[P1]: 2

These are a few of my compositions from the "phase one" assignment for project one.  Initially, I thought that all of the constraints for the assignment were somewhat excessive.  While I worked, I reached points where I thought I couldn't think of anything else, but then I had breakthroughs where I had to think outside the box I had previously been thinking in.  I wouldn't have done that without the constraints of the assignment.

[P1]:1

Jan Tschichold was born on April, 1902, in Leipzig Germany.  Tschichold was the son of a sign painter and was exposed to the world of calligraphy from a young age.  He studied calligraphy and design at the Leipzig Academy of Graphic Arts from 1919 to 1921.  After school, he began freelancing as a lettering artist and designer.  During the Bauhaus exhibition at Weiman in 1923, Tschichold was introduced to modernist design.  The movement resonated with him and he joined its ranks soon after.  He rejected traditional fonts and symmetrical composition, instead embracing sans-serif typefaces, geometric construction, and asymmetric composition.

Tschichold's work combined rationalism, fuctionality, and aesthetics.  He moved to the cutting edge of modern design when his book Die neue Typographie explained the principles and uses of Modernist typography to printers, type compositors, and designers.  Tschichold's writings helped to spread Modernist graphic design to the world.  In 1933 the Nazi's arrested Tschichold for his work because he disagreed with traditional German graphic design.  Tschichold fled to Switzerland where he worked as a book designer.

Tschichold continued working as a designer and typographer for many years.  His work shaped the world of graphic design and typography as we know it today.  Notable examples of his work include the Sabon typeface and his large volume of work for Penguin Books.  Tschichold died on August 11, 1974

[P1]:3

Phase 1

"Phase 1" moved our compositions to the digital realm.  Slightly more freedom was allowed with the ability to add typographic rules and a single color.

Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger was born in 1928 in Switzerland.  He is a well-known type designer who has worked to create some of the most used typefaces of the 20th and 21st century.

During his early years, Frutiger experimented with handwriting styles because he did not enjoy the formal cursive penmanship that was required by Swiss schools at the time.  He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied arts) in Zürich from 1944 until 1948.  He then worked as a compositor for a time until he returned to school until 1951.  Frutiger’s primary concentration was on calligraphy.  Throughout Frutiger’s career as a type designer, he has worked with several kinds of type as the industry evolved, beginning with hot metal.  It was during the era of metal type that Frutiger developed the urge to create the best possible legibility in typefaces.  Much of Frutiger’s career was devoted to converting typefaces from metal to photo-typsetting.

Frutiger has said that,

“the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should only be felt but not perceived by the reader.”

Famous examples of Frutiger’s own typefaces include Univers, Frutiger, Egyptienne, Serifa, and Avenir.

The Frutiger Grid

One of the most influential accomplishment's of Adrian Frutiger was the invention of his grid system for identifying type faces.  Although the system was originally made for the Univers font, it has since been applied to other fonts, such as Helvetica.  The system aims to eliminate the confusion caused by varying systems for identifying fonts.

Frutiger's grid used two numbers to identify a typeset's weight and width.  The first number corresponds to the type's weight.  The second number corresponds to the width and positioning.  For example: Univers 55 is the same weight as Univers 56, but the latter is the italic set.  Univers 65 is the same width as 55, but it is more weighted.

Sources:

http://www.linotype.com/720/adrianfrutiger.html

http://www.designishistory.com/1940/adrian-frutiger/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Frutiger
Ambrose, Gavin, and Paul Harris. The Visual Dictionary of Typography. Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA Publishing, 2010. Print.

[P0]

For the first assignment of the semester, my group was given the word "thoughtfully."  Together we decided that we wanted to create our word out of photos of letterforms created from objects found in nature.  Each group member took responsibility for 3 letters from our word.  My letters were L, L, and Y.