⌂ ◅ Classes + teaching

GDES-210 fall 2023 / David Ramos, American University Design

Typography I

Week 02

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Type history / InDesign

Reading (for this class)

  • Lupton pp. 12–37, type history

Topics

  • Type history and terms
  • Intro to InDesign

Projects

Week 03

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Typographic variables / Space between letters

Reading

  • Lupton 38–53

Topics

  • AU Museum visit
  • Space exercise

Projects

  • Studio
  • In-progress critique

Week 04

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Type in the world (field trip)

Reading

Topics

  • Visit National Postal Museum and surrounding area, 2 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, D.C. 20002. (Metro: Red Line to Union Station.) Meet in front of the museum at noon. Dress for the weather and bring a smartphone or camera.
  • Type/lettering scavenger hunt

Projects

  • Turn in Labels (you may take til next week and stay on schedule)

Week 05

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Pairing typefaces

Reading

  • Lupton 46–55

Topics

  • Type choice and contrast exercise
  • Size/viewing distance/readability/legibility exercise

Projects

  • Start Poster
  • For Poster, finish tasks 1 and 2 in class; start on 3 and 4

Week 06

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Margins and vertical space

Reading

  • Lupton 102–105, 108–129

Projects

  • In-progress critique for Poster. Have completed tasks 3 (research/writing) and 4 (conceptual design), and bring your poster drafts on paper.

Composition and spacing exercise (in class)

  • Work w newspaper scraps, one line at a time. You must use entire lines.
  • Compositions sit on a letter-size pages.
  • We are not concerned with what the words say.
  • These should be as black-and-white as reasonably possible.
  • Upload photos to a Miro board

Prompts

  • Typographic color: Create 5 compositions with leading that describes a gradient from too lose to too tight. All text should be the same size—all body copy. Identify the most visually even “color.”
  • Margins: Create 3 typographic compositions that have clear margins. The compositions should have margins that are too tight; too loose; and in between.
  • Clustering: Create 3 compositions that use space to create structure. Consider how you group and separate elements. Rely on space rather than size, font choice, or font style. Identify the most successful.

Week 07

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Readability and legibility

Reading

  • Lupton 124–143

Topics

  • Size/viewing distance/readability/legibility exercise

Projects

In-class readability and legibility exercise

This exercise lets you test the effects of font choice, type size, and leading on legibility.

As sample text, use a quote from Elizabeth Coleman about design:

The arts of taking things in—seeing, reading, drawing—assume a central role as do those of communicating what has been seen with power and economy. Rhetoric, the art of organizing the world of words to have maximum effect, re-emerges as fundamental; design, the art of organizing the world of things so that structures are compatible with the purposes they are meant to serve, assumes an equal importance.

(This is one of the more incisive statements about what design is and should be. Coleman, then the president of Bennington College), used it in a talk at the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder, Colo., April 4, 2011.)

Part 1

Set up test pages in InDesign, on letter-sized paper (8.5 × 11 in.). Experiment with different ways of setting the text. You can view text on screen at first, working at 100% zoom, but print your later versions and check readability on paper. Exactly how many versions you print will depend on what kind of a mood our printers are in.

Considerations:

  • Experiment with four different typefaces, serif and sans, from the list
  • Try different sizes, from 6 pt through 18 pt.
  • Test different leadings, from 1.0 × font size through 2.0 × font size.

Details: Assume that you are setting text for a book. Turn hyphenation off and set the text left-aligned (flush left/rag right). You’re working with body copy, and you’ll want to use a measure (line length) that places 45–90 characters on each line.

Part 2

(If time allows.) Do this again, but for a viewing distance of six feet—like text mounted on a wall in an exhibit.

Fonts for this exercise

Week 11

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Books and bookbinding

Reading

  • Lupton 58–71

Topics

  • Bookbinding demo

Projects

  • Bring printed copies of your type specimens to class
  • (In class) Bind type specimen books
  • Final critique for Type specimen book
  • Start Book cover

Week 12

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DaBL visit

Before class

  • Please complete the DaBL Safety Module before class.
  • For Book cover, choose two books that you would like to create covers for. These should be books that you have read.
  • Read the books, if you haven’t read them yet. Review the books, if you’ve read them. Think about ideas—remember, you may not use any recognizable images.
  • Look at book covers, preferably in a store, and be prepared to share images of ones you found particularly notable.
  • Design a sample of type that is related to one of your books, 1–3 words long. Bring that file to class as a PDF or SVG.

In class

  • Visit to the Design and Build Lab (East Campus — DMTI 101). Meet at DaBL at 11:20 am.
  • Share your two book options. We will choose one.

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Thanksgiving (no class)

No class Wednesday for Thanksgiving.

Week 14

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Studio

In class

Studio and in-progress critiques.

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Exam period

Class does not meet during exam period.

Turn in any remaining work by Wednesday, December 13 at 5:00 p.m. (D.C. time). Submit work on Canvas.