Typography and Illustrator

The History of Typography &Using Illustrator to create

What is Typography

• Typography is the Art of Lettering.

• It’s a way to convey a messages through type using different styles of fonts, point sizes and color to express feeling, emotion, and even urgency.

History of Typography

• From Early Man there has been communication written down. Early forms were pictographs.

• Later symbols that represented words were formed. Most famous are Hieroglyphics.

• The Phoenicians and Hebrews were the first to develop an alphabet, but it was the Greeks modifies this alphabet by adding vowels.

• http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/language/f/1stalphabet.htm

More History

• Early forms of Typography and Graphics was in the form of Illumination. This was a form of decorative print mixed with drawings or Illuminations (illustrations) traditionally you would see Illuminations in hand written bibles or other

religious manuscripts.

History of Typography

• It wasn’t until the Printing Press developed by Johann Gutenberg that Moveable Type was possible. Before then wooden blocks with text were carved and prints were pulled to create books and other documents.

• To check out the progression of the written word in History check this site out. http://www.designhistory.org/handwriting.html

• The latest advancement of type and print has been the advent of the computer. Layout, proof, and final print production cantake place in a matter of days instead of weeks. Even in some cases hours this process can be reduced down to hours.

What are Fonts

• Fonts are different styles of type. • Different styles of Fonts can convey

different tones. • Fonts are generally broken up into 2

groups. Serifs and San Serifs. • Some common fonts you’ve may be

familiar with are Arial, Times New Roman.

Make up of Fonts

• The make up of fonts are Serif and Sans- Serif.

• Serif fonts are: are TIMES NEW ROMAN,

American Type Write. Any font that has a “tail” on it that.

• Serif fonts are the most easily read fonts.

• Serif fonts have thought to originated from the Roman Alphabet.

Sans-Serif Fonts

• Sans-Serif fonts are fonts without the serifs at the bottoms of each letter.

• Sans means “without” in French.

• Sans-Serif fonts are usually used for headlines and bold attention grabbing text.

• Using Sans-Serifs for the body of text is widely used in Europe but not so much in the United States.

• A few of the fonts that are San-Serifs are, Arial, The type in this presentation (Lucinda Grande), and Helvetica

Another Look

• Serifs

Sans-Serifs

Symbolism and Fonts

• Fonts can symbolize emotions,Importance, and Urgency.

• Fonts can have Weight. They can appear to be heavy or light.

• Fonts can be playful or sinister.• The color of the font will also

impact/affect the message being presented.

Where to get Fonts

• www.dafont.com• www.fontfreak.com• www.fontface.com• www.sharkshock.com

Terms

• Typography: the art of lettering• Text: fonts combine to form a body of words.• Fonts: the different styles of type.• Point Size: how big or small the font is.• Kerning: the spacing between the characters.• Tracking: spacing between words and characters.• Scaling: width or height of characters.• Character Rotation: direction of the character/word. • Serif: Fonts that have the “tail”on each character.

(Times New Roman)• Sans-Serif: Fonts that have not “tail” on each

character. (Arial)

Illustrator & Text

• In Illustrator you can configure your text and fonts anyway you can imagine.

• The Text Tool Bar looks like this:

• In Illustrator just like Photoshop you can type horizontal or Vertical.

• Unlike Photoshop you can Type In An Area or On a Line.

Text to Path

• This text option allows you to type on a path or a line.

• The tool looks like this:

• You can either type on a path of a pre-set shape or a path you create using either the Pencil or Pen Tool.

Area Text Tool

• This Text Tool allows you to type text into an area.

• The Area Text Tool looks like this:

• This area could be a pre-set shape or a shape that you create using the Pen or Pencil Tool.

Horizontal & Vertical

• The Horizontal and Vertical Text Tools standard typing tools.

• The tools look like this:

• You can apply Type Effects to either and also manipulate the text further by

• converting them to Create Outlines, • which we will discuss later.

Point Size of Fonts

• The Point size of the font is the size of the font. How large it is.

• The Point is the unit of measurement that is traditionally used with Fonts.

• “A point is a measuring unit for printed matter equal to about 1/72 of an inch. There are about 12 points in a pica (about 1/6 inch).” www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/referencematerials/GlossaryOfLiteracyTerms/WhatIsAPoint.htm

• Standard size for most print is 12 point.

Pathfinder Tool

• The Pathfinder Tool in Illustrator allows further manipulation of the text and objects.

• One can Merge shapes together, subtract text or shapes from other objects,create overlapping designs using text and shapes.

• The tool looks like this:

Examples of the Pathfinder

• These are some example of the Pathfinder tool in action.

Subtract from

Area

Intersect Shape Area

Exclude overlapping Shape Area

Layers & Fonts

• Don’t forget as with Photoshop and Illustrator, you can manipulate layers to change the look of the composition.

Opacity of the layer. Where the Layer is placed.

Examples of Typography

More Examples

More Examples of Typography

Practices and Project

• You will have a guided practice. The file is located on the website at:

• http://rhsgraphicdesign.wikispaces.com/Spring+09+Lesson+Plans+GI

• Complete the projects by Friday. Print off the last design and post it to Picasa.

• After this practices is completed we will have one more project with type.