Level Typography 2: broadening:
Image and text are the building blocks of graphic design. Visual expertise in image and text forms the core of a practice as a graphic designer. The Typography studio teaches visual expertise in the design of text in various forms. In written language, we distinguish between tonality, intonation, tempo, length,… in addition to vocabulary, syntax, argument, discourse,… In a similar way we distinguish between text at macro and micro level in typography: character, syllable, word, title, slogan, punctuation, sentence, paragraph, body text, register, note,… In this studio, insights into current and historic typography are shared, examined and investigated deeply. Students learn to name and use various typographic characters and their parts, to design character shapes, and study, analyse, categorise, combine and manipulate typefaces and fonts. They learn to create and refine character and text compositions, and address other typographic problems. The reading of text is distinguished from the reading of the image of text. Students use readability in language and typography structurally (hierarchy, tempo), conceptually (meaning) and intentionally (visual rhetoric). The Typography studio also pays particular attention to the writing, editing and grammatically refining of text, in relation to a concept, writing style and audience. In doing all this, students learn to develop their own language of typography.