Reflections of Practice - Typeface design at...

Reflections of PracticeNajla M. Badran

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Master ofArts in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, UK. June 2015

Table of Content

Introduction - 3

1. Non-Arabic type design - 4

2. Ascenders and descenders - 4

3. Building consistency: a pattern without a pattern - 5

4. The Serif - 6, 7

5. The Bold - 8, 9

6. The Sans - 10

7. New yet familiar: Greek - 11

8. Simple and sturdy: Cyrillic - 12

9. A bold to a regular, a serif for a sans: Arabic - 13, 14, 15

10. The upright Italic - 16

11. Scripts and character set vs weight and interpolation - 16

Conclusion - 17

Introduction

Multi script typography has been of interest to me for many years, my aim upon embarking on my Masters in Type Design at the University of Reading was to design a Latin typeface that suited my needs as a typographer, yet helped me gain the most and learn what I needed to design a typeface that adapted well in multi script environments, and would be harmonious alongside Arabic.This reflection of practice is the perfect opportunity to put things in perspective; it helps one realize what obstacles they have overcome throughout the year, and through this one can see how things came to life from the sketches to completion. I have organized this essay according to how things developed along the year.Planning a brief for the typeface was not an easy thing to do, as one had to have a concept, audience and most importantly a need for this concept. While tackling my brief the core aspect for me was harmonizing between Arabic and Latin, as working on past projects had brought to my attention the need for bilingual typefaces that work well alongside each other. My main idea was designing a typeface for print material; magazines and brochures that was well balanced in multi-script environments. This typeface would cover Latin, Arabic, Greek and Cyrillic, and comprise various weights and different styles, specifically for Arabic where slanting to create an italic is not a solution, so I attempted to design an italic version for Arabic based on Riq’aa.

3

Non-Arabic type design

Before coming to Reading, I had worked on some Arabic type design projects, so I was more comfortable and familiar with designing an Arabic typeface, but when it came to Latin type design even though I am well acquainted with the Latin script it was still quite hard to initialize a concept that felt unique and worked well for the conceived environment.

Ascenders and descenders.

At an early stage it was crucial to define the proportions of my letters, and have a harmonious relationship between my Latin and Arabic. Since there is an obvious verticality versus horizontality across both scripts, I had to work on certain aspects that would bring both together. An important aspect in Arabic – apart from being connected and having a strong baseline- is its long ascenders and descenders, so I applied that to my Latin, decreasing my x-height a bit and giving it longer ascenders and descenders.

magnificentأمواج

One of the first sketches for the typeface.

High ascenders and low decenders across both scripts.

4

Building consistency: A pattern without a pattern

“the letters in the alphabet must all have the same style, but at the same time, each letter must be clearly differentiated from all others.” - Detail in typography, Jost Hochuli.

In order to achieve consistency, there are certain aspects within a typeface that should have consistency. Starting off I perceived this to mean that certain forms must be repeated throughout my typeface, and applied aspects from my lower case “ a ” to my “ n, m, h, u, r, b, d, p, q ”, which resulted in my typeface being repetitive, boring and quite often not readable. I was focused on consistency throughout the typeface in the form of repetitiveness rather than in the form of the writing tool and the flow of the pen along different shapes within the letterforms. I did not consider that the “ r ” would start at a lower point within the stem unlike the “ n ” which would start higher. One should keep in mind the movement of their tool, the form of the letter on its own and the consistency across letters as a typeface.

“If the rhythm is weak, the word is poorly formed; if the rhythm is absent, there is no word, even if the letters are scattered across a paper in the proper sequence.” The stroke, theory of writing, Gerrit Noordzij

Initial trials of the b, d, p and q. At the time the writing tool was not put into consideration hence the repetitive appearance.

5

The Serif

Being quite accustomed to sans serif typefaces, it was hard for me to conceptualize my serif. I wanted something simple enough to not grab too much attention from my design yet be unique enough to make it stand out. I realized along the way that that was not right, that the way my serif acted would affect the whole flow of my typeface. During the first few months I was restraining my design by trying to keep it simple and worrying that if I changed my serif too much it would be quite similar to those of my colleagues, which would result in having similar designs This turned out to never be the case as even if our serifs had similarities our letter shapes would still be different.

After months of trying the safe ideas and getting the feedback from Gerry that the serif was not working with my typeface, I couldn’t find the right idea, nor could I find the right tool that would create my letter shapes and my desired serifs. The serifs I had needed completely different letter shapes and the letter shapes I wanted needed different serifs. I started to get derailed from my design and could not see anything but the fact that my serifs did not work and was no longer bettering my design, but rather just stopped in my tracks. Gerry saw that I was getting lost in this slippery slope and told me to ignore my serifs and focus on my letter shapes, and that the serifs would come eventually. So I focused on my bold, diacritics and re-adjusted the widths of the regular.

It was 6 months into the course and during a meeting with Gerard Unger that I finally sketched an idea I had of what I wanted and that was when everything changed. I was given two choices: either to change many aspects of what I had in my typeface to make the existing serif work, or try to test the new idea and decide. I chose the latter, since so far the one I had was not doing me any good. After many months of trials and error it was the right decision, and from there on I could finally see my typeface developing drastically.

Sketching alternate serifs on 23 December 2015

The final serif.

The final serif, applied on the n

The pre - final serif sketching.

n6

Different developments of the serif along the year, from start to finish.

One of the first feedbacks with Gerry, notice comment below n, «serifs look like triangles».

7

The Bold

Initially, the concept of designing a bold version appeared to be very simple, as all that was needed was for all the thin strokes to become thicker. While this may seem feasible, in practice it does not hold true. There are many factors that arise that I had not put into consideration, for example, how much the white space will affect the heaviness of the bold, and how in order to visually have the same height between this weight and the regular, the bold needed to be taller because the increase in weight made it seem shorter. Gerrard Unger had stated that at some point during working on his regular, he stops and starts working on his bold, and often the bold solves obstacles that occur within the regular, which is what also happened in my design process. Designing the bold helped me figure out various solutions for certain letters and then adjusting them through the regular and bold to provided that right fix. An amusing occurrence worth mentioning here is that at a certain stage, there was a need for me to widen the bold version, only to have to narrow it down again a few weeks later. This may have been due to my narrowing the regular weight, or may have had its own reasons. What I can express from this experience is that testing widths was a very important aspect while designing my typeface; while the variation may have been only one or two percent, it made a huge impact.

Feedback from Gerrard Unger to raise my x-height for the bold.

8

February bold width test, making it narrower from 100 - 85 %

trinality knarry rata analkalinity an tayir layaway what rimy a lixivium wall kiln laminarin unilaminar multifamily intail mazily fraktur ha whirr lax militarily flan am luminaria jut alula kaama antivitamin a unmilitant a ark ya arm ram rutty inurn if flaff arian trifilar trank rank mink tiraz kvutza unmarry numnah infinitival maharawat ax multivalvular hank frat fit wanwit trinitarian a inhumanly antithalian airwayman marmaritin it tnt ark zamarra ha lint maximum ha natantly annually aim haft marl travally aah unultra affinal ran yannam annularity ax a rut tart miauw far yin wall a inky via mutant at manfully ha unmammalian frat franklin fumant thankfully wrathfully familiarity uni inwall fizz alt mummia infamiliarity fax wanthill tafwiz hat tv win ink ha flatman whatman a wail nummi



trinality knarry rata analkalinity an tayir layaway what rimy a lixivium wall kiln laminarin unilaminar multifamily intail mazily fraktur ha whirr lax militarily flan am luminaria jut alula kaama antivitamin a unmilitant a ark ya arm ram rutty inurn if flaff arian trifilar trank rank mink tiraz kvutza unmarry numnah infinitival maharawat ax multivalvular hank frat fit wanwit trinitarian a inhumanly antithalian airwayman marmaritin it tnt ark zamarra ha lint maximum ha natantly annually aim haft marl travally aah unultra affinal ran yannam annularity ax a rut tart miauw far yin wall a inky via mutant at manfully ha unmammalian frat franklin fumant thankfully wrathfully familiarity uni inwall fizz alt mummia infamiliarity fax wanthill tafwiz hat tv win ink ha flatman whatman a wail nummi affirmant taratantara kujawiak faux mahalla rimy malik auryl hay alkalinuria mamilla amyl lax militantly lunar waif mammilla am fritillary ray kiwi um anna



95% 90%

trinality knarry rata analkalinity an tayir layaway what rimy a lixivium wall kiln laminarin unilaminar multifamily intail mazily fraktur ha whirr lax militarily flan am luminaria jut alula kaama antivitamin a unmilitant a ark ya arm ram rutty inurn if flaff arian trifilar trank rank mink tiraz kvutza unmarry numnah infinitival maharawat ax multivalvular hank frat fit wanwit trinitarian a inhumanly antithalian airwayman marmaritin it tnt ark zamarra ha lint maximum ha natantly annually aim haft marl travally aah unultra affinal ran yannam annularity ax a rut tart miauw far yin wall a inky via mutant at manfully ha unmammalian frat franklin fumant thankfully wrathfully familiarity uni inwall fizz alt mummia infamiliarity fax wanthill tafwiz hat tv win ink ha flatman whatman a wail nummi affirmant taratantara kujawiak faux mahalla rimy malik auryl hay alkalinuria mamilla amyl lax

trinality knarry rata analkalinity an tayir layaway what rimy a lixivium wall kiln laminarin unilaminar multifamily intail mazily fraktur ha whirr lax militarily flan am luminaria jut alula kaama antivitamin a unmilitant a ark ya arm ram rutty inurn if flaff arian trifilar trank rank mink tiraz kvutza unmarry numnah infinitival maharawat ax multivalvular hank frat fit wanwit trinitarian a inhumanly antithalian airwayman marmaritin it tnt ark zamarra ha lint maximum ha natantly annually aim haft marl travally aah unultra affinal ran yannam annularity ax a rut tart miauw far yin wall a inky via mutant at manfully ha unmammalian frat franklin fumant thankfully wrathfully familiarity uni inwall fizz alt mummia infamiliarity fax wanthill tafwiz hat tv win ink ha flatman whatman a wail nummi affirmant taratantara kujawiak faux mahalla rimy malik auryl hay alkalinuria mamilla amyl lax militantly lunar

trinality knarry rata analkalinity an tayir layaway what rimy a lixivium wall kiln laminarin unilaminar multifamily intail mazily fraktur ha whirr lax militarily flan am luminaria jut alula kaama antivitamin a unmilitant a ark ya arm ram rutty inurn if flaff arian trifilar trank rank mink tiraz kvutza unmarry numnah infinitival maharawat ax multivalvular hank frat fit wanwit trinitarian a inhumanly antithalian airwayman marmaritin it tnt ark zamarra ha lint maximum ha natantly annually aim haft marl travally aah unultra affinal ran yannam annularity ax a rut tart miauw far yin wall a inky via mutant at manfully ha unmammalian frat franklin fumant thankfully wrathfully familiarity uni inwall fizz alt mummia infamiliarity fax wanthill tafwiz hat tv win ink ha flatman whatman a wail nummi affirmant taratantara kujawiak faux mahalla rimy malik auryl hay alkalinuria mamilla amyl lax militantly lunar waif mammilla am




90% 88% 85

9

The Sans

In a discussion with Gerrard Unger during one of his sessions, it was pointed out that designers usually do not use the serif and sans from the same family while choosing typefaces, as they are at times too similar visually to give the distinction one may need. While designing a sans for an existing serif family, some may design on the structure or basis of their existing serif. This is the scenario I personally started with, by removing the serifs from the main structure of the typeface and afterwards decreasing modulation. But even at that point I could still see it felt bland and boring, and I had to decide whether I wanted a boring san serif that would work, or a san serif that was more appealing and captivating. I chose the latter, as I did not want a boring san serif but rather one with more attitude. In order to achieve this, I started by adjusting the modulation, terminals and the forms of the letters, so they had the underlying structure of the serif version yet a different overall look in modulation and development. This actually helped make the design work better because when placed alongside the serif version, it was different enough to work with it yet not too different that it felt like an entirely different typeface, (as told to me by Victor Gaultney).

Initial concept for the Sans, which felt quite bland. Flaring and contrast added to provide character.

n10

New yet familiar:Greek

When it came to designing Greek, it felt quite simple, and even though I had never used or designed Greek prior to Gerry’s workshop, it felt like I had been doing it for some time. During the second session of the workshop with Gerry we had to design a few letters, and it was during that day that I managed to design more that half the required letters. Of course, these needed adjusting and fine tuning but it was off to a quick start, from then and for the weeks to come I was captivated by this exotic script that was unknown yet familiar, easy yet brimming with reverse contrast in the strokes. To this day I am unsure whether the ease of designing this script was due to my familiarity with the curves of the Arabic script or merely because the Greek script to me was interesting yet enjoyable and I am excited to keep expanding the alternate versions for my typeface.

First trial of greek

Development with feedback from Gerry Leonidas

11

Simple and sturdy:Cyrillic

Initially, Cyrillic struck me as a highly interesting script; it felt similar to Latin and yet it was very different. It had a sturdy feel to it, certain aspects of it seemed quite simple and to the point, yet other aspects felt complex and unknown. I was reluctant to start it at first, though once I started it went well, but then there were features like the serifs in the Cyrillic which needed to be quite long, and no matter how much I elongated them they would need more. For these details feedback from Victor Gaultney was always interesting, because though I would feel that something looked balanced, he would express that length was needed to compensate for certain aspects where my serif would make it feel imbalanced. Other features such as the width of the details in certain letters which I thought needed more space rather than less proved to be contrary, and these would stand out within running text.

Second feedback with Victor Gaultney on Cyrillic.

12

A bold to a regular, a serif for a sans:Arabic

Even though I was no stranger to designing an Arabic typeface, I wanted to gain the most out of this year and studying under Fiona Ross. I had previously done low contrast designs but wanted to push myself to design a version of my typeface which was high in contrast for the serif version. I started to look at different styles of Naskh from the book “Splendors of Qur’an” by Martin Lings, to help inspire me for my typeface. I had sketched different letters inspired by those different styles, but when it had come to digitizing there was very often something that would go wrong with my Arabic. So after a conversation with Fiona where she said that Tim Holloway often started his Arabic designs by doing his bold first, I tried that approach, and things started to click. From there I went from bold to regular, and adjusted aspects across both while progressing.It was at this time that the challenge of adding contrast presented itself. Every time I would try to apply contrast there was always the obstacle of things being too heavy or weak. I kept on attempting to make my Arabic high contrast but then I realized that I was wasting more time on trying to make a high contrast happen rather than making what I already had work. At this time I slowly abandoned the idea of a high contrast and went with what I had. Also, having visiting lecturers like Patrick Giasson was quite beneficial, as having a new set of eyes giving feedback helped me when I was at a standstill. At the time of his visit, certain aspects of my Arabic were all right, yet did not feel right. His feedback was helpful in offering solutions for bettering these aspects.Later on, during various tests to check that the color and texture were balanced I started to realize that my Arabic was a bit heavy for my serif version and decided to test it alongside my sans version instead. When testing the Arabic next to the sans, I realized that it matched perfectly. As a result, I abandoned efforts of matching the design to that of the serif version and instead made modifications that would make it better work alongside the sans, and the process went smoothly from thereon.

مم

Initial Sketches.

Final Mim Regular

Final Mim Bold

13

Inspiration images for Splendours of Quraan

Early attempts at a high contrast Arabic.

Razeen arabic, initially designed to work alongside Razeen, but was more well balanced alongside Razeen Sans.

Initial Sketches.

Razeen is a typeface designed for bilingual publications and print material where more than one scripts are used alongside each other. The purpose is to help create a harmonious and balanced design in situations where multiple scripts are being used simultaneously; hence the name Razeen meaning well-balanced in Arabic.

Razeen is a typeface designed for bilingual publications and print material where more than one scripts are used alongside each other. The purpose is to help create a harmonious and balanced design in situations where multiple scripts are being used simultaneously; hence the name Razeen meaning well-balanced in Arabic.

رزين هو خط مصمم للمنشورات ثنائية اللغة والمواد المطبوعة حيث

يتم استخدام أكثر من مخطوطة واحدة إىل جانب بعضها البعض.

والغرض من ذلك هو مساعدة عىل إنشاء تصميم متناغم عىل الرغم من

وجود مخطوطات متعددة ال يزال هناك تنسيق وتوازن، ومن هنا

جاءت تسميته رزين بمعىن متوازنة بشكل جيد باللغة العربية.

14

A beneficial aspect especially was having someone familiar with the script in the program. Towards the end we were all scrambling around trying to meet with Fiona, also having Sahar Afshar a fellow MATD Res. who is a native reader was good because I could keep developing and would get more benefits from meeting with Fiona.

An important point that one should put into consideration is time management; confident that designing my Arabic wouldn’t take time because previously this had quite often been the case, I had not contemplated that possible obstacles may occur at any given time. Towards the end of the semester everyone in the program needed to meet with Fiona to receive feedback on their designs, and this would create a time deficiency for reaching the desired quality while also fine-tuning the Latin version alongside other scripts.

Feedback from Patrick Giasson

Arabic Italic, Proof of concept.

15

The upright Italic

A concept that I was quite attached to right until the very end was the desire to design an upright Italic. Most probably this attachment stemmed from the fact that I was not slanting my Arabic, and so I decided to use other aspects which Victor Gaultney had discussed during one of his lectures about italics. He expressed that there are various ways one could design an italic, so I decided on elongating my terminals, changing x-heights, making my italic narrower and in the case of the more high contrast italic, it was even heavier rather than thinner which is more traditional. One factor I did not put in consideration was that rather than producing the idea I wanted, I ended up having an italic which slanted backwards (meaning left rather than right) and to compensate for that back slant I needed to actually slant my italic to create an upright italic. To achieve this, it merely needed a 1.5 percent slant to get the perfect balance; this obstacle which turned into an exercise was quite intriguing.

Scripts and character set vs weight and interpolation

The task of designing more weights for my typeface or interpolating was something I consciously pushed towards the end of the project. This was due to the fact that certain aspects of the regular weight had been abandoned in the design of the bold, and so interpolation was not an option. Rather, the weights between the two I already had needed to be designed. Later on I started considering interpolating my sans but then decided that fine tuning my scripts and making what I had work was a higher priority to having more weights.

Notice in the bold n the second half of the second serif has been removed to provide white space.

First testing for the italic, slanting back rather than being upright or slanting forward. This was due to the long terminals

nn

16

Conclusion

The Project of designing Razeen during this year has been a mind-opening journey and an exciting project. I have learned more than I had imagined, and came to many realizations about multi script environments. I had always considered that in order to design a typeface that would work well in both Latin and Arabic, the two designs would need to have the same x-height (mim-height) but in reality all they need is the same texture and feel, and more aspects are visual rather than technical. One important point that I would have wanted to account for better was time management, I had a very broad brief and I was unable to cover all I wanted and as an alternate solution I sent in proof of concepts rather than finished work to convey the idea I wanted for an Arabic italic. This project led to lots of experimentation and I have learned a great deal because of this.Finally, studying with such a diverse group of people created a friendly environment to work in, apart from receiving feedback from various practitioners and visiting lecturers.

Balanced

simple and unique, different and related

uprightsharp and smooth

clear and not simpleSTURDY

Reguar

Cyrillic

Greek

Arabic

Italic

Cyrillic Bold

Greek Bold

Arabic Bold

Bold

Structure of tHe typeface family

Individuality

مختلف

Individuality

مختلف

Individuality

ατομικότηταατομικότητα

индивидуальностьиндивидуальность

Individualityindividuality

individuality

Sans

Sans Italic

Sans Bold

ججبب

As a starting point for my Arabic Italic equivilant, the design was based on the Riq'aa calligraphic script in Arabic, which is written quite fast, which results in thicker lines, more condensed writing, often teeth of the seen disappear, letters which usually occur below the line float above or are shortened. Hence for this design the terminals flare, stroke thickness is increased, pen turns are sharper, and "mim" height is shortened.

arabic italic (riq'aa)

متوازننعمة قوية

يعيش عىل البساطة

سهل وبسيط

17

Reflections of Practice - Typeface design at...

Documents

Transcript of Reflections of Practice - Typeface design at...