Journal 1

Writing For Visual Thinkers

I guess I missed the memo about only reading the "writer's toolbox" portion of our first reading for this week's journal entry. So about 100 pages later I am blogging about what I've learned. I actually dont regret wasting the extra hour studying and taking notes on this text because it was all really helpful. My biggest problem that I have when designing is that I get so stuck in my head. My creativity flows around in my brain with no outlet, or I get that "AHA!" moment at the worst times, like merging lanes on the highway during rush hour. I think that the writing method that seemed most appealing to me was freewriting. I like the idea of just writing a narrative as your mind expands around an idea. I've never really had much success with mindmaps. I actually feel like they suppress my creativity in some way. I get frozen when I try to branch words of the other and they dont really seem to lead to any conceptual conclusions. Anyways, I had one of those "aha" moments last night as I was trying to go to sleep around midnight. I usually would have just ignored the creative pang in my head but I decided to exercise my writing skills and let it all out. So I got out of bed, went downstairs, busted out a sketchbook and just started rambling in illegible text all of the ideas that were floating around. I actually ended up creating a pretty solid gesture drawing of what I was trying to visualize.

It's About Legibility by Allan Haley

This article was a great type refresher considering It has been over 2 years since I took type 1. I have become re-familiarized with words like "bracketing", "counters", and lowercase "x-heights" that I had forgotten about. I feel like I have a better understanding of what makes a typeface legible and readable. Large lowercase X-heights, small subtle serifs (if any), and large counters are key. I liked the metaphor of the type being like "a crystal goblet" which allows content to be more important than the container. That's an insightful way to look at typefaces. 

Georgia and Verdana: Typefaces Designed for Screen (finally)

You would have thought that Matthew Carter was naming garage bands that way that he came up with these typeface names. I never would have thought twice about their origin had I not read this article, but a headline about alien heads in Georgia led to this typeface's identity. Why that article? 

Verdana was easily readable on the screen but I didn't particularly like the style of this typeface. It almost seemed like there was too much space in the counters and it was too tall. It just felt very bubbly to me. It was interesting to see how much thought went into the development of every component of the letters so as to make them legible on screen. The lowercase x-height being 1 pixel taller than the uppercase was impressive. He paid such minute attention to detail.

Georgia was much prettier to look at. I liked that it reflected more traditional typefaces and didn't seem so large and overpowering. I have never created a typeface, nor do I know the process so this article left me wondering what a bitmap was?

Matthew Carter

Inspiring. It's amazing how ones existence can revolve solely around letters. I think it is amazing that he is still alive and designing :) he must be what? 76 now. It is interesting that he has evolved through all of progressive stages of typography over the last century.