Off-Campus Event - Week 12 - Journal Entry 2

On September 11th, we went to an event at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.

The event was about letterpress printing, which is a craft that has become less practical and less utilized since the creation of digital printers.

We started the event by covering the history of typography and the printing press. Then, we started working on creating our own note pads. It was interesting to be able to see what a type case looked like visually and to see how the upper and lower cases related to how the terms are used today. It would definitely be tedious to have to organize all of the letters in the type case to be sure that they are in the right place. What’s also interesting was learning about the amount of type cases that would be present at certain companies. Some newspaper companies would have entire floors filled with all of the numerous type cases containing different fonts.

We were shown how to place and organize the letters so that they would stay in place with the addition of spacers to prepare them for the letterpress. I chose to create my name. It had to be created backwards.

Although we weren’t able to choose which font we got, I received a sans-serif which I was happy with. It looked like Futura, but I can’t remember whether or not that is what it was. We then were shown how to apply ink to our name to test it.

After that, we were taken in to the letterpress room to start creating the individual pages of our notepad. I chose to use white paper with red ink. It was interesting how loud the room became with only four or five letterpresses working at once. It was time-consuming to create only a small notepad, but the effect that the letterpress created by imprinting the shape of the letters into the paper created a very artistic effect that isn’t possibly with inkjet printers. I would have enjoyed seeing decorative type created with the letterpress, much like how they are shown on formal invitations. Overall, my notepad turned out quite well.

At the end of the event, we had to move the type cases back into their shelves.
The event certainly gave me a new appreciation for typography and the practice of letterpress printing. It would be great if there were a way to letter press print without having to manually create it every time. The imprint of the type is beautiful and would look great on posters, magazines, and even research papers.

We also “liked” the .918 Club on Facebook, which is a non-profit organization in Lancaster City devoted to keeping the practice of letter press printing active and educating and involving those who are interested in it.

Below is a picture showing how my notepad looked after it was completed. The angle of it helps to show the slight imprint from the weight of the letterpress.

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Week 12 - Journal Entry 1 - Monologue Book Critique

I am critiquing Nick's book, titled "Baxter Eats a Whole Wheel of Cheese," which is from the Anchorman movie.

The cover of the book is well crafted, and it feels and acts as a legitimate cover for a commercial book would. The thickness and color of it contrasts well against the content pages of the book. The left edge is black, but appears slightly blue in the picture because of the lighting.

The title page is simple and centered, with the name "Baxter" being in a larger type-size than the rest of the title which emphasizes it well. There is a good connection between the black edge on the front cover with the black back cover, as well as with the color of the typeface.

Nick does a good job throughout the entire book of placing the dog's barks in a way that makes it readable and legible, but not detracting from the main monologue (or dialogue if you count the dog). I get the sense that the dog's barks would be audible in the background noise. Centering the words "you're so wise" helps to lead into the type on next page. The repetition of the black background balances the backside of the front cover. The ellipsis makes me think that the first part is spoken slightly softer. Emphasis is placed well.

The best part about this spread is probably how the positive and negative spaces work together in separating Ron Burgundy's speech from Baxter's (the dog). Angling the last "arf" adds variety and interest to the spread which consists mostly of diagonals in one direction. Putting it in a larger type-size also emphasizes it and makes it appear louder visually.

The contrast of shapes here again help to emphasize "Spanish" and "English." By having both words contain inverted colors of each other, it attracts attention and creates hierarchy while sectioning the spread as well. Capitalizing the word "English" helps to put more emphasis on it than the word Spanish.

This was a cleverly designed spread. By having only two onomatopoeias on the same spread, it puts the two of them at odds against one another while also connecting them, since they're not actually words. The "huh" takes precedence by size, and it also represents a sense of dominance as if Ron would not only be extremely confused in the dialogue, but louder as well.

Again, Nick brings back the smaller "arfs" to represent background noise and adds harmony to the book. The variation in type-size here creates a sense of hierarchy while maintaining readability. The words "in the" seem positioned well, leading off from the tail of the "p."

The curvature of the type here works well in following the curves of the circle and representing a wheel of cheese. Centering the type on the left helps to lead the reader into the right side.

The diagonal here adds interest to the book, but I get slightly confused from the hierarchy of it. The black diagonal makes me think that there is an emphasis on the words "you do" because most books generally have plain white pages as the background. I would personally have placed just an emphasis on the word "you," but I could also see how the word "do" could be included in that to emphasize not just the subject but the action as well.

This spread seems slightly more complex, because of the two black boxes. This spread could be read starting with the black box on the left, black box on the right, then lastly the type in the middle... or it could be read starting with the black box on the left, type in the middle, and lastly black box on the right. Although it would visually appear that they should be grouped together, the order of the monologue is still represented properly because of the hyphen. It helps to show that there is a pause/cut in the speech and leads into the type in the middle. Enlarging the type helps to give it dominance and draw the reader's attention to it and follow the flow of reading from left to right.


Overall, I thought Nick did a great job on the his monologue. It is well-crafted. The black and red colors match Ron's actual attire in the movie. He used a single typeface and no more than two colors. There is balance, harmony, and variety. The sizes of the spread appear correct and he met the minimum requirement of having at least 6 spreads. The colophon is included despite there not being a picture of it incase he would have wanted his last name confidential.

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Week 11 - Journal Entry 1

On Tuesday, we reviewed each other's monologue books and critiqued some of them. I got good feedback that I've implemented into my spreads and will be recreating it again, paying closer attention to details that I've learned from practicing it before. Hopefully the next one that is handed in for grading will turn out much better.

I missed class today, but I'm fairly certain we've started to animate our spreads. I've created the sketches and have a fairly good idea of how I want my text to transition and move. I've never used Adobe Edge Animate before, but I have worked with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects a little bit, so I have a small bit of understanding on motion paths. It'll be interesting to see how everything works out. It's great that HTML is involved in Edge Animate. I'm sure it'll be a useful program for me to learn, especially if I plan to do interactive-based web designs.

Above are the spreads that I created and edited to include the minor alterations. I realized that I need to rearrange the columns in my colophon, because the type of paper is probably the least important of the four categories.

Above is another example I found of good typography. I don't think it's amazing but it's definitely not bad. From first glance, the words "Crumbs from the Table of Joy" catch my attention because of size, and then I'm lead to the second largest mass of text in the bottom-right, and lastly, towards the bottom-left. It's informative and legible. The designer's choice of making the type size of "from," "the," and "of" smaller to fit nicely within the other words works well, because it is still read in the correct order.

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