So, we’ve made it through the first week. Hopefully everyone is feeling a bit more relaxed and you’ve made some new friends.

Here is a recap of some of the topics that we covered the first week of class. Hopefully this will be helpful if you need to review.

  • On Tues, Aug 28th we reviewed the syllabus, and if you need another copy, it can be downloaded COMD1127SyllabusFA18
  • At this point, of course, everyone should have access to their City Tech email. This will be the way that I will communicate with you. Please check it at least every few days so you don’t miss any important information. Usually when I make a new post, you get an email notification.
  • We viewed a few videos on the history of typography:

 

  • There was a brief lecture, Typography & the History of Letterform. If you missed some of the points in your notes, you can download a copy of the slides here.
  • We created Biographical Name Signs — Each student should have paired up with a classmate and make a name sign for each other, trying to best portray each other using expressive lettering. Afterwards, students introduced each other to the class and described what you were trying to convey with the lettering they drew for their partner.

 

On Thurs, Aug 30 we were introduced to the following:

The Five Families of Typography

  • Old Style – Garamond
  • Transitional – Baskerville
  • Modern – Bodoni
  • Egyptian or Slab Serif – Century Expanded
  • Sans Serif – Helvetica

You received the Type Anatomy sheet.

We covered some terminology:

Typeface vs Font

  • Font – one weight, width or style of a typeface
  • Typeface – the letters, numbers and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is part of a type family of coordinated designs. For example, Helvetica Bold is the typeface and is a part of the Helvetica family of type (Helvetica is the type family, Helvetica Bold is the typeface).
  • Type family – the full collection of typefaces that were designed together and intended to be used together. For example, Garamond font family consists of roman, italics, semi bold, and bold weights. Combined together, these make up the Garamond type family.

 

Introduction to Adobe InDesign. The introduction covered creating a new document. We will continue during Tuesday’s class, but here is a video which covers an intro to Adobe InDesign:

 

Homework — Due Tues, Sept 4

  • Bring you tracing pad and pens to class.
  • Type Journal — Take 20-30 pictures of type in your neighborhood, write a 1 page paper on what that typography tells you about your neighborhood, print it and add to type journal. Use 1” margins all around and double-space. This should have been done already, but this is you opportunity to catch up.