The Assignment: Using five typefaces now (Garamond, Baskerville, Bodoni, Serfia, and Univers), draw five compositions representing opposition, tension, overlapping, details, and scale. 2” x 2” size, for a total of 25 compositions. At this point you may use any weight or other variation of the typeface design (ie: Bold, Semibold, Semibold Italic, etc).

Old Lesson 2: Things are easier with less options. Last week we did more sketches, but with only the Roman character set available it was easier to move ahead. Now, with typefaces such as Univers (63 different styles!), there were almost too many options to move forward. I wound up limiting myself to a simple Roman/Italic/Bold/Bold Italic set because a.) It was easier, and b.) Still within the scope of the assignment.

New Lesson 2: This week was all about type identification. Even when I was in school I never got a hold of things like Modern, Old Style, Transitional, etc. when it came to type design. I knew two things: Serif and Sans Serif. You’ll be happy to know it is possible to build a career with that knowledge, but it always hung on me like a secret albatross whenever my typographic friends would start chatting. This week I’ve finally cut the chord on that stupid bird, and have already begun wowing my financé by calling out the Old Style and Transitional typefaces used on the “Help Wanted” sign DIY’d at Pizza Hut.

Old Style (no, Tom, not the beer):

Small variations between thick and thin strokes. These serifs are smaller than others, with heavy brackets (brackets, it seems, are the flowing areas between the stroke and serif that merge the two shapes together). The stress of the letter (“stress” meaning the angle the imaginary pen that drew the letterform was held at) is at a diagonal.

Transitional:

Greater contrast between thick and thin strokes when compared to Old Style type. The serifs are wider, but with smaller brackets. The x-height is generally larger and the stress of each letterform moves to the vertical.

Modern:

Extreme contrast between thick and thin, almost to the point of blinding you when used in body copy (at least in Bodoni’s case). Serifs are now hairlined without or with very slight brackets. The x-height is generally smaller when compared to Transitional type, though the stress remains vertical.

Slab-Serif:

The contrast to thick and thin moves now in the opposite direction to become largely nonexistent (though still present). The x-height is larger while the serifs become approximate to the width of the stroke of the letterform itself, squaring off at the end. If there is stress in the letterform it is generally vertical.

Sans Serif:

Ahhh Univers. My favorite. Minimal variation from thick to thin, no serifs (thus the name “without serif”), big x-heights, little to no stress and squared terminals (end of the strokes). Geometric simplicity in typographic form.

This week’s assignment gets capped off by creating computer comps of one of each of the hand-drawn layouts for each typeface.

Then, as an added bonus, I was instructed by my syllabus to give the students an in-class assignment. This was essentially high-school art fare with a college typography-class rule set. Using any of the above typefaces, styles, and weights, interpret a single word to communicate both its normal reading pattern as well as its underlying meaning.

I felt like this was a little bit more my speed. Using Garamond Italic, Univers Extended and Condensed, I got a pretty good depiction of “yank.” My favorite details (and yes, it is okay to look at your own work and pick out your favorite parts, no matter what anyone else tells you) are the hooking terminal of the “y” and the rubber-band-snap affecting the letter “n”. The “k” is actually the only thing telling the viewer that this was all once set on a single baseline. This one worked well in class; all my students started trying to figure out the story of the evil “y” grabbing “a” away from “nk,” and what was really happening behind the scenes.

Like many college students, I found myself enlisting some help on this assignment. It wouldn’t be fair of me to take all the credit and pass all the work off as my own. My fellow cheater would like to remain anonymous, however, so I’ll take the blame myself.