Tag Archives: Term 3

Intro to Typography – Typeface Choices 2025 (Hello, My Name Is…)

As a designer, good (or bad) design is all about the choices you make. One of the most important decisions you’ll make is what typefaces you will use to produce your headlines, subheadings and body text.   Strong typeface choices set the appropriate tone for your intended message, while inappropriate typeface choices send conflicting messages and can disrupt the message you intended to communicate.   Today we will practice making strong typeface choices.

Objective:

I can select the most appropriate typeface available for a given design scenario.

Vocabulary Words:

  • Type
  • Typeface
  • Font
  • Serif
  • Sans Serif
  • Script
  • Ornamental/Decorative/Display

Links:

None.

Topics Discussed:

  • Serif Fonts
  • Sans Serif Fonts
  • Script Fonts
  • Ornamental/Decorative/Display Fonts

Assignment:

You’ve seen those “Hello! My Name Is…” badges, right?

2000px-Hello_my_name_is_sticker.svg

They’re pretty generic. They use generic fonts and simple design to make them easy for anybody to recognize and use. What if we could personalize a Hello badge to fit our own personalities? Today, we’re going to use what we’ve learned about Typefaces and the Principles of Design to redesign a Hello badge to reflect different aspects of our personalities. To do this, you will need to make important choices about how you arrange the page, what typefaces you would like to use, and what colors you would like to use to effectively communicate a message about who you are.

  • Create a new Illustrator Web document, with four artboards and landscape orientation (wide, not tall).
  • Take a few minutes to think of four words that describe you. For example, you  might use words like “student, artist, athlete, musician, gamer, superstar, etc.” This will work best if you think of your own, so try to think of four nouns that best represent you.
  • On each page, create a headline containing the words: “Hello” and “My name is”. Select a typeface and font size that makes these words easy to read, and make “Hello” slightly larger than “My name is”.
  • In a single, very large headline, type your name. Select a font that is appropriate for your name, and try to make your name fill the page without going over the Artboard margins.
  • Finally, near the bottom of the page, type the words “and I am a _______.” Fill in the blank with one of the four descriptive nouns that you thought up for yourself.
  • Fill in the background with a color, by creating a rectangle the size of the entire page and placing it on a layer below your main text layer. Lock this layer to protect your background.
  • Your goal with this assignment is to choose typefaces and page design elements that look appropriate for the descriptive noun that you have chosen. For example, since I’m a teacher, I used a chalkboard font called “Chalkduster”, since chalkboards are commonly associated with teaching. I also changed the background color to a chalkboard green to give the idea of a chalkboard.
mmchalkboard
  • Add any graphics or drawings that you would like to include to make your design more visually appealing. For example, I added the grey rectangle and the thin white rectangles on the bottom of the page to represent a chalkboard eraser and two pieces of chalk.
  • Repeat this process on the remaining three Artboards for the remaining three words you have chosen. At least one of the Artboards should use the custom typeface that you created yesterday on the Calligraphr website.
  • When you have all four Artboards finished, save the document as “Your name – Typeface Choices”, and upload the Illustrator document to the Google Classroom assignment post by the end of the day on Thursday, March 6th.

Assigned: March 4th, 2025
Due Date: March 6th, 2025

Type Week: Making Your Own Typeface With Calligraphr

Objective:

I can use online tools and my understanding of typographic principles to produce my own typeface.

Web Links:
Calligraphr.com

Topics Discussed:

  • Typography
  • Font

Assignment:

Today we are going to wrap up our exploration of Typography through its ultimate expression: Making our own Typeface!

Type can be created through many methods, including carving individual letters out of steel blocks, printing letters on clear plastic strips to stick down on pages, or our preferred method: through digital design, using applications specifically built for this purpose. Today, we are going to explore one of those applications, one that is purpose-built to make creating typefaces easy enough that anyone can do it!

To begin, visit the Calligraphr.com website. You will need to create your own login to proceed – It is recommended that use your haydenmagnet.org email address.

  1. Create a template and print it out. (A pre-built template will be provided in class, but you are welcome to build your own custom templates!)
  2. Fill out the template. You can do this in many different ways:
    • You can simply write the appropriate letter in the box with your favorite pencil, pen or marker
    • You can draw the letters on a seperate piece of paper, then cut them out and paste them in the provided spaces.
    • You can cut out letters from other documents and paste them on the template in the provided spaces to create an eclectic “ransom note” style font!
  3. When you have all the spaces filled, use a scanner, digital camera or a smartphone to take a screen capture of your filled-out template.
  4. On the fonts page, choose the Upload Template option and upload your image file.
  5. Click on Build Font and watch the magic happen!
  6. You now have a custom font that you can install and use for any of your design projects!

Assigned: March 3rd, 2025
Teacher Pacing Due Date: March 4th, 2025