This exercise is designed to help you to look at typefaces more closely. You will need a sharp pencil, some tracing or thin paper and a ruler. On the facing page the typeface Baskerville has been deconstructed so it only contains the strokes, serifs and bowls that are common to all the letterforms. Your task is to try and put it all back together again to read
This is a pangram containing all the letters of the alphabet. It is all in lowercase. Start by drawing your baseline, determine the x height by identifying a whole letter such as x, e or n and draw your median line. This should provide a good starting point to try and piece together all the other elements. Remember that some parts will be used more than once, for example the same stem will be used in several letters. Try and account for all the parts without leaving any stray serifs behind.
Do not worry if you get this exercise wrong, it is just a way to get used to looking at and analysing typefaces, appreciating the finer detailing of it and recognising repeat patterns, such as using the same bowl shape throughout the typeface. If you do get it wrong then you might have ended up designing your first typeface!
Having spent some time looking closely at typefaces,
has your appreciation of them increased?
If so in any particular aspect?
Do you think that understanding more about how typefaces are constructed will be useful to you in future?
Make notes in your learning log.
It was quite a fun exercise, but a bit challenging since I don't have a printer at the moment (due to Covid-19 I am in Western Australia and not in my own home).
I did made it though which was harder then if I could do it all off the printed page.
I did noticed that the page with the "Puzzle pieces" was not exactly Baskerville font, since some corners were still slightly different.
I feel that after this chapter so far, I'm way more aware of typefaces and their visual language!
has your appreciation of them increased?
Yes! I even decided to change the fonts of my blog and website here!
If so in any particular aspect?
I think that now I am way more aware of how typeface and different fonts talk to people (at least to me) and how to use them better to create or deliver a message better.
Do you think that understanding more about how typefaces are constructed will be useful to you in future?
For sure, a big part of the visual language is typeface, this is how we emphasize the physical verbal message - by Typeface!
So now I have a better understanding on which font will be better and how to construct my own fonts too
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