Large Projects
Typeface (25%)
Starting with initial sketches (in your Notebook—see below), you’ll develop a (relatively) complete TrueType font in TypeTool. The font must include glyphs for the full English alphabet in lower- and upper-case, 0 – 9, and a subset of punctuation marks (double and single left/right quotes, period, comma, exclamation point, question mark, em dash and hyphen).
Logotype (10%)
Develop a logotype or wordmark in Adobe Illustrator. The project can be for your personal brand, a fictional organization, or anything else you find interesting.
Movie Credits (10%)
Working in Premier, design the opening credits for a movie (actual movie TBD) using type and design appropriate to the movie. Graded on type selection, color, and placement.
Hand-Lettered Name (5%)
Pick an organization (it can be fictional). Write a short description of the type of organization it is—what it does/makes, who buys/watches/etc. it, what type of vibe or feel it has. This will probably work best if you think about what organizations might use hand-lettered type—a sports team or a music group but probably not an accounting firm, although if you can make a case for that, go ahead. Then create an appropriate, hand-lettered version of the name that might be used in product marketing.
Small Projects
Elam InDesign Posters (2% per chapter + 4% for polished version)
For each chapter in Elam, use Illustrator (66p x 66p) to create quick versions that explore the principles/layouts described for that chapter. These will be rough drafts, so they’ll be graded primarily on the composition and not type selection, color, etc.
Begin by creating at least four versions using the intro principles. Then pick one as the starting point for four intermedia/advanced (more complicated) designs.
At the end of the semester, you’ll pick one of the designs to work into a full, polished poster.
Sketch (10%)
- daily sketch
- developing glyphs for typeface
- Lupton fonts in the wild analysis (sketch the type, then discuss)
- sketches for Elam posters
- other things as assigned
Tutorials, quizzes, other in-class work (10%)
This is work that we complete in class and you turn in for credit. Most of these assignments will be pass/fail.
Participation (10%)
This class works best if it’s a collaboration instead of a lecture. Ask questions, voice opinions, challenge each other (productively, not harshly).