Friday, October 28, 2011

Typography

Typography. It's one of those buzz words you keep hearing around the web, mostly thanks to Pinterest, design blogs, and other such social media outlets. Being the font lover that I am, I immediately jumped on that bandwagon. Here's what wikipedia has to say about it:

Typography (from the Greek words τύπος(typos) = form and γραφή(graphy) = writing) is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). Type design is a closely related craft, which some consider distinct and others a part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers.[2][3] In modern times, typography has been put into motion - in film, television and online broadcasts - to add emotion to mass communication. [4]
Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists, graffiti artists, clerical workers, and anyone else who arranges type for a product. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users, and it has been said that "typography is now something everybody does."[5]


For a doodler like me, the fact that fonts and doodling is trendy right is pretty much a dream come true. I mean, designing my own font in computer class in high school was my favorite day all year. When I discovered dafont.com , 1001fonts.com , urban fonts, font squirrel, and lost type ,where you could download fonts for free, I was sold. Now with photoshop, and other such programs, you can create pretty much custom anything. Sidenote: If you were wondering if I've spent too much time searching different fonts on font websites, pinterest, and even google, then your answer would have to be yes.

Here are some recent little things I've been working on with fonts:


I designed this mousepad with photoshop and then converted it into a JPEG, sent it off to Shutterfly and one week later voila, mousepad!




I found all these awesome pictures via Pinterest :



I just love that hand drawn look. It's all about attention to detail and when it's done right it can add a much more personal aspect to something instead of a shiny, uniform and glossy computer image or font.

They inspired me to take up my dooding habit again, well so to speak because let's face it I never REALLY gave it up, and see what I could come up with. I started finding pictures I liked and tracing them, to see and how they drew each letter and how I could recreate it or come up with my own. I probably could have skipped that step but I love tracing. Is that weird? Most likely, but I'm still admitting it right now for the world to read. That's right people, I love to trace. I love nothing better than when I can pull out my light tray and trace paper and go at it with a little piece of graphite in my hand. The way your hand and neck get a cramp at the same time because your focusing so hard  and you are unaware that you are now completely hunched over in a really uncomfortable position. Yeah, I I love that. I mean obviously not the neck hurting part but when your so focused on something and then finally step back and look at the finished product is such a great feeling. It reminds me why I love art and renews my respect for artistis, designers and architects once again. I know I'm rambling but you have to admit it's inspiring to think that people created wonderful sketches, and drawings and blue prints to scale without any digital help.

Enough of my soapbox, here's some of my attempts at attempting the fonts that I've fallen in love with.

I worked on some envelopes and gift tags and then one notecard. I know I know the quote IS from the golden girls and I did use 80's pastel watercolor but I was just experimenting. I ended up using a deeper purple to darken the letters so they were more visible too. I got the inspiration for that last notecard from a picture I saw of a notecard where they used white pencil first and then painted watercolor on top of it. That way the pencil repels the paint and the white letters show through. I'm going to try that next, I just had a hard time actually finding my white colored pencil, so pink had to work!

If your now reading this paragraph I thank you for reading all my silly font nerd ramblings. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. OK, not the bottom, but close to it. I have been working on some other projects I hope to be posting pictures of soon!

Happy Friday! It's finally feeling like fall in Texas today!

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