//01 Typography

[Pet]

I am going to be posting a Graphic discussion 2 times a month to discuss different aspects of art, from styles, mediums, and various things that you should look for. I hope to get people involved in these, giving their own thoughts and opinions, and possible try something new. On a side note, any flaming, bashing or negativity towards members is going to be dealt with fast, this is a discussion about art, not someones opinions just because you think they are wrong.

To begin, I would like to start with Typography. Why? Well, typography is a good starting block, anyone on here that makes a signature, and puts their name, and a quote, or word uses it. You see it in your daily life on buildings, magazines, newspapers, tools, it is unavoidable. Lets start with the definition, and some examples of both good, and bad typography.

ty·pog·ra·phy   [tahy-pog-ruh-fee]
–noun
1. the art or process of printing* with type.
2. the work of setting and arranging types and of printing* from them.
3. the general character or appearance of printed* matter.
*It mentions printed matter, but it also relates to digital.

Inspire by ~Famous

This is an example of good typography. The message is easy to read, and he used the speech bubble background instead of using quotations. He kept it left align, so we have a nice clean edge, but the back is a little jumbled, that isn't a problem, some people would clean it up though letter spacing (newspapers especially to keep nice clean columns). He used Helvetica font, a very common type face (font), but for good reason. Instead of searching for a unique (which often leads to legibility issues) he use a bold, common font that is modern, to suit his desire. The statement is modern, and his type face is too. The only things I would have suggested to the artist is to increase the letter spacings, and line spacings, but it looks good

Milk by ~Erouc

This one is very well done, he made the word into the word. This is the kind of typography that could easily be used in magazines (which he has), or even use as an ad for milk. Again, he used a very bold, legible font, but witht he splash effects, it started to contort to letters themselves, but would he have gotten the same effect with a serif font (fonts with the feet aka times new roman)? No, and does the distortion of the words make it harder to read? A little but the effect he added makes up for it.

misery by Twigglet

Now, I don't want to be mean, but I needed an example of bad typography to show things that you shouldn't do. In this piece I asked a few people on the shout box if they understood what it meant, and after a little bit, Apathy suggested "misery is win." I am still unsure exactly what it says, but I will go with the guess. Now, why is this one bad and the others good? For starters, it is hard to read, it is missing a "Y" if it is in fact supposed to read "misery is win," and the colouring of the letters needs a lot of work. First thing I would have done, is type out what they want it to say, and pick a font for it to stand out, after that, well, you could do an align on it, with each word on a different line, play with the line space, and letter space, even apply a gradient over the whole thing. The number 1 thing is to keep it legible, whats the point of type, of no one can understand what you mean with it?

Now for the discussion. Why not try to analyze the above examples, or any of the many examples you see day to day. Is it legible? Is the words, and the type itself cohesive? If it is an ad, does it stand out, and look attractive? What are some ideas to make them better, or for your own. If you want, bounce some ideas off of each other on a type design to make yourself, or maybe you want to ask a question to understand something a little better. Feel free to ask anything here (related to this topic)

[Bedrock]

I had to check out your deviant page after reading this.

Very intriguing

/edit
I want to buy this piece from you.
http://rinspet.deviantart.com/art/Ju...xing-103712074

[Takken]

Why did you choose my typo? D: Jk.

I was going to lower the opacity on the first bar before the "Y" but I said wtf. I knew I should have used a different font but I hesistated.
I'll improve the typo though.

[Applejuice]

On the Misery thing,
I agree, you cn barely read it. Maybe a different effects would've been better.

And great idea!

Here is my typography, would love some cnc

[Shannon Apple]

The Milk one is a very good example. Nice, clean and really professional looking. It is something I would expect to see on an ad.



Just wanna add something to this. See the leading and kerning could be much better here.

This is an very nice concept but very bad typography.... the letter spacing is very bad, cramped, no alignment, nothing. It takes a lot of time and patience to get it right and this was done in a hurry. I could recreate it just as an example when I get some time if anyone wants me to.

When creating a typographic piece you must think about the spaces between lettering and how the letters above and below relate to each other.

This (below) is a very quick example I made for a friend a very long time ago. I could spend more time on it and make it much more precise ensuring that ALL letters are aligned, but it is not meant to be a masterpiece, just to give you guys an idea of what I mean about spacing and alignment.

See how none of the lettering lines up in this one. The type looks nice, but the fact that it looks randomly placed beneath, slightly takes away from the overall design. (was part of a larger piece)

Now I wasn't sure of the typeface that you used here, so I went and took two typefaces, one serif (Bodoni) and one sans-serif (Helvetica). I used the same wording as in your one above. Now I just did this very quickly, so I didn't add any backgrounds or anything. So pretty ugly and technical.

In both examples, I made sure that the first letter from the bottom line of text was lined up with a letter in the top line.(see the "n" in lonely and the "D" in Darkest) also the "N" lines up with the "h". I achieved this by adjusting the space between the lettering. You may also make the bottom line one pt smaller if necessary. (Never make the top line slightly smaller, it is more noticeable) Now it's not necessary to do this with all type, but it does add a little more to a design when the type is thought out and altered also, especially when so much work is put into the fantastical designs. I could spend a few more minutes on it and make it even better, it is a little bit off, but I just wanted to give you the basic idea.

Hope this helps.

[Vicious Zen]

Inspire by ~Famous

This is an example of good typography. The message is easy to read, and he used the speech bubble background instead of using quotations. He kept it left align, so we have a nice clean edge, but the back is a little jumbled, that isn't a problem, some people would clean it up though letter spacing (newspapers especially to keep nice clean columns). He used Helvetica font, a very common type face (font), but for good reason. Instead of searching for a unique (which often leads to legibility issues) he use a bold, common font that is modern, to suit his desire. The statement is modern, and his type face is too. The only things I would have suggested to the artist is to increase the letter spacings, and line spacings, but it looks good

I'm pretty sure that's actually arial black.
http://www.kcatodesign.com/images/helvetica-poster.jpg
http://www.identifont.com/samples/mo...ArialBlack.gif
Look at the lower case t, that's the first thing I noticed.

I'm gonna actually write some stuff on the subject of type when I get back from work.

[Vicious Zen]

So, contribution.
How about the subject of typography as it relates to sig making?

The always important question is, do you need to add text or not?

As far as my opinion goes, well, I find it all depends on the individual tag itself. A lot of the time, type isn't necessarily needed, on the other hand, it can greatly benefit a piece, of used properly. It's all an individual thing, really. Generally, I only ever add type if it really adds something to my tag. It needs a purpose, as much as everything else.

Best way to work on your type is to ask yourself a couple questions like

What is the purpose of the type?
Is it just to put your name on there, does it add to your theme/concept, is it to actually communicate a message?

What is the best way to go about expressing that purpose?
If it's just to put your name, maybe it's not so important to make it legible, or even have it stick out. Keep it subtle, in that case, and let your focus be on whatever you had originally intended, and NOT your name. Unless of course you're going to really implement it into your design.

If it's to add to your concept, (such as the one I entered into the signature showdown, I have the "Round1 FIGHT!" text there. Chose it as such because obvzly, it's the first round of the tournament, and I used a fighting game character so the actual message fits the theme, and I chose an arcade style font, for the same reason.) then maybe make it stick out a little more, as long as you can implement it into your image.

I find too many people tend to over think type. It's like any other element in your sig, or any piece. It's as useful as you make it out to be. And it's not necessarily always needed.

That's just my two cents.