C Mini Project 2: Typesetting

11/14/23

The first day of this project, I am sick and out, so this is a brief marker of what I did in between other than lay in bed and rot!

To Start, some adjectives and annotations I used to describe my two give fonts: Minion and Noto Sans.

Adjectives used to describe Minion:

• balanced
• elegant
• classy
• plain?

Adjectives used to describe Noto Sans:

• balanced
• accessible
• youthful

Both are very accessible and easily digestable fonts that were made to not stand out. Minion is way older than Noto, since it was one of the first fonts to come out from the Adobe foundry in the 90s — it’s an essentials classic that is available in most Adobe programs.

Noto Sans is a font commissioned by Google from the early 2010s, as a response to Unicode not being able to render and compute certain fonts and languages through the computer. If the type was unrecognizable, it would be replaced with white blocks that resembled tofu, hence the name Noto, short for “No Tofu”.

left to right: example of tofu text and noto sans in bold

For the start of this project, some research had to be done on the fonts, which went into an essay that will be used as a magazine spread! But my essay is… lackluster, so I will complete the initial exercises to catch up, then revise the essay for later development in the thumbnails.

Here’s the work for Part 1 of the Warmup:

this is an incredibly short essay — will definitely go back to rework and add content

here’s the justified and unjustified for the minion font:

justified is gross

As for the 22 pages exercise, here’s some of the samples. I have yet to print out the spreads, but the 10/11 range seems to stick out to me, not because its digestable, but because its frustratingly almost there. It also doesn’t help that the text is meant to be 8 collumns wide.

Some rough thumbnails for the magazine spread:

bad lighting I should fix later.

Samples of the type exercise used for the draft essay:

11/15/17

“What iteration/sketching practices are you using to develop your ideas?”

develop at least nine (9) rough digital sketches (print as thumnails) of your spread. Print and bring at least three (3) conceptually different rough concepts to class. Focus on iteration, not deep development of nitpicky refinement.

I’’ll be honest, my work is coming up to three iterations tonight because I do not feel well enough to stare at the screen without feeling sick. here are the three iterations I coughed up in illustrator:

The approach was geared towards a Renaissance theme since Minion is based in old type — in crit, it definitely got slashed for the image and rocky type transition. The bottom teal one was the one I had liked the most, but the leading and font sizes are opposed and very separate. Not good for readablilty.

ok, I’ll put the other drawn thumbnails down tomorrow. peace

11/18/23

Recap: I lied and forgot but here’s some meeting notes from office hours with Vicki:

• Minion and the Spread: Hold back on the concept/colors first, focus on type —
• on the other hand, be bold with layout decisions, but ask if it fits the personality
• Process: elaborate more, explain and defend decisions
• go to the library? look at books, specifically for minion spread inspo, pay attention to type layouts that you like/don’t like
• try minimalism, minion is a typeface for many print media along with indesign
• draw again: print out some grids for to draw on/thumbnail again

As prescribed, I went to the library. I was told that the rare books section was worth a look if it was open — it wasn’t. But! I still went around looking at books of different genres and time periods for inspo. I’m definitely leaning into Minion since it appeals to the classic, bookish sensibilities I’m feeling this fall.

Some concepts ideas for Minion as a font:

• A spread hailing it’s use in print media and as the default for indesign work. Per Hannah’s conversation, consider the idea of indesign as part of the spread to err on the “bold” side of ideas to explore.
• Type only: play with scale on some level, be it just the type in different weights or angles.
• Backburner angles: Renaissance and hot iron type. nix the paintings, but lean into the style of Renaissance or old book making styles.

Anyways, here were the spreads I forgot to put down:

In retrospect, I would prefer the noto sans for a different project like the animated video in project 3, but I pivoted to the minion font instead. I very much chased the idea of using the tofu text block as a visual theme, working to varying degrees of effectiveness; I liked the bottom right (noto) one the most, even over the minion type. Shelved since I had trouble trying to “dress” it up, which might be my problem in the first place.

Here’s further development on minion: abandoned drafts, drafts, and the final before crit:

I was much more slower this time around with iterations — in part due to my frustrations with indesign.

I wanted a mild Shrek green as the original, but ran into printing issues in the last leg, which screwed me over since the books I had edited looked especially rocky behind white. In print, it was much more readable.

color errors for the green variations

What’s the vibe: I fixated on the idea of making minion feel “bookish” or “classy”, with the isolated justified type used in print books and some magazines. In retrospect, I think it’s too bookish, and not enough magazine; Kate and Hannah pointed out the generous spacing and size of the type, which was very apparent in comparison to many other spreads. I was also off the grid. To mend this, the leading and font were sized down and redone.