This week, we covered the topic of how typography is used within screens. I began by reviewing the topics that we had learnt previously in week three, as well as being able to look at many specifics, such as intricate details and grid layouts for typography and images. I started by reviewing and looking at the following definitions:
Typography formatting options refer to the ways you can adjust and style text to improve readability, hierarchy, and visual appeal. Weight controls how thick or thin a font appears, from light to bold. Size adjusts the scale of the text, helping emphasise headings or subtext. Line spacing affects the vertical space between lines, making paragraphs easier to read. Letter spacing adjusts the overall spacing between letters, while kerning tweaks the space between specific letter pairs for balance. Alignment positions text left, right, centre, or justified to structure content visually. Style options like italics, small caps, and underlining add emphasis or hierarchy. Colour can convey mood, hierarchy, or branding, and transformations like uppercase, lowercase, or capitalisation help maintain consistency and impact.
Once we had reviewed and had a refresh on how these movements are used within typography, I moved on to looking at how to add character within typography for a screen, by researching more on what typography holds:
This allowed me to understand how the idea of character is presented within text and the emphasis behind it, which led me to further research the topic. From this, I was also able to learn that there are over 200,000 typefaces available to use for typography.
As part of this week’s topic, we were given an exercise which involved using typefaces on various scales to create a poster design, inspired by the novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’. I began by making a type scale based on the text given, similar to what I did during week two with the use of the Fibonacci Sequence, which helped me structure different-sized font choices which I could use to structure my poster design.
Once I had created my list of typefaces that I would use towards my poster, I was now able to put the typeface work together and build my poster version based on the text I was given. I decided to some research beforehand on what i wanted it to be styled around and I eventually landed on a film called The Terminator as I felt the look and setting would match the idea I was going for within my poster shown above, especially with the use of the dark colours amongst the sharp white text making it clear to read and view as well as being striking towards the meaning of the poster.
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I found this week’s topic to be quite good; however, some elements of it seemed to be quite repetitive, including creating the various typefaces needed for the poster design I created, but once it got to designing and putting it together, then I became more interested and enjoyed the rest of the task.
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