Grids and divine proportions. OUGD404.

Grids and divine proportions

Fibonacci sequence

Fibonacci sequence ratio 8:13 links to Golden section

This sequence is not only evident within design but also nature.

The human face follows this ratio, and throughout time in renaissance masterpieces and in architecture, it is all based on the ratio.

So for example a 55 point title should be accompanied by a 34 point body copy when applying the Fibonacci sequence.

The Golden Ratio.

Rule of Thirds

The concept of the golden ratio can be simplified. This rule of thirds shows that items of interest should be put in a particular place on a page or within an image. Just divide the page into three both horizontally and vertically which gives you 9 grids.

According to this rule, where the lines cross within the page is the ideal place to put things of interest. People scanning pages are more likely to notice things in the focal points of the page. In more complex design it is possible to break down these thirds again into more thirds.

Another way to use the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence is golden spirals and Fibonacci spirals. The spirals can be used as a guideline for context density and clustering. They can serve as the foundation for a  ratio for a website with header images, search bars and tool bars.

Speech made visible. OUGD404. Study Task 3

Type is speech made visible.

In this session we were asked to bring in a set of "who are you?" written in different point sizes and weights and using these we were asked to mix the weights and point sizes around to make different "who are you?"s. It was interesting to see how changing the weights or point sizes within a phrase, changes the way that we read it. We were asked to read the different phrases out to see how the size and weight of a font will make us say it differently. For example, if the word was large and bold, it was a much louder word than a small thin word. This just goes to show how visual semiotics works within typography to change the way we read a phrase or sentence.

After this, we were asked to bring in the same phrase of 'who are you?' written in different fonts that represented a certain accent from around the world.

scottish
italian
south african
texan
mexican
somerset
birmingham
cockney
german
chinese
swedish

During the session we put all of our accents onto a table and moved to another groups set, where we had to put them into the different groups of accents according to what we thought. some were much easier than others such as the chinese font as it is quite distinctive and very different from the rest of the accents. However a lot of the british accents were very difficult to distinguish as they were quite similar. So although in real life we can probably quite easily distinguish between the accents, when putting a font to the accents they all seem quite similar and hard to distinguish between. Also we found that people will think different things about each accent, therefore changing the way they portray the accents in font form.

Birth of a font. OUGD404. Study Task 2.

 For this task we were asked to bring in four different fonts, Aa,Bb and Cc, all of different categories (Roman, Gothic, Script and Block). We then cut these out into sections of the letterform.

With these we were asked to change the fonts by mixing up the different parts of each letterform to create completely new letters. 

Birth of a font letters

From these new letterforms I chose my 5 favourite ones that I though work the best with a mixture of parts from different categories of font.

These are the 5 sets of letterforms that I thought worked best out of all of the mixed up fonts, and so from here i'm going to draw these out and also create the Xx, Yy and Zz letterforms.

I think that most of these work well as a set, however I found it hard to do the Cc so that it would fit in and look like part of the font. I think that this is because the c has only one part to it, and as the other letterforms have more than one part, they are much more different.

A study of colour. OUGD404. Study task 4.

Colour and contrast.

Our eyes are fooled into thinking that they can see the full spectrum of colours when in fact we only see red green and blue. This is because there are two colour systems that mix together so that we perceive all colours in the spectrum.

Additive colour system: Light where the primaries are red, green and blue and add up to make white.

Subtractive colour system: Ink, where the primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow and add up to make black (K).

There are 7 contrasts that occur when we look at colours and these are called Ittens contrasts.

Contrast of Tone - Formed by juxtaposition of light and dark colours. This can be monochromatic.

Contrast of Hue - Formed by the juxtaposition of different hues. The greater the distance between the hues on the colour wheel the greater the contrast.

Contrast of Saturation - Formed by the juxtaposition of lights and dark, and is in three dimensions; Hue, tint and shade, and brightness and dullness.

Contrast of Extension - Formed by assigning proportional field sizes in relation to the visual weight of a colour. This is also know as contrast of proportion.

Contrast of temperature - Formed by juxtaposing hues that can be considered 'warm' or 'cool'.

Complimentary Contrast - Formed by juxtaposing complementary colours - Opposite colours on the colour wheel.

Simultaneous Contrast - Formed when boundaries between colours perpetually vibrate.

We then went on to do 10 experiments to explore these contrasts, and so I chose 10 objects and placed them onto different coloured papers to see how the contrast of hue changed with each of them.

Red can on red card

Red can on green card

Red can on yellow card

Red can on blue card

Red can on orange card

For this object i found that the highest contrast of hue was with the green coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the red coloured paper and the middle contrast was the orange coloured paper. 

Red plastic on red card

Red plastic on green card

Red plastic on yellow card

Red plastic on blue card

Red plastic on orange card

For this object i found that the contrast of hue was highest with the green coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the red coloured paper and the middle contrast was with the yellow paper.

Red pencil on red card

Red pencil on yellow card

Red pencil on blue card

Red pencil on orange card

Red pencil on green card

For this object I found that the highest contrast was with the blue coloured paper, the lowest was with the red coloured paper and the middle contrast was with yellow coloured paper.

Red box on red card

Red box on green card

Red box on yellow card

Red box on blue card

Red box on orange card

For this object i found That the highest contrast of hue was with the green coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the red coloured paper and the middle contrast was with the yellow.

Green bag on red card

Green bag on green card

Green bag on yellow card

Green bag on blue card

Green bag on orange card

For this object i found that the highest contrast of hue was with the red coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the yellow coloured paper and the middle was with the blue.

For this object I found that the highest contrast of hue was with the green coloured paper, the lowest was with the orange paper and the middle contrast was the red coloured paper

For this object i found that the highest contrast was with the green coloured paper, the lowest was with the red paper and the middle contrast was the yellow coloured paper.

For the blue part of this object, i found that the highest contrast was with the red coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the blue and the middle contrast was with the yellow paper.

For this object I found that the highest contrast of hue was with the red coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the blue and the middle contrast was either the yellow or orange paper.

For this object i found that the highest contrast was with the red coloured paper, the lowest contrast was with the green paper and the middle contrast was the yellow coloured paper.

From these experiments using lots of different objects it is quite clear how the contrast of hue works. The highest contrast in all of these object lies in the opposite colours on the colour wheel, or complimentary colours and the lowest contrasts lies on the same side of the colour wheel to the objects.