Week 1: Lupton "Letter" Starter Post

Get ready. You’re going to start looking at the world in a different way. Instead of merely reading a sign, or magazine spread, you’re going to start dissecting what’s working for a design and wondering what typeface is being used. It may drive you nuts, but you will still view the world in a different way.

Type is everywhere. You can’t escape it – on your cereal box in the morning, receipts from meals out, building signs, newspapers (who reads them?), magazines, signs that may or may not help guide you through the labyrinthine halls of Newhouse.

You’re surrounded. Sorry, guys, if I’m just now breaking this to you, but this message is also type. (Anyone remember the old elementary school gag about telling someone they’re epidermis is showing? Well, it’s kind of like that).

While you probably all knew that type is everywhere, now it’s time to start thinking about the back end of these everyday assaults from type. Designers carefully (for the most part) choose these typefaces after a great deal of consideration about for what appropriately conveys the message desired by a client.

For this assignment you will be responding to the chapter entitled "Letter" from Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type.

She discusses how typography derived from handwriting and evolved over the years. Through the evolution of type during the Renaissance, Baroque, and the Enlightenment periods up to present day, the preservation of type heritage became very important in the classification and identification of typefaces.

In graphic design, it is through these classifications (humanist, transitional, modern, etc.) that you will be able to express certain moods and emotions by selecting an appropriate typeface(s) to accomplish the message you are trying to send to your audience (and don’t forget to document these reasons in your written rationale!).

This is crucial legwork, in addition to sketching, for your wordmark/resume project currently underway.

From page 30 of Thinking with Type:

"There is no playbook that assigns a fixed meaning or function to every typeface; each designer must confront the library of possibilities in light of a project's unique circumstances."

For this assignment, analyze and evaluate the uses of type in your life – whether signs you see walking around or type choices in print and online media you consume. Find, post, and discuss these examples of type in design used appropriately, or even inappropriately, and the message the designer is trying to send to his/her audience. What about the choice helps the message and works? Keep in mind the discussions we've had in class.

For example, it drives me NUTS to see the sign at the Bleu Monkey Bistro on Marshall Street. It’s totally an example, in my opinion, of type used poorly. Not only is the novelty typeface Papyrus used, but it has absolutely no communicative value. Based on the name and typeface, you’d NEVER know this was a sushi place. And the name Bleu Monkey makes no sense! To this day, I’ve never gone in there (yes, like Prof. Taylor I’m a type nerd), and I don’t plan on it, either. I urge you to seek sushi at other places (like Sakana-ya in Armory Square or Metro on Westcott).

So, that’s the starter post. As always, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions or have trouble getting screen shots or want other great restaurant suggestions. Also, please don't hesitate to come by office hours just to chat. Otherwise I'll just sit in there, awkwardly, and look like I have no friends.

Happy blogging!

pb