Typo 2012 Book development

For the first concept crit the format of the book was A5.  I was originally going to focus on ten quotes hence Typo Ten.  The book did not feel like it had much personality with just two typefaces and lots of white space so I decided to experiment with a different formats.  I also changed the main body text from Univers Condensed to Univers 55 Roman which did not look as 'Black' on the page and allowed the words to breath more.( This was also noted at the progress crit)

08/11/2012

Also looked at leading and paragraph spacing following feedback from the progress crit.

Open publication - Free publishing

20/11/2012

The Square format worked better.  I printed some mockup off and decided to use a 21x21cm format rather than a 29.7x29.7.  The larger size did not sit as comfortably in your hands when reading it.

I chose the Univers/ Adobe Caslon combination initially following research into typeface combinations.

I followed the general rule of combining a sans serif and serif font.   These two websites in particular proved useful:

http://bonfx.com/19-top-fonts-in-19-top-combinations/  

The Type Chat forums are also 'fonts' of knowledge about current thinking such as this one about Futura and Helvetica on Typophile:

http://typophile.com/node/31131

The Typeface background

The Univers typeface family is one of the most prolific grotesque sans-serif typefaces of the century. Like Helvetica, Univers is based on 1898‘s Akzidenz-Grotesk. However, Univers is unique in that the design lacks superfluous features of any type, creating a design that is versatile and distinctive without being obtrusive. Adrian Frutiger began work on Univers in 1954, completing his design in 1957. The Univers type family has grown to 44 different weights and styles, some of which include Cyrillic characters.
A very important aspect of the Univers family is its modularity. Frutiger wanted to create a series of related designs that were absolutely harmonious with each other. This could only be accomplished by determining the complete family range as part of the design process or by building the family within a strict modular framework. Frutiger did both. Frutiger has continued to improve and expand the Univers family, working with Linotype designers to add new weights and enlarging the character set to include many languages such as Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic. The final iteration of the family, Univers Next – a complete upgrading of the design – was released in 2010.

Adobe Caslon

A long running serif font first designed by William Caslon in 1722 and used extensively throughout the British Empire in the early eighteen century. It was used widely in the early days of the American Colonies and was the font used for the U.S. Declaration of Independence, but fell out of favor soon after. It has been revived at various times since then, in particular during the British Arts and Crafts movement and again each time it went through a redesign for technological changes. It continues to be a standard in typography to this day 

Currently the Caslon font is in wide use and considered the standard for typesetters and printers. The rule of thumb continues to be, when in doubt use Caslon. Because a bold weight was not used commonly to create emphasis in type at the time of the development of the Caslon font, Caslon never designed a bold font weight. This peculiarity of the font style has stayed with it through several revivals. 

The close of the 19th Century has seen three major changes in the technology of typesetting that affected the Caslon font. Beginning with the introduction of hot type and then the development of phototypesetting in the 60s and 70s, we then saw the recent change to digital fonts that began in the mid 1980s. All of these technological changes have seen redesigns of the Caslon font, some with very little similarity to the original font outside of serif and the name. .

At this stage I was attempting to make the type and layout consistent across the whole book however I instinctively felt this was not working.  Andy suggested maybe using different typefaces for each quote. or changing the typeface sizes if they were only short quotes so they filled the space.

Open publication - Free publishing

20/11/2012

Open publication - Free publishing

In an attempt to maintain consistency across the book I also started using the Paragraph Styles feature in Indesign, something Mike had shown us in one of the Design for Print. I paid more attention to the real details such avoiding widows and orphans. I played around with kerning and tracking. 

 23/11/2012

As the development progressed I decided to be more experimental with some of the layout where appropriate ie the 'wierd' quote from Manchipp needed to distinguish itself from the others.

I also tried different designs for the Cover page

Open publication - Free publishing

28/11/2012

As this was a book about a Typography event and I had now started using a range of typefaces I decided to add a Typeface index.  This extended my own understanding of the typefaces I was choosing.

I also added page numbers so the Contents and Index would have a reference.  This also added another Graphic point of interest.

Open publication - Free publishing

30/11/2012

Open publication - Free publishing

02/12/2012

Open publication - Free publishing

Overall I think the book is a success in terms of developing my type and layout skills an also in terms of it makes an interesting read( positive feedback from the Final Crit) The format, colours and foiling all combine to give the book the high end feel I was trying to achieve. I like the saddlestitch binding however the crafting lets it down as I did not have time to use the book binding workshops. Also I did not really think about distribution. I was more focused on researching the Designers and studios and developing my type and layout skills.