes of it, but until then, you can see my ten examples of typography that I’ve found for my own inspiration. Farewell for now~