Cindy Chan

I chose Baskerville because it stood out from the rest of the typefaces, in a way. It seems elegant, well proportioned, and simple. Well-rounded is the description I’m looking for.

From this project, I learned to be patient and detail-oriented.

Yu Chong

The typeface I used for the assignment was Bodoni. I liked how different it looked compared to the other typefaces with serifs. Through this exercise, I was able to notice and learn characteristics of the typeface. One of the main thing I noticed was the size of the letters. Although the letters look the same size, when studied carefully, not all the letters were the same size both height and width. Not only were the curved portions of the letters slighty longer, the angular portions, such as letters A and N, also extended longer than the x height. The lowercase was found to be more difficult to write because of the extra details. The letters with ascenders was not straight like the normal serifs; they had a slight curved upwards stroke, which was difficult to draw. I was able to learn that the length of the serifs were not always the same due to the thickness of the stems. Drawing the letters allowed me to examine and notice the details of the letters.

Tracing the words first helped me to draw my name. I was able to see the pattern of the letters, like of the curved letters and the length of the serifs. In the case of the lower case, I noticed that although the u and n looked the same, just flipped, at first glance, there was a difference at the serif detail that I would have missed if other. The spacing was difficult at first. With two letters, the spacing did not look awkward but once the word was complete and I saw the full picture, I was able to see that I had a few places where the spacing was off. Having a draft helped with this, especially so that I did not have to start all over from step one. It also led to less erasing on the final draft because I already experimented and made outlines on the first draft. It was a long assignment but I was definitely able to learn of the basics of typography by drawing the letters.

Meghan Sharp

For this project I decided to choose Bodoni style. I chose Bodoni because I really liked how type looked more modern. While working it with it I realized that it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Bodoni was what became the modern type with the serif being boxed out instead of rounded on the edges. Trying to create the perfect serifs with perfect straight edges was really challenging. Also, working with the thick and thin relationship of certain letters became a challenge. While working on my name, free handed, it was difficult to do the M and the N without any help.

Another challenging part of this project was creating the perfect amount of space between each letter. I had a really tough time with R and A in my word “CRAFTY”. There was a lot of white space between the two of them at first when I did my first draft. I had so much space because I thought having them too close wouldn’t look right, when in fact having them closer made the whole word look more like a word and more put together. Even though this project was tedious and frustrating, it really made me understanding the art of type more and have more of an appreciation of it.

Gabrielle Swenson

I had chosen Baskerville mainly because of aesthetic reasons. The greater contrast between he thick and thin relationship as well as the curves made it more elegant and pleasing to the eye. I also thought it would not be that difficult to freehand, however looks can be deceiving.

This assignment was more beneficial than I expected. First, I learned how to work with the materials. I had never worked with different types of hardness and softness of pencils nor had I ever worked with tracing paper. The hard part and what I learned the most was from freehand drawing letters. Overall, I found lowercase letters were much more difficult because of all the curves. I really had to think of proportions with this font or it would look like a completely different typeface. It took me many practices to get close to the actual typeface. My goal was not to get caught up on making my freehand perfect, but it was to see how well I could forehand so that I could really pay attention to the thick and thin relationship and the curves.

I learned a lot from this assignment in the end and it made me more aware
the differences of each typeface and the details that differentiates each one.

Arooj Qumar

I chose the Baskerville font. I didn’t really think about the font that I chose at the time, but it did look aesthetically pleasing. I like the curves in the letters and that the font is sort of beautiful in a subtle way. I am actually glad that I chose this font because since I have two Os in my name, I have a font where the Os are not that big of a problem. They were still the hardest letters to draw, but I think it would have been harder with other serif fonts since the thinnest parts are not in the center and they are diagonal. With Baskerville, the Os thinnest parts are straight up and down.

When professor told us that we would be hand drawing the fonts, I didn’t think it would be that difficult. After doing it though, I understand what he meant by the task being tedious. It was even worse for me since I am left-handed so every time I drew a letter, I would smudge the entire area by putting my hand on it as I moved on to the next letter. This project requires a lot of slow, precise movements and a lot of erasing for me. I had problems with the spacing between the words, so I had to start over a few times because of it.

Overall, it was a tedious project, but I appreciate the font I chose a lot more than I did before. I actually looked at the curves of each letter more and which letter extended over the guidelines. I also had to be sure that I shaded the letters the same shade, so that also took awhile. In the end, I did like the project though despite it taking such a long time for me to complete.

Joo Ae Lee

When Professor Klein gave us a brief explanation of this project, I thought it would be a piece of cake because it was just simply tracing the letters and draw freehand. Therefore, I haven’t given much thought to pick the typeface. Since my name only contains five letters and my adjective ‘spiritual’ didn’t seem difficult to write, I thought I could write with any typefaces so I simply picked Baskerville. However, after I started to write these letters, I regret choosing it. If I get a chance to pick other typefaces, I would probably pick Helvetica.

Since Baskerville contains greater contrast between thick and thin, it wasn’t easy to just trace the letters. Even if I used tracing pads to trace, its thick and thin relationship made me hard to follow along the letters so I had to keep practice to figure out which part of the letters are thick and thin. My first name has two ‘O’s and drawing them was the hardest part out of all letters because its top and bottom were thinner than the sides. Not only the ‘O’ but lower case ‘a’ was tough to draw because of its bowl. I also never knew that the bracketed serif such as ‘t’ and ‘u’ would be this hard to follow along. Even though the brackets were clear and serifs were flat, I kept drawing outside of its shape. Therefore, I thought it might’ve been better to choose sans-serif typefaces.

The letter spaces and line spaces were also important in this project so I tried to give even spaces between letters and the leading but it was harder than I thought. The adjective ‘spiritual’ had nine letters and it was not easy to keep the same distance for each letters. Therefore, I traced them carefully so that I won’t make any mistakes by extending the exterior shape. This project was a challenging task for me because even if I pay attention to every detail of letters and practice with a lot of drafts, I still couldn’t get the perfect shape.

Katherine Ortiz

Typeface Analysis

As the professor mentioned this was a very tedious task to compete. However, practicing drawing these letters changed the way I look at letters. It made me pay closer attention to the details of each letter. I didn’t have a real reason in choosing Garamound, but I saw it was somewhat simple to do. Before starting the project I would notice where the letter was thicker and thinner. Also what was the a center and the d center of each letter.

The capital letters were much easier to draw than the lowercase letters because it was less measuring and more stems. The lowercase letters had three lines to be measured, which were the top height, middle height, and lower. I feel that my lowercase letters came out much better than my capital letters because I started to practice with the capital letters first. I also knew how to do the letter spacing better with the lowercase letters. Also with the lowercase letters I could draw the curves and serifs better.

Each piece I had to draw twice in order to perfect it more. Sometimes in the shading of each letter I would shade too much in the letter, therefore making it thicker and less similar to the original letter. This project required a lot of carefulness with each letter and made me appreciate typefaces even more. I find myself looking at each letter when reading something and analyzing the details, questioning myself how that style came about.

Christina Coleman

For this project, I chose Baskerville as my typeface. This is because of the adjective I received, “charming;” I felt the detail in the type had an almost royal kind of feel to it, which aided to the adjective. I honestly wasn’t thinking this would be too hard, to draw freehand and then trace. However, I was proved wrong when it took days to complete, rather than hours. Another difficult issue I had to overcome was the use of pencils. It seemed like I was constantly trying to erase my smudges rather than trace letters.

The hand-writing analysis definitely made me more aware of detail. I know my finished product does not 100% replicate the typeface, but it made me train myself to notice where the curves in the brackets were and how large each letter should be. This project also made me realize that my drawings will not be perfect the first time. It will take me many drafts to achieve the look I want, and even then it may not turn out the way I imagined it to be prior to starting.

Ector Xagoraris

I chose the Bodoni font as the chosen font for a various amount of reasons. i figured it would be easier to draw the O as the o had a straight vertical axis unlike Garamond and Baskerville where it was slightly offset. However, that did not make it any easier. there was frustration achieving the neatly curved shape of it i had to start from scratch multiple times as a result to get it to what i ended up with which is not perfect but i can live with it. it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the traced letters and handdrawn letters as i colored them in. i had to make some adjustments to get them to as identical as i possibly could.

Tracing the letters proved difficult as the lack of the freehand gives the impression that it will be easy and with ease comes carelessness.  the handdrawn letters required a level of meticulous and accuracy that i tend to not express in other aspects of my life so it was a challenge, but doable. it was cool to get a ruler out and measures various sections of the letters to get a feel for the demensions of them, i felt like i was back in the old days creating the fonts myself.

The Professor was right, this was a tedious task and while this is a design class, the process was very analytical.

Place your analysis in the Homework 2 folder. In your analysis, talk about the typeface you chose and why you chose it. Also tell what you learned from this project.

Be sure to type your name at the beginning of your analysis.