Goal

Effec­tive use of spa cem ake sty pog rap hymo rein vi ting tore ad and ea sier to un der sta nd.

The key to under­stand­ing let­ter­forms is under­stand­ing the rela­tion­ship between pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive forms. By select­ing, align­ing and draw­ing let­ter­forms, you will expand your knowl­edge of the sub­tle details of let­terspac­ing and kern­ing inde­pen­dent of the computer’s auto­mated functions.

Objective

Using the pro­vided mate­ri­als, recre­ate with paper and pen­cil the proper spac­ing of a basic typo­graphic layout.

Background Reading

• Bringhurst, p 1–44, 271–298
• Kane, “Basics,” p 1–14 and “Text,” p 90–93.

Exercise

This assign­ment uses skills sim­i­lar to those used in the pre­vi­ously com­pleted Exer­cise 07.10: Let­terspac­ing from ART 218 Graphic Design I, but with­out the use of the computer.

Part One

Begin the assign­ment by cre­at­ing a grid by print­ing on nor­mal paper. Using InDe­sign, size your page to Let­ter (8.5 × 11 in), ori­ent it ver­ti­cally (por­trait) and draw 3 pica (nota­tion: 3p) mar­gins on all sides. Within these mar­gins, draw evenly spaced hor­i­zon­tal lines down the page at 1p incre­ments. Print the result­ing document.

Part Two

Tape this grid to a hard sur­face. Using the spec­i­men sheet and align the first let­ter on the base­line of the grid. Once the let­ters are aligned, tape a piece of lay­out paper over the grid and the let­ters mak­ing sure the left edge of the page line up with the left edge of the grid paper. Begin trac­ing the let­ters using a pen­cil. Repo­si­tion the spec­i­men page with the let­ters and repeat for the next letterform.

Trace the let­ters on the spec­i­men sheet to cre­ate the word “holo­graphic” in the serif type­face. Use­ing set solid lead­ing, draw the word three times start­ing with the clos­est pos­si­ble spac­ing, touch­ing, or almost touch­ing. Trace the word a sec­ond time increas­ing space to achieve opti­cally good spac­ing in the sec­ond draw­ing. Finally, pro­duce the word with the let­ters over spaced, just to the point where they appear to float, unre­lated to each other. Next, draw the same word in all caps, repeat­ing the pre­vi­ous spac­ing con­ven­tions. Finally, trace the word “holo­graphic” an addi­tional six (6) times in the same man­ner as above, but this time use the sans-serif face. In all, you will pro­duce the word twelve times.

• holo­graphic
• holo­graphic
• holo­graphic
• HOLOGRAPHIC
• HOLOGRAPHIC
• HOLOGRAPHIC

• holo­graphic
• holo­graphic
• holo­graphic
• HOLOGRAPHIC
• HOLOGRAPHIC
• HOLOGRAPHIC

• The fol­low­ing rubric posted on D2L will deter­mine exer­cise score: Exer­cise Grading

Techniques

Trac­ing, Lay­ers, Align­ment, Type Anatomy

Supplies

hard lead pen­cil, lay­out paper, mask­ing tape, pen­cil, ruler, spec­i­men sheet