The Fundamentals of Creative Design

Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9782940411610
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350034150
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Graphic Design

The Fundamentals of Creative Design (second edition) is an update to the popular first edition of the same name, in which Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris introduce students to the various aspects of the graphic design. This volume provides a fresh introduction to the key elements of the discipline and looks at the following topics: design thinking, format, layout, grids, typography, colour, image and print and finish. This updated edition includes new and revised content and images, giving the volume a more contemporary feel.

Rock Style

The exhibition design and graphics for the Rock Style exhibition at the Barbican Centre, London features a fanzine design style that mimics the exhibition’s content. It uses hand-drawn typography and collected ephemera that form an overall graphic style.

Design: Studio Myerscough

Typography

Typography is the means by which a written idea is given visual form. The selection of the visual form can dramatically affect the readability of the written idea and a reader’s feelings towards it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of typefaces available. Typography can produce a neutral effect or rouse passions, symbolize artistic, political or philosophical movements, or express the personality of a person or organization. Typefaces vary from clear and distinguishable letterforms that flow easily before the eye and are suitable for extended blocks of text, to more dramatic and eye-catching typefaces that grab attention, such as in newspaper headlines and advertisements.

Many typefaces in use today are based upon designs created during earlier historic epochs. Typography continues to evolve and accelerate as technology makes typeface design quicker and easier, whether creating something novel or adapting something from an earlier era.

type

Type size is the vertical size of the body of a typographical character including the space above and below its strokes. Type size is commonly thought of as the size of the typeface, but it historically refers to the size of the body or block that holds the printing face of a metal typographical character in the days of letterpress printing. A character is always slightly smaller than its given type size because of this. Type sizes for body text are usually 8pt to 14pt; different type sizes are used within a design to indicate a hierarchy of importance as we tend to read larger type sizes first.

Point system

The point system is used to specify the typographical dimensions of a page. This is represented in points and picas. The British and American system is based on an imperial point with dimensions as follows: the point is 1/72 of an inch. There are 12 points to a pica, about six picas to an inch. The pica is used for linear measurement of type including line lengths.

12 points = 1 pica

1 point = 0.35mm

1 pica = 4.22mm

The European Didot system is slightly different but provides similar values:

12 Didot = 1 Cicero

1 Didot = 0.38mm

1 Cicero = 4.56mm

There are 12 points to a pica, about six picas to an inch. The pica is used for linear measurement of type. The length of a line is specified in picas.

Typography uses points to describe type size (A) and the leading value (B). Type size is the size of the bounding box rather than the height of a letter. Leading is a hot metal printing term that originates from the lead strips that were inserted between text measures in order to space them evenly. Nowadays, the leading value represents the distance from one base line to the next, rather than the actual space between the lines of text. Typographic measurements normally have two values. For example, 10pt Helvetica with 4pt leading is expressed as 10/14 Helvetica – 10 ‘on’ 14. Type with no extra leading is said to be ‘set solid’.

The em, the en and relative measurements

Va...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Format
• Layout and grids
• Typography
• Image
• Colour
• Print finishing
• Glossary
• Index
• Contacts and credits
• Working with ethics
• eCopyright