Today, you will be taught by Prof. Marianna Trofimova. She is a renaissance woman, really an amazing person! Talk to her, she is a visiting scholar just like Prof. Giuliani yesterday!

Today, you will be concentrating on figuring out how you will produce the imagery and designs for the zine.

To recap:

• Your zine will be 12 pages, including the covers. The booklets will be made of 3 sheets letter-sized paper folded in half and stapled on the crease (saddle stitch).
• You can design in color (we will discuss images and color next week), but you may print the booklets in black and white if you want (color can be pricey). The interactive version can be color without any cost.
• You must make your zine about something you care about passionately.
• You must make all of your images and write all of your text, although some quotes (credited, of course) are allowed.
• Yes, you can design these with a great deal of freedom, but we will be crafting the typography so that we use and explore all of the techniques, rules, and guidelines we have covered so far this semester. This is NOT a free-for-all!
• You may use up to 3 different fonts in your zine. You may use different weights and styles of those fonts, but I will definitely reign you in if you start going wildly off track.

Classwork

Group critiques: You will be split up into groups of 3 or 4. Each person will present their ideas and get feedback for 6 minutes.

When you are presenting:

• You need to be succinct. Say what you are doing, why you are doing it, and who you hope will read it.
• No excuses! Just show what you have and let the group kick in with feedback.
• No dawdling! I understand, your classmates are interesting, but you have work to do. Keep the crit on target.

When you are critiquing:

• It does not matter if you like the work. You are there to help that designer do his/her job better, not just please you.
• “I like it” and “I don’t get it” are equally lazy things to say. Tell the designer what is working for the intended purposes and audience and what is not, what else can be done and what should be abandoned and why. Help the designer come up with his/her next steps.
• You may have to critique the work of people you think are not doing a very good job. This is your chance to show some care for others, develop the muscles that will help you become creative directors later on. think of all of your classmates as team mates, help them all get better. Every moment is a possibility to teach and learn.

Imagery:

You are going to see several easy ways to create imagery.

• Drawing
• Collage
• Printmaking (remember, you have the know-how to carve your own images, so get. on. it.)
• Photography
  • Paper sculptures: you can photograph these and make all kinds of cool stuff !
  • Have your friends act things out and take pictures of them! Use your imagination!
• Painting
• Pen & Ink

Homework

• Zine: You need to have your images developed as sketches. These can be rough, but they need to be worked out and ready for development. I will start bringing the scanner every class I can as of next week and we will begin to lay the designs out digitally once we discuss resolution and color.
• Type Journal: Keeping your subject matter in mind, find 3 fonts you might work with in your zine. On your type journal, discuss why you like each one and how you hope to use it.

I will see you next week!

Hello! remember that today you will be working with Prof. Maria Giuliani, a particularly amazing illustrator, designer, and typographer. Just to remind you, I am writing this [scary voice] from beyond the borough! I am at the Southern Graphics Council Conference in California, so be as great as you usually are and work your butts off. I will be so happy to get home to see you next week!

Classwork

Logotypes or word marks:

A logotype, commonly known in the design industry as a “word mark”, incorporates your company or brand name into a uniquely styled type font treatment. Type fonts come in thousands of possible variations, shapes, sizes, and styles, each conveying a slightly different impression upon your intended audience. Images can also be integrated into a logotype, often to great visual effect. Of prime consideration when selecting a logotype or wordmark is legibility and ease of recognition, even when reduced to the size required for printing your business cards.

Type Book

We are getting to the really exciting stuff! Here are the files.

• Typographical Patterns
• Embellished Quotes
• Logotypes

Zine

• You have been working on your mood boards. If time allows, Prof. Giuliani will speak with you about your ideas thus far. Once again, she is phenomenal, so talk to her, get everything you can!
• Now that you have some basic ideas, you need to come in tomorrow with some definite ideas, captured in sketches or on your dummy and be ready for small group critiques of your ideas and rough sketches.
• Tomorrow, you are going to go over some basic ways to make images with little or no tools.

Homework

• Type Book: Finish all of the Type Book work and send it to me for feedback.
• Zines: Be ready with your developed mood boards, roughs, and dummies. You will be split up into small groups to go over your ideas. Then, Prof. Trofimova will be working with you to develop ideas into imagery and text. Be ready to have your idea socks blown off, she is tremendously creative!
• Type Journal: Find 5 logotypes in use on your commute to school. Upload them to your journal and tell me what you think of each, one or two sentences will be fine.

A word of warning–I am just getting over the stomach flu. If I leave the room in mid-sentence, just be patient. I am Purell-ing every chance I can, and I will not come within 5 feet of any of you if I can help it.

Classwork

International Typography Reports

We are going to use lab time to work on these as I have gotten a few of these already and I have to say that you may want to rewrite them:

• I will not accept any text simply copied and pasted into your report. Read what you fond, then recount it in your own words. Please know I have Google and a few other tools that spot copied text within seconds, not to mention I am a fairly smart cookie. Please know you will not fool me.
• Form an opinion, care about what you have found!

What not to do:

• The computer and type
• Color and Legibility
• Typographical problems affecting legibility
• Distorting typography

Type Book: Legibility: Color Handout

• Create a 1 page document
• Creating a set of background boxes which will range from 100% to 10% of a specific color.  Explore what happens to type as it is set into a variations of backgrounds.
• Follow the directions to complete the exercise.

Homework

• Rework your reports on your typography system per my feedback, be ready to discuss in class tomorrow.
• Finish your classwork.

The Life of a Typographer

We need to check in on our International Typography reports, then cover some more material for the Type Book.

Classwork

Introduction:

• The Pen Tool
• Bringing in Images
• Google searches and ethics

Images

• Importing images
• Image boxes, shapes, possibilities

Text Paths!

• Text on a path and spacing: here is the Type on a Pathway handout.
• Vertical path
• Type on a smooth curve
• Type on a sharp curve
• Type on a circular path

Vertical Paths

Homework

1. Finish Type Book Exercises, make edits to old files. No need to turn in edits unless you need feedback, just make sure you are not working on all of your exercises the last week of the semster.
2. Finish your report on your chosen typographical system. It needs to be published on your ePortfolio, so talk to me if you still need help with that. Some details to consider:

• How did the writing system develop?’
• What technologies came into play in the development of the letterforms/symbols?
• Were there political implications?
• Who was the letterform/symbol system developer(s)?

Remember, I will send you an email asap with all you are missing according to my records. I strongly suggest you go back and finish that stuff. It all adds up to help you learn the material and make you a typographer in your own right.