Our first class design project will be to create a Promotional Poster for an online type company.
Project Description
The company’s name will be one of three choices, Font Fish, Type Monkey, or Alphabet Soup.You will be designing a logotype for the company later in the semester, so choose a client name that you like.
Your client's chief competitor is FontShop, which sells fonts and is an online type resource. Your client’s goal is to position itself as a more innovative and creative typographic resource than its competitors, while specializing in high-quality, innovative as well as classic, typographic products and information.
Font Fish, Type Monkey, or Alphabet Soup is hiring you, as well as a group of other graphic designers, to create a series of innovative information posters covering a wide variety of typographic topics specifically geared towards discriminating graphic designers. You have specifically been asked to design a poster expressing Type Terminology, with an emphasis on Type Anatomy.
To help you understand the poster content and to gather text for the poster, you will research the topic by reading the Introduction (pgs 6-11), and Chapter Two: Terminology & Type Anatomy (pgs 89-101, and 106-111) in your textbook, Design School Type.*
The final poster size will be 11x17, in either a vertical and or horizontal format, and will be both printed and promoted online.
Project Parameters
To launch the project you have been asked to do the following:
• Write a Design Brief for the poster based upon our discussion of the project in class. Use the Basic Design Project Brief template posted on the class blog as a guide. Be succinct and as specific as possible. Remember, the final project will be due Tuesday, January 29th.
Compile this information and title it Creative Project Brief. You may want to layout the brief to make it look nice. Post it on your blog with a Post Title of P1 - Type Anatomy Poster, and link it to Design Projects no later than the beginning of class on Tuesday, January 15th.
Project Development
• Choose a catchy Word and/or Short Phrase, with a conceptual relationship to “typography” as well as your “chosen client’s name”, to use as the main visual for the poster.
• Typeset the word using as many, or as few, typeface(s) you need to graphically highlight and display as least twenty different Type Anatomy examples, as illustrated in your text. You may also highlight up to three Guidelines, three Terminals, and three Serif Anatomies within your total of twenty Type Anatomies.
• Locate each Anatomy Example on or within your word.
• Write a Title and a very short Caption to describe each of your highlighted Type Anatomies.
• Begin to sketch out some thumbnail concepts and possible layout directions for your Poster design.
Compile all of this information and add it to the P1 - Type Anatomy Poster Project Post no later than the beginning of class on Thursday, January 17th.
Project Schedule
The remainder of the project will follow this design schedule. Post all of your project process, including sketches, design iterations and development, to the Project Post, P1 - Type Anatomy Poster.
To help you layout and structure the message on the poster, you will conduct additional research by reading the Introduction (pgs 6-11), and Chapter Two: Anatomy of a Grid (pgs 45-57) in your second textbook, Design School Layout.**
Remember, the final poster, both digital and printed, is due Tuesday, January 29th at the beginning of class.
Project Launch Thursday, Jan 10th
Project Parameters Due Tuesday, Jan 15th
• Project Brief
- Description - Promotional Poster
- Sender - Type Company
- Audience - Graphic Designers
- Message - Type Anatomy
- Objective - Position Company as a Creative Resource for Type
- Specifications - 11x17, Print and Digital
- Schedule - Final Due Date Tuesday, January 29th
- Budget - $900 (30 hrs)
Project Development Due Thursday, Jan 17th
• Concept Development
- Creative Title / Phrase (Image & Concept)
• Research
- Reading Assignment: Design School Type, Intro & C2: Type Anatomy*
• Initial Design
- Typeset Word (Image & Concept)
- Locate 20 Type Anatomy Examples
• Poster Text
- Compile text for Type Anatomy Examples
Design Development Due Tuesday, Jan 22nd
• Highlight 20 Type Anatomy Examples within Title
• Layout the Poster
- Elements: Image, Text, & Space
- Structure: Grid, Visual Relationships
Design Finish Due Thursday, Jan 24th
• Research
- Reading Assignment: Design School Layout, Intro & C2: Anatomy of a Grid**• Concept Enhancement
• Edit and Spell Check Text
• Visual Refinement
• Finesse Craft
Final Design Due Tuesday, Jan 29th
• Fabricate & Disseminate
- Publish & Post
- Print & Trim
