This week I feel like I’ve rediscovered a love for typography, the obsession of critiquing every bit of type I come across has started again. But I feel like I have a long way to go, typography is one of those topics I love learning about and admiring, but it isn’t one of my strongest skills. Therefore still needs a lot of work and time put into it over my practice.
In terms of research this week I struggled a bit on pin pointing areas, I teach my own students the anatomy and basics in that respect, so didn’t want to look into that, but the criteria stated to research ‘broadly’, so I did snippets of different elements within type that I found interesting. Again though, in a week time frame, it proves difficult with such a a vast topic. The scientific side of ‘reading’, as most put it is what really interested me this week though, and if the chance arises, I’d like to look into it in more depth. Hand lettering and letter press / older techniques really appeal to me also, the whole craft element and process is interesting, but the results always look great in my opinion.
I was hoping to try an old letter press machine, where I work used to have, but they have gotten rid of it in recent months which is a shame, as this is something I would like to try. However, I did find some of the old letter press letters, so used these for experimentation. I particularly wanted to include some of these as an end result, but the message wasn’t conveyed as well in this style sadly. This week was a spilt between the typography looking visually appealing and the typography making sense / the readability – which sometimes was a difficult decision to make.
The actual end result I am pleased with, but I am aware it could be improved a lot. Although most elements were justified well, some could have been considered a lot more or justified completely different. I also wish I had access to my printers at work this week to try enhance the relationship of the type on the page, as currently I haven’t considered this or the scale of the piece. Creating a main focus on the element of the lovers are physically distant, but not in mind, body and soul – ‘distance and no space was seen’. Quite juxtaposition in terms of the words were focused around apart, distance, space, but then also suggesting closeness, together, love. Using a range of techniques, including hand written, fades, tight kerning, and wide kerning, hopefully it is a portrayal of the personalisation of this poem and the emotions the lovers are feeling within it of distance, but closeness at the same time.
line – 18pt size, 18 stanzas overall in poem
Remote – faded to portray the distance, little connection
Asunder – hand written to personalise, link to the love letters that were popular at the time, large tracking due to the meaning of the word ‘apart’, juxtaposition of physically apart via tracking, but personally feel close with hand writing type.
Faded, tightly kerned type – behind solid body copy type, to show although they may come across as distance, in the hidden they are close ‘no distance is seen’.
Leading of body copy – 16.01pt, for the year the poem was published
Mine – italic to emphasise, that no matter what, the lovers are each others, to express the strong feelings they feel for each other.
Moving forward this week I feel the main thing I need to do is practice. Practice with portraying messages through type via strong communication. Consider the page or medium too, how can this change the message. Although I feel like I understand kerning, leading and so on, again practice makes perfect. Perhaps this is something to considering bringing into future projects more. Oh, and add making my own typeface from scratch to the list of to do things, eventually…
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