Project One - Bitmap Type Design

For the first project in beginning typography I was suppose to create my own typeface using a grid. The letters that we were suppose to create were D,G,S,W, and X also the numbers 1,4,5,6, and 7 these are suppose to be the most challenging numbers and letters when creating a typeface. In the beginning of my process all of my typefaces looked just as any other typeface that I have seen before. Either that or they all just looked exactly how I would think a type face would look when it was made on a 12x12 grid system. It wasn't until I made the typeface that I called morris that I felt good about one of them. I knew once I felt good about it I had to give it a shot in making some refinements to make it the final one. At first I made it so there were dots going vertically and dashes going horizontally. This showed me that the type had potential but it wasn't quite right. Once I reversed it to make the dashes vertically and the dots horizontally it all came together.

Yes, the bitmap typeface that I created is simple, but it is a design that I created and a design that I like. It is thin and in some parts broken, but it withholds its form for a clear sense of what the characters are saying.

As I was creating this type my main focus was making all the dimensions and X heights the same. While still making each letter look how the letter is suppose to look. And by making it a little different than others, yet simple all at the same time. With the Morris typeface I believe I achieved everything I set out to do while making this bitmap type design.

The reason I named this type morris is simple. I named it after Morse code, because that's what it looks like. It is created with dots and dashes. The reason that I ended up with the name Morris instead of Morse is because although it looks like it should be Morse code after what it was designed after I wanted the type to have its own name. A name of a man, a human name because for some reason when giving something the name of a person I think is really funny. And the name also still suggests its inspiration enough for people to understand it.

This was the first project in this class, it was also the first assignment that we created something from scratch. For this being my first typeface I ever created, well created some of the letters. I think it turned out pretty well. I am very happy with where my type ended up when completing the project. At my first couple attempts I was almost convinced that I was not going to be able to come up with a design that I liked. I'm glad I kept going with different ideas and did not just settle for one of the first typefaces I created.

Exercise Four - Typographic Space / Grid

For this fourth and final exercise of the class I thought it was extremely straight forward and shouldn't be difficult at all. To bad I was wrong. I am pretty sure I did the entire thing backwards. What I was suppose to do for this project was to create grey boxes that emulated the same shade of grey that the body of text has created. What I did was make dark grey boxes on things that I thought stood out more and lighter grey boxes as things got less and less important.

This exercise taught me how important it is to read design directions closely and do what is actually asked of me. Although, I was lucky this time and what I did was at least somewhat close to what I was actually suppose to do and it wasn't that big of a problem. In the future, it will be. When dealing with bigger projects and actual work I will need to not mess up for multiple reasons. The first is the bigger the project the more time it is going to take to create and if I mess up and put a couple hours into it I am going to have to put in another couple hours in order to fix it. The second reason is maybe I won't get any time to fix it, what if I don't catch that I messed up in time. In that case I am either getting a bad great or even worse out of some work all because I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Even though I did the project a little backwards this was a great exercise in teaching me how important a grid actually is. How prominent it is in any publication I will need to create. When setting up a grid like this, by just using grey boxes in order to show where certain text will go a person can get an idea of what they are going to do to further there work. Also they are able to effectively show a client what they are thinking for a layout without all the components in it yet, and that client can get a pretty good idea of what it is going to look like.

This exercise also furthered my understanding with photoshop. Up until this exercise all I had done in photoshop was make an image black and white and make a white box. In this assignment I learned how to use guides to line up my grid system. I learned how to make layers so I can work on multiple plans so I can effectively spread out the work. Lastly I learned how to make different gradients of color in order to separate each box from one another.

Going into this exercise I didn't think I would get anything out of it, and thought it would be cut and dry. Yes, it was straight forward (at least I thought so at first) it also taught me a lot more than I thought that it would.