Class Info

  • Date: August 30, 2022 (Tuesday)
  • Meeting Info: In person, Pearl 116, 8:30 to 11:00am, followed by Professor’s office hours

Topic

The written language and origin of  letterforms

Objectives

  • Learn about visual communication and the origin of written communication and the alphabet.
    • WRITING 
      • Cave Paintings 
      • Pictographs 
      • Ideographs
      • Cuneiform Writing
      • Hieroglyphs 
      • Calligraphy
      • Chinese Calligraphy
      • Invention of Paper
      • Invention of Wooden characters in printing
      • others
    •  Origin of the Latin ALPHABET and others
      • Phoenicians 
      • Greek
      • Roman or Latin
  • More detailed info about the Origins of the ABC can be found here: The Origin of ABC from ilovetypography.com
  • All Summary Slides below are by Professor Maria Giuliani (used, with attribution, by Professor Beth)

Activities

During Class: TYPE TALK

Watch: Video about the History of Type, and post comments. Save your post in the TYPE TALK Category: Student Post Type Talk.

What is one fact you found interesting and why. (It’s OK to include more observations if you have them.)


During Class: InDesign Demo

—Looking at the basics of InDesign:

—File>New>Document>Create

Basic set up: Open InDesign. Go into File>New>Document>Create. I like to set up pages in inches and, once I’ve set up the document, change to picas so I can work on the typography in points and picas.

This is what the document looks like with the Toolbar (on the left) and the Workspace set up to Typography. Notice the other components along the right side. You can customize your workspace, but this one is one clear and all-encompassing and shows your type options.

This shows the Dropdown menu with Workspace the second from the top.

These are your tools. We’ll start out using just the basic ones.

Due

Posts about the History of Type (the first video) are due during Class. Again, save your post in the TYPE TALK Category: Student Post Type Talk.

To-Do After Class. Due Thursday, Sept. 1

Make sure your Adobe CC is ready to go before next class. The workarounds our techs suggested during our first class may still be in play.

Your options: 

  • Adobe Creative Cloud Access via CUNY
  • Come to COMD labs when available
  • Your own Creative Cloud Account with InDesign

Create a new document InDesign: 

11″ x 8.5″ page (this is landscape) / .75″ margins all around /(no facing pages)
No need to post, just have it ready to use at the start of next class.

OF COURSE, save it. Name it

lastname_indesign_preliminary

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