My final piece ended up being a poster advertising a new jewellery magazine instead of being a magazine cover.

This is because I thought it looked nicer and was struggling to find a suitable picture for the front of a magazine.

The text underneath ‘a new jewellery magazine coming soon’ explains my typeface using words that I relate to the typeface.
I find the typeface to be feminine because of the curvature and the decoration. the decoration also makes it unique and different to every other typeface.

I took the black outline away from my typeface as i thought it made it look messy. I added a drop shadow just to give the text some depth as the poster is quite flat and the letters looked like they were bleeding into each other. The font is suitable for the purpose of a jewellery magazine.

 

This is the first draft of my magazine to show mike the concept of my typeface being used for a feminine magazine.

 

The feedback i got from mike was to create magazine tailgates/titles which explain things about my font such as target audience, why it appeals to them. I will also find a more professional magazine picture and correct the kerning of the typeface.

 

I started to develop my typeface by using an existing typefaces to base my design on.
I struggled with getting the width of the individual letters to the correct size and had
to re draw the typeface a few times. The height I drew my typeface at was 3cm because
it made it easier to divide into the thirds grid which makes the letters easier to proportion.

This is the first attempt at drawing my typeface. As you can see I found faults with it such as letter width, difficulty with curves, letters being out of the thirds grid and the letter spacing (kerning) looking wrong. After noticing these things I decided that 2.5cm width was correct for the capital letters but I should take the the lower case letters down to 2cm width. I also decided that getting the right curve would take a few attempts and maybe some extra grid work and a steady hand. With the width being taken down to 2cm the letters would be more proportionate and so would stay in the thirds grid. The kerning would be left until my typeface had been scanned into the computer.

I also tried a slim version as I thought mine looked a bit too similar to an existing typeface.

To get to grips with creating a typeface by drawing I drew out existing typefaces. I like the simplicity of the more cubic designs but I think my typeface will have curved edges as I like things to flow smoothly.

 

Kerning

“kerning is an adjustment of space between two letters.” (http://thinkingwithtype.com/contents/text/#Kerning)

Metric kerning uses the kerning tables that are built into the typeface.

Optical kerning is executed automatically by the page layout program. Rather than using the pairs addressed in the font’s kerning table, optical kerning assesses the shapes of all characters and adjusts the spacing wherever needed.

Tracking

“Adjusting the overall spacing of a group of letters is called tracking or letterspacing. By expanding the tracking across a word, line, or entire block of text, the designer can create a more airy, open field.” (http://thinkingwithtype.com/contents/text/#Kerning)

Designers most commonly apply tracking to headlines and logos.

You can express the meaning of a word or an idea through the spacing, sizing, and placement of letters on the page.