This week we explored typography, the size and shapes it comes in, how it can be positioned, and even the changes you can make to letters. I found kerning, tracking, and spacing very interesting; I had heard of these terms before but didn’t understand them in depth and on this day we covered the definition of each and we got to see examples of them.

Kerning is the individual space between letters, this option allows the designer to alter the organic design of the font they’re using, whereas tracking is the adjustment of space between all the letters in a paragraph/letter

This image showcases an example of what tracking is, the equal space adjustment between the letters

The term spacing is used to define the space between two lines, spacing can be used to create a lot of negative space in art it gives a minimalistic approach in my opinion

Another thing we learned on this day is how letters can be altered when it comes to design, and this is done to meet a client’s desire, the placement and sizes of letters/words play a major role in the design world and the slightest adjustment can make a product more aesthetically pleasing, other things that make fonts really stand out is by increasing or decreasing the thickness of the letters and that was something new that I found quite interesting but one thing that really got me intrigued was the addition and subtraction of pieces of a letters, this is a technique that is used a lot in branding, many logos out there in the world are composed of letter like Bridgestone, Kubota, and Adobe

Other things I learned from this week’s lecture is how the use of tracking can misinform people, the designer might know what the letters spell out but an outsiders eyes the word will be something totally different, what I got from this is that kerning must be used adequately so that the letters in a word/ paragraph too tight or loose; we did an exercise by visiting a website called kerntype, and on that site we practised by moving the letters in a word, we basically had to guess the right amount of space between the letters and at the end of this exercise you were given a score which I found quite fun, another thing I found quite fun was using letraset to form words, this was another kerning exercise that I enjoyed because it was nice to get off the computer and use tools and hands to create something

We also learned the importance of arranging and aligning paragraphs/ words by using grids. Paragraph arrangement gives a webpage some sort of structure and solid visual, this makes it easy for readers to locate information and read it

We then visited Dieter Rams website of 10 principles of design and what I got from that is that less is better because a designer should only focus on the purpose of the product and no unnecessary features should be added to the design, good design is also innovative which will enable designer to develop the design as technology develops.

The last task we did was out what we had learned in this week’s lesson to work, we made an advert for Hozier’s upcoming album and I really enjoyed doing this because I’m a fan of his and I think his recent album is amazing