Advanced Typography Assignment: Part 3

Well, my Advanced Typography class at UCLA Extension is almost at an end. I just got back from my second-to-last class, where I handed in my revised "Echo Park" magazine spreads, as well as a first-draft of a new assignment. I figure I'm overdue for sharing this stuff on the ol' blog...

First, we have the Echo Park designs. I first posted about this back in October. Basically, we all chose neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area and created expressive type-treatments that incorporated characteristics of the neighborhood, as well as infusing our own personal opinions. Next, we took our finished designs and put them into a magazine spread, further exploring creative uses of type while handling the text and other page matter.

I chose the historic Echo Park neighborhood, and you saw my first attempts with the magazine spreads (I'll post them again here, below). I tried three very different approaches. The feedback from the instructor was to push them all much further; rely less on images and shapes, focus on the typography and not to be afraid of challenging the "readability." The latter was very difficult for me (and some of the others in the class, too), as readability seems pretty important for a magazine spread!

However, the point of these exercises is that an artist can always dial back, and make a design more conservative. But it is liberating for designers to push themselves past their comfort zone and explore ideas that would never even occur to them, sticking to safe design choices. Clearly, school is the place to work on this, since there will never be as much freedom on a paying job, and I'm making the most of it.

Here's design one, before...


...and after...



Design two was supposed to look like a slick architecture magazine, like Dwell. Here's the first go...


..and here it is after a couple of revised versions...



The last version is a huge newspaper section. Before...


...and, after...



This was fun and extremely challenging. To be honest, I'm not convinced that they are truly resolved. I could go on tweaking individual type elements on these pages forever, and I don't know if they'd ever look "finished." That said, this is just a school project, and regardless of what I may think of the finished product, I learned a hell of a lot while working on them.

Today, I handed in the first-draft of my last project for this class. The assignment is to choose a musical group, and a charitable organization, and design an invitation to a fund-raising event where the band will be appearing. The idea is to bring the individual characters & styles of both into a design appropriate for the event. I chose the group Metric, and the Alzheimers Association for my charity. Here's what I have come up with, so far...





I presented these in class today, along with my "mood board" that shows what I'm using as inspiration; work by David Carson, Neville Brody and a bunch or other stuff. My designs went over pretty well, I'm happy to report. In previous assignments I believe that I relied too strongly on images and illustrative elements. Not really a shocker, since I'm an illustrator. As this is a typography class, I've been working hard to get away from my own comfort zone and solve design problems using only type and letter forms. I think I finally achieved that here.

I did receive some good suggestions for my revisions, due next week. I'll be sure to post my progress again here. Of course, I'd be happy to hear any feedback from you, as well, if you have any to share.

Advanced Typography Assignment: Part 2

Just got home from my class with a lot of food for thought (and, happily, a lot of yummy food waiting for me, because I was starving!)

In general, my "Echo Park" designs went over pretty well with the other students. But, as I expected, my type treatments were far too conservative for my teacher. He really wants us to push the limits of our creativity—and the piece's readability.

So be it!

For this week's homework, we're taking the three designs to the next level. In the spirit of the class, I'm going to throw caution to the wind and totally deconstruct them. It ain't gonna be pretty! I'll post my progress later in the week...

Advanced Typography Assignment

So, here's the latest from my Advanced Typography class. We've been working on designing a logo for a Los Angeles neighborhood, using whatever combinations of fonts & letterforms best express the area's individual character. The instructor has been really pushing us to experiment and move beyond typical, conservative designs. I suppose it's easier to reign yourself in than it is to push yourself to the limits. There have been some really interesting results from everyone in class.

For my neighborhood, I chose Echo Park, which is an historic area close to Downtown LA, near Dodger Stadium. After fooling around with many different concepts, this week we were tasked with taking our logos and incorporating them into a magazine spread of some kind. I tried three different versions, going for very different looks & feels...

This one would be in an edgy local paper like the LA Weekly or Village Voice

This one is more of a slick, glossy magazine deal. Like Dwell or similar.

This one is a big, ol' newspaper section.

These were fun. I wonder if they're too conservative for my teacher. Guess I'll find out tomorrow night & let you know what revisions I'll be doing for round two!

More Class!

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a month since my last post. I guess things have been busy around here since the new school year started for my son, and for me.

This semester I'm taking two courses toward the completion of my Certificate in Advanced Print & Graphic Communication: Advanced Typography and Advertising Design. So far, I am happy to report that both classes are exceptional.

My last class (Publication Design ) was kind of a mixed bag. Since I work in publishing, much of the material was familiar. In addition, this particular course was taught online, and lacked the creative interaction and collaborative energy that has been so stimulating for me since I started taking these courses. I've heard many complaints from other students about the online classes at UCLA Extension. They really need to work on making the experience more interactive. By coincidence, I am currently building an online class for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. They appear to have a much better grasp on how to replicate the classroom environment online. In some ways, my UCLA class was a valuable lesson on what not to do in that regard!

That said, the best part of Publication Design was working on the homework assignments. I enjoyed stretching my creative legs, working on the kinds of projects that don't normally cross my desk as freelance assignments. I'm really getting into the whole graphic design "thing," and would like to do more of it on the future.

In my last post, I showed off a book cover design I was working on. Since then, I received some feedback from my instructor, and I tweaked it a bit. She admonished me for stretching the type on the logo (rightly so!), and felt the gun was an unnecessary element. Below is my new version. I'm not entirely sold on it, but admit that it is easier to look at than my first attempt...



My two new courses have been very interesting, and I'm happy to be back in the physical classroom, interacting with other humans! I may have said it before, but I think I've been freelance too long! Both classes are very conceptual, and we're digging deeply into the creative processes of typography and the world of advertising. For the past two weeks in Advanced Typography, we have been playing with letter forms to give different meanings to old adages. This was a lot of fun, actually. For the first week, we had to physically cut & paste pieces of type onto paper (like making a ransom note), experimenting with shapes, sizes and space. Later, we scanned the letters and continued the process digitally, creating many versions with different meanings. Here are a couple of mine that I like...







Fun stuff. The instructor is great. He gets so excited about type that he is exactly the guy you want to teach you this class. He's really trying to push us all out of our comfort zones, encouraging us to go "out there" with our designs. I'm already learning a lot.

Tonight I have my advertising class--also great fun. We've been doing research as we build a whole campaign for an art museum. Very interesting work, I'll have to tell you all more about it later. In fact, I need to buckle down and finish my homework assignment right now, so it's time to sign off. Excuse me while I get my Donald Draper on!