Project 3: The Rulebook
(Group Project: Anastasija Voitova, Ben Pender, Luke Evans, Rhosalyn Green)
Having not really done much typography of my own, I felt quite out of my depth with this project. We were given a rather complicated project in which we had to produce two final pieces under the same constraints; B&W on A4 paper, with Georgia as our only usable typeface... Using this as our medium we were asked to describe the term 'X-height'. For all of you at home, 'X-height' is the height of a lowercase 'x' within any given font. It is used by typeface designers as a reference point to gauge the height of a letter from the baseline and the mean line. This needs to be considered when deciding the use for the typeface as it affects the readability and legibility at varying sizes... I hope that makes sense. Anyway, the first resolution had to be a flawless example of purist typography, while the other was meant as a more creative use of the constraints provided.
1.
For the first we decided to alter the 'x-height' of Georgia into the calculated 'x-height' of two other typefaces, Helvetica and Bernhard BT. By doing so we are showing that when the 'x-height' is not considered, small text becomes harder to read. The right-hand text body is the height of the 'x' to the left to visually represent 'x-height' and the text sitting above and below the text body shows its relation to the cap height and descender height.
2.
As for the second piece... we felt that we had thoroughly explained 'x-height' in the first part we decided to merely demonstrate it in a contextual situation. It extends directly to the body text of the first piece, where the top image shows Georgia with a traditionally perfect 'x-height', Helvetica with a beautifully simplistic style but an 'x-height' that favours style over function and Bernhard BT with a stupidly considered 'x-height'... nuf said.
1.
For the first we decided to alter the 'x-height' of Georgia into the calculated 'x-height' of two other typefaces, Helvetica and Bernhard BT. By doing so we are showing that when the 'x-height' is not considered, small text becomes harder to read. The right-hand text body is the height of the 'x' to the left to visually represent 'x-height' and the text sitting above and below the text body shows its relation to the cap height and descender height.
2.
As for the second piece... we felt that we had thoroughly explained 'x-height' in the first part we decided to merely demonstrate it in a contextual situation. It extends directly to the body text of the first piece, where the top image shows Georgia with a traditionally perfect 'x-height', Helvetica with a beautifully simplistic style but an 'x-height' that favours style over function and Bernhard BT with a stupidly considered 'x-height'... nuf said.
