OUGD404: Visual Literacy: Studio Task

Fred's session was a practical in which we looked at the anatomy of type and the different parts of each glyph. We were given a sheet of tracing paper and in the previous session we were asked to bring in 24 individual letter forms, 6 roman, 6 block, 6 gothic and 6 script.

We were set the task of increasing a stem on all three of our upper case roman letter forms:

It was interesting to see how changing one element of the letter form created a whole different font.

We were then asked to use the upper case B of our gothic letterforms, and change the bowls so one was as thin as possible and one was as thick as possible.

It was interesting to see that no one used a singular line for the bowl on the thinnest B, everyone had given it weight.

We were set another set of similar tasks which involved changing the thickness of the stems and the bowls. One problem with the sessions was not everyone had the correct tools, so some shapes were not accurate. If i was to improve my work I'd use the correct tools (compass, french curves, protractor) for the job. It was still very interesting to see how changing the different attributes of the letters created a whole new typeface of its own.