Typography - Task 3 : Type Design and Communication
03/11/2025 - 15/12/2025 (Week 6 - Week 13)
Chan Xin Yean, 0377851
Typography
Task 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Lectures
2. Instructions
3. Process Work
3.1 Research
3.2 Ideation
3.3 Digitisation
3.4 Final Outcome
4. Feedback
5. Reflection
6. Further Reading
LECTURES
All lectures are completed in Task 1 and Task 2 e-portfolios.
INSTRUCTIONS
Figure 2.0 Document of the Module Information Briefs
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PPelhqQAvhqnrNlmdDPgn4PejeyhIiwb/view
PROCESS WORK
3.1 Research
Before going into sketching the letters h, o, g and b we were instructed to do a dissection of the letters from the 10 fonts given previously in Adobe Illustrator. I chose ITC New Baskerville (Roman) for my observations.
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| Figure 3.0 Dissection of letter h in ITC New Baskerville, Week 7 (05/11/2025) |
The letter h has a symmetrical vertical strokes and serifs. The base of the vertical stroke is not a horizontal straight line but it has slight indents.
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| Figure 3.1 Dissection of letter o in ITC New Baskerville, Week 7 (05/11/2025) |
The letter o has a balanced left and right curve and the same thickness of stroke.
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| Figure 3.2 Dissection of letter g in ITC New Baskerville, Week 7 (05/11/2025) |
The letter g has a constraint and compact upper bowl compared to the lower bowl that is more larger and open. The counters of the letters are also well balanced.
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| Figure 3.3 Dissection of letter b in ITC New Baskerville, Week 7 (05/11/2025) |
The letter b has a slightly overshooting bowl and it is not optically a perfect circle. The angle of the slants on the vertical stroke is not the same, with the lower slant angled more.
I've also went on to Pinterest to see how others designed typefaces. From the examples I've seen, I've noticed I preferred the simpler looking fonts and fonts with short ascenders and descenders. Besides, through scrolling through the fonts that were created, I found that a lot of fonts actually look similar to each other but they just have slight changes to them like the width of the letters or the arms and/or the tails are different.
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| Figure 3.4 Inspirations found in Pinterest, Week 7 (05/11/2025) |
3.2 Ideation
At first, we were asked to draw and write the letter H in capitals and lowercase in a graph paper as an exercise to make sure we understand how we should draw or write our own type design. After that, I proceeded with randomly writing out the letters h, o, g, b in both lower and uppercases with 3 different types of markers ( Rounded nib, Flat nib, brush pen ) as a quick brainstorm of ideas and practice on using the different markers.
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| Figure 3.5 Brainstorming ideas and practices using 3 different markers, Week 7 (08/11/2025) |
Then, I chose and drew a few type designs according to the ideas and written a few more new designs that I thought of.
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| Figure 3.6 Final written list of ideas, Week 7 (09/11/2025) |
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| Figure 3.7 Written letters, Week 8 (11/11/2025) |
3.3 Digitisation
After writing the letters and symbols, I proceeded with digitising them. At first, I started with doing measurements of the guides for the ascender, x-height and descender. arranging rectangle shapes to design the letters. From this stage, I accounted the thickness of the stroke and the gaps between the strokes I wanted and started with the letter o and n. I also created a few different widths of strokes for me to utilise for editing later on.
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| Figure 3.8 Different widths of rectangle created, Week 8 (15/11/2025) |
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| Figure 3.9 First stage of designing, Week 8 (15/11/2025) |
Font guide measurements :
Ascender - 706 pt
Cap height - 686 pt
X-height - 500 pt
Descender - -198 pt
For the letter s, I made 2 different the lengths of the vertical stroke as I can't decide if the length is too short. For the letter t, I also made 2 different widths of the horizontal strokes and it was the same for the dot for the letter i.
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| Figure 3.10 Close-up of variations made, Week 8 (15/11/2025) |
Then, I moved on to merging the rectangles into a shape and curved the letters. For the diagonal lines of the letters I duplicated the created rectangles previously to make sure the angles of the diagonals are consistent.
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| Figure 3.11 Process of editing the diagonal stroke, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
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| Figure 3.12 Second stage of designing, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
At this stage, I struggled with deciding how I liked the letters with more rounded edges to look like (letters o, e, s). For the letter o, although the 3rd attempt was similar to the sketch, but I kinda liked how the 2nd attempt looked more sharp at the edges. Besides that, for the letter s, I tried out how the different lengths of vertical stroke would look like after making the ends diagonal and I liked the 3rd attempt more. Then for the letter e, I decided to go with the 3rd one as I thought the straight horizontal line looks more consistent when compared to the other letters.
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| Figure 3.13 Close up of different variations, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
For the letter g, I went with the second attempt as it was similar to how the letter d and h was created.
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| Figure 3.14 Close up of variations for letter g, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
Then, for the letters t and i, I was mostly working on the width of the horizontal and dot. I finally chose the 2nd attempt for t and the 2rd attempt for the letter i.
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| Figure 3.15 Close up of variations for letter t and i, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
After that, I did a few attempts for the comma too. Following the instagram post teacher shared, it shows how a comma is suppose to be the length of 2 periods. Thus, I went for the 2nd option.
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| Figure 3.16 Close up of variation for comma, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
After deciding which designed letters and punctuations I wanted in my line up, I placed it onto a new art board.
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| Figure 3.17 1st version line up, Week 8 (16/11/2025) |
After the feedback in week 9, I changed the bottom of every letter to be slanted and fixed the exclamation mark to be thinner at the bottom.
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| Figure 3.18 After editing the stroke and exclamation mark, Week 9 (17/11/2025) |
Besides that, I also edited the curved of the letters o, e, s and c to be more consistent based on grid.
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| Figure 3.19 Editing the curve if letter o, Week 9 (21/11/2025) |
Although the changes were not that evident after editing, but there is a slight difference in the curve of the letters.
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| Figure 3.20 Before (left) and after (right) editing curve , Week 9 (21/11/2025) |
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| Figure 3.21 Final digitised letterforms with and without guides, Week 9 (21/11/2025) |
After teacher approved the final line up in week 10, I moved on with placing the letterforms in fontlab 7 and creating a space.
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| Figure 3.22 Digitised letterforms in fontlab 7, Week 10 (29/11/2025) |
After that, I edited the bearings of the words in a new metrics tab. I started with 50 for all letters but I noticed that the letter t had awkward bearings, thus I reduced the left and right bearings to 15. Then, I typed out other words along with punctuations to see if there was any specific kernings to be made.
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| Figure 3.23 Editing in fontlab, Week 10 (29/11/2025) |
In week 12, teacher said the overall bearings looked okay but the left and right bearings for the letter t could be changed to 0.
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| Figure 3.24 Changed side bearings of t to 0, Week 12 (08/12/2025) |
After that I moved on with doing the poster. I used a word generator (Wordtips) website to assist me in thinking of words that uses all the letters designed (oledsnchtig).
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| Figure 3.25 Word generator website, Week 12 (08/12/2025) |
From that, I created 2 sentences from the random words generated with the font size 90 pt to create a three variations of posters.
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| Figure 3.26 Poster designing process, Week 12 (08/12/2025) |
I decided to go on with the 2nd attempt as I liked the composition of the words more.
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| Figure 3.27 Chosen poster, Week 12 (08/12/2025) |
3.4 Final Outcome
Link to download the font:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JTeYUE6RmdcOGmOJQDmEDSlNlzBqW3ol/view
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| Figure 3.28 Initial sketch, Week 12 (10/12/2025) |
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| Figure 3.29 Screenshot of FontLab process (side-bearings), Week 12 (10/12/2025) |
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| Figure 3.30 Final Type Construction - jpeg, Week 12 (10/12/2025) |
Figure 3.31 Final Type Construction - pdf, Week 12 (10/12/2025)
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| Figure 3.32 Final A4 Black & White Poster - jpeg, Week 12 (10/12/2025) |
Figure 3.33 Final A4 Black & White Poster - pdf, Week 12 (10/12/2025)
FEEDBACK
Week 8
General feedback: Maintain consistency in strokes of letters and its good to remain simplicity when designing typefaces. Always research and read before going in designing the typefaces.
Specific feedback: The second idea of the flat nib marker is interesting and it's relatively consistent compared to other ideas. Watch the videos given before starting the digitisation.
Week 9
General feedback: Vertical strokes for hashtag needs to be slanted and punctuations needs to be kept simpler compared to the letters.
Specific feedback: Make sure the end of vertical strokes are slanted if the top strokes are slanted. Change the exclamation mark to be thinner at the bottom of the vertical strokes, follow the normal exclamation mark design.
Week 10
General feedback: Make sure the designed fonts are in a shape before moving on to Fontlab
Specific feedback: The fonts are good, can continue to Fontlab after watching the videos given
Week 11
General feedback: After placing the designed letters in Fontlab, reduce side bearings first if theres awkward spacings. Kerning of the letters are rarely changed unless there are awkward spacings between specific pairings. Follow the chart given in teams by grain of salt to assist when doing the bearings.
Specific feedback: The bearings and kerning of the letters are good. Check the bearings in different point sizes and not to zoom in and out to ensure consistency.
Week 12
General feedback: Make sure the size of the font are the same and we can also use textures in designing the poster.
Specific feedback: The side bearings of the letter t can be changed to 0 instead of 15, can move on to make the poster.
REFLECTION
Experience
It was overall an enjoyable process for this task. At first, I racked my brain to think of writing out any fonts that were visually interesting and different from the ones that I saw online, but after teacher said that sometimes the simple fonts provides a good readability and clarity I wasn't too worried about creating a simple one. During the digitisation phase, I found it interesting actually creating a font by editing the nits and bits of a few letters. It was a process that challenged my attention to detail as there were many things to consider when designing the letterforms and the punctuations.
Observations
From this task, I observed how small changes. in shape, spacings and width of strokes affected the letter's appearance. There were always minor changes that I didn't notice until teacher pointed it out. It was also my first time taking notice of how punctuations were designed. I knew how every punctuations looked like as a whole not not the minute details like how periods are usually bigger than the dot on the letter i and how comma are usually the height of 2 periods. It was also notable how good letterforms are the ones with consistency for every letters especially when I was researching for font styles made by designers.
Findings
Throughout this task, I discovered that with repetition and experimentation it helps to refine details and create letterforms that has a good consistency and visually appealing. This task highlighted that the letters could be a form of expression while also functioning as a brand identity especially when consistent font choices are made. Besides that, it influences how readers perceive the text whether it is used in a website or even in a product. Overall, it was insightful on how much behind-the-scenes work that organisations or designers had to do to create a functional and eye-catching letterforms.
FURTHER READING
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| Figure 4.0 Typography, Referenced - Allen Haley (2012), Week 10 (28/11/2025) |
Reference :
Haley, A., Poulin, R., Tselentis, J., Seddon, T., Leomidas, G., Saltz, I., Henderson, K. & Alterman, T. (2012) Typography, Referenced: A Comprehensive Visual Guide to the Language, History, and Practice of Typography. Rockport Publishers.
This book serves as a visual guide that traces the history of typography from ancient Greece to the digital age. It explains the type classifications suck as serif and sans-serif, highlights the key designers through short biographies , introduces essential terminology and explores how typography is used today.
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| Figure 4.1 Familiar Shapes, New Interpretations, page 50, Week 10 (28/11/2025) |
This page explains that typefaces are both functional tools and expressive design objects. Beyond facilitating basic reading, typefaces communicate values such as identity, style, and emotion. While some fonts become widely recognised through strong branding and frequent use, type design remains driven by creativity, exploration and reinterpretation of familiar letterforms.
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| Figure 4.2 Sans Serif Humanist classification, page 61, Week 10 (28/11/2025) |
This page focuses on sans serif humanist typefaces, which are based on the proportions of Roman inscriptional letters. These fonts often show noticeable contrast in stroke weight and strong calligraphic influence which makes them highly legible and comfortable to be read. It shows examples such as Gill Sans, Frutiger and Goudy Sans and demonstrates how they bridge classical proportions with modern, clean design.
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| Figure 4.3 Reading direction and scanning, page 214, Week 10 (28/11/2025) |
In this page, they discuss how readers in western cultures typically scan text from left to right, following a Z-shaped pattern. Designers use this natural reading behaviour to guide visual hierarchy and layout. From the examples, it shows how typographic arrangements can influence multiple interpretations. and reading paths, emphasising that reading direction is a tendency rather than a fixed rule.
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