Typography II The following is the preface from my book. After nearly three months of working long nights, hundreds of printouts and several expired ink cartridges I’ve finally arrived at what you are holding in your hands right now. This book represents my process of learning the art of typographic design. At the beginning of this project I never could have imagined the amount of creative decisions that go into designing a book. I suppose in my ignorance I had previously been of the belief that the creative elements of a book were left to the author. Since I’m a very visual person I’ve never really enjoyed reading books. From my early days in school to the present, reading books has always seemed like a chore to me. On the contrary, I love magazines and anything that provides a visual complement to the textual content. Thus, when I would look at a page with only text I would dismiss it as visually uninteresting. From the outset, I knew this project would force me to explore type in ways that I had not previously understood and often overlooked. I took it as a challenge to try and look at type on the page in a different context that I had done in the past. It didn’t take me long to begin to see blocks of type as shapes and colors instead of letters. This gave me a new mindset towards what I was designing and a new appreciation for the application of type as a stand-alone visual element. Seeing shape and color enabled me to remove the content from the equation and focus on manipulating the text to appear harmonious on the page. Having gone through the extensive process of designing this book I have a greater respect for books as visual objects as well as those who design them. I’m now able to see the beauty in a well-designed block of text. In many cases I now prefer the clean look of type by itself and much of my design in this book represents that. The techniques I learned through this project are a great addition to my abilities as a designer. Focusing on the smallest detail is vital to typographic design, and this lesson will improve every design I create from this point forward. |
