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Axial Layouts
Exercise 1: Axial System: Examples.

Exercise 2: Radial Systems: Examples
Nikola Tesla typography poster: Radial posters

Dilatational Systems: Examples



History:

Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918): "A book of poetry by French writer Guillaume Apollinaire, noted for its use of “caligrams” in which typeface and arrangement of words on the page add to the meaning of the compositions. In this way, the collection can be seen as a contribution to the tradition of concrete or visual poetry. Considered as the forefather of Surrealism, Apollinaire described his work as follows:"

"The Calligrammes are an idealisation of free verse poetry and typographical precision in an era when typography is reaching a brilliant end to its career, at the dawn of the new means of reproduction that are the cinema and the phonograph. (Guillaume Apollinaire, in a letter to André Billy)"

The Modernist Era: Concrete poetry: "The term was coined in the 1950s. In 1956 an international exhibition of concrete poetry was shown in São Paulo, Brazil, by the group Noigandres (Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Ronaldo Azeredo) with the poets Ferreira Gullar and Wlademir Dias Pino. Two years later, a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published."
shantell: Foreshortened raven staring at viewer with head cocked to the side (Default)
Originally, I'd planned on drawing all of my bats in flight, but after studying each of the species, I decided that focusing upon their faces would be the best idea. The species are most readily distinguished from one another by looking at their faces. From a distance, they look more similar. Also, when I showed my thumbnails to other people in person, the portraits elicited more powerful reaction. People are cuted-out by the faces.

Since part of the reason I chose bats is because they're in trouble because of disease and habitat loss, it makes sense that I should endeavour to make them more appealing to the masses. And so I intend on emphasizing their cute side. People are more likely to want to save things they find cute than things which look gross, no matter how important those gross-looking creatures may be.

So, less this:

Scary bat

And more this:

Big Brown Bat

Here are my thumbnail sketches:

Thumbnails

Thumbnails

Thumbnails

From this, I created six linear sketches.

Silver-haired bat
Silver-Haired Bat

Big Brown Bat
Big Brown Bat

Long-Eared Myotis
Long-Eared Myotis

Little Brown Bat
Little Brown Bat

Red Bat
Red Bat

Hoary Bat
Hoary Bat

Although I'd love to do scientific illustrations for each of these bats, I do not have the time, so instead I plan on doing soft pastel drawings. I want to do the drawings on black paper to make the colours pop, and also to demonstrate the nocturnal nature of the animals.

Here is a colour test of soft pastels on black paper in some of the colours I'll be using.

Pastel colour test

As for the hand-lettering, I plan on using pencil crayon, since pastels are too smudgy.

The stamp booklet will be simple. The background design will be minimal, so as not to detract from the bats. I'm thinking of maybe having a moonlit backdrop.
shantell: Foreshortened raven staring at viewer with head cocked to the side (Default)
Johann Gutenberg’s Forty-two-line Bible, also known as the Gutenberg Bible or the Mazarin Bible (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016, para. 1), is the first typographic book. A large book (30 x 40.5 cm pages), it is laid out in two columns of justified type with a 2.9 cm margin dividing them. The first nine pages of the book contain forty lines per column, and the tenth contains forty-one. The remainder of the 1,282-page volume is set with forty-two lines per column, hence the name of the book. With an average of 33 characters per line, “each page had over 2,500 characters set from a fond of 290 different characters” (Meggs & Purvis, 2016, p. 80).

Because so many different characters were used, with a variety of ligatures, the book achieved the same sort of variety and richness seen in the illuminated manuscripts which inspired it. Indeed, illuminated text and illustrations remained part of the book in spite of the use of moveable type. Blank spaces were left in order for decorative capital letters to be hand-drawn by scribes. Originally, Johannes Gutenberg wished to print the book in two colours, but this proved too difficult at the time. Instead, illuminators added illustrations and red text, initials, and headers (Meggs & Purvis, 2016, p. 80).

References



Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). Gutenberg Bible. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gutenberg-Bible

Meggs, P. & Purvis, A. (2016). History of Graphic Design (6th Edition). Hoboken, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Question



I’ve long been intrigued by marginalia (images, notes, and doodlings in the margins), and marginalia was used in both illuminated manuscripts and the Gutenberg Bible. Some examples may be found for illuminated manuscripts here (https://io9.gizmodo.com/5896008/medieval-monks-complained-about-their-jobs-in-the-margins-of-ancient-manuscripts ) and for the Forty-two-line Bible here (http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenbergbible/ransomcenter/). Why do you suppose marginalia is not discussed in the Meggs & Purvis text when it was a ubiquitous form of textual/graphic communication in books of the time?

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