TYPEOGRAPHIC GLOSSARY
Summary: Within this project, we were to create a typographic glossary filled with 64 definitions and examples of typographic terms. Our glossaries had to follow the given design guidelines while incorporating our own typefaces and type spacing choices. The glossary had to be readable and accessible, with a cover page that demonstrated intrigue.
Goals: I had two main goals for this project. My first goal was to create a coherent and readable glossary that followed a simple design system without being too uninteresting. My second goal was to further improve my skills utilizing Adobe InDesign, as it was the Adobe program I was least familiar with. The combination of these two would aid in my future goal of creating booklets within InDesign similar to this typographic glossary.
FONT EXPERIMENTS
Before beginning this project, I worked with 3 different exercises in order to experiment with type.
Exercise 1 involved experimentation with different typefaces and word/letter spacing in order to demonstrate visuals. For example, using a thick typeface as a header and a condensed typeface as the body text provides a clear indication of thick vs. thin. This demonstrates how type can be altered to influence the way the viewer defines the type.
Exercise 2 involved experimentation with typefaces in order to provide a clear and cohesive readability that one might find within a glossary. I had to learn to understand how important kerning and leading are when creating a very readable set of body text. It was also important to choose a type that, while readable, would not be visually boring.
Exercise 3 involved experimentation with the type chosen in Exercise 2 and how it would look if placed in an actual glossary format. When placed vertically on a page in order to match glossary definitions, the typeface could become condensed or visually unappealing. This was a key preliminary step in creating my glossary, as it allowed me to determine which typeface would genuinely be the most visually coherent in this format.
PRELIMINARY GLOSSARY BUILD
For the preliminary build, I had to learn to place images in InDesign so that they would fit into the structured boxes provided to me by my professor. First, I had to link the files associated with each image. Then, I selected each structured box and file and placed each image into its associated box. In the future, I will now know how to use visual examples to accompany text pages I make in Adobe InDesign.
In the exercises, I chose to use more condensed and light fonts. My heading font was Helvetica light, the body text font was Iowan Old Style Roman, and the definition font was Iowan Old Style Italic. I chose these fonts because of their easy readability as well as my own personal interest in light and somewhat airy fonts. This, combined with the images I placed earlier, created a visually appealing glossary format that I also felt wasn't lackadaisical.
COVER PAGE & BACK PAGE
For my cover and back of my glossary booklet, I chose a minimal yet interesting design. I cropped the "&" symbol off of the page so to help enforce the odd shapes the lettering was making. I also made my cover utilizing the Iowan Old Style Roman font, so that it would match the typeface used within my glossary. I also chose to reflect the pages so that when my booklet was printed and folded the design would wrap around the spine of the glossary creating a unique and eye catching visual effect.
PRINTED GLOSSARY
I learned a significant amount from printing out my glossary. Some notable lessons were that the colors changed a large amount from the digital illustration to the physical booklet. Initially, the text on my cover was black, but I eventually settled for white after seeing the black printed in person. Another key lesson was how to do a saddle-stitch bind. We had to bind the book with staples, hold it, and crop it a certain way so that it looked professional and had no pages exposed past the cover pages. I also learned that when printed margins are exposed, however the way I cropped my "&" symbol flowed well with the white margins, so I decided to keep them for their unique visual effect.
Knowledge Gained: I learned a significant amount during my time working on this project. The most significant thing I learned was how to staple bind a book, and the techniques one has to use when printing a work designed digitally. I also further increased my knowledge of type, typefaces, and improved my skills with Adobe InDesign. I enjoyed seeing the significance of a printed out holdable book, vs the e-books that I so commonly work with in my classes.
