 Hopefully lunch coma is not setting in for you guys So I'm here to talk about a project that I do in a junior level class combining type and image and this particular assignment was interpreting constitutional amendments The backstory is these students are juniors most or it's a required class for all the visual communication designers in the program But we also have interaction designers and industrial designers And so there are a few of those that take it as an elective They would have had one sophomore class before a 60 person class So they know what kerning and letting and those kinds of things are but they forget a lot of it over the summer 26 students two sections of this class So in this I usually run three to four projects. Some of it is mobile screen-based typography Others are posters. We talk about type as a form of expression Type as practical type setting long chunks of text. So these are some examples of some of the projects that they've done This was the brief that I gave them which was to design a poster representing one of the 27 amendments in the US Constitution they could remind people of its original purpose and importance Rate is awareness about a particular issue related to the amendment call for a change to the amendment itself and their Audience with students at UW. It's about three weeks I start with a lecture about combining type and image We do an in-class exercise and then the rest of the time is based on Class crit all-class crits or one or two desk crits and we meet twice a week Deliverables pretty straightforward a 16 by 22 inch poster this could have been bigger But I try to be aware of costs for them and we have some Epson printers that print 17 by 24 So this allows them to full bleed it so it's a slightly random size But it helps them cost-wise So this was last fall and about this time in the news We've got Trump attacking everyone in the press. So free speech is under attack We had the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Harvey Weinstein has been arrested or has been called out for his sexual harassment Colin Kaepernick and the NFL are right up there in the news for taking a knee And then we had the shootings in Las Vegas that took place. Maybe one or two days before I Assigned this project so plenty of fodder in the news for the students to pull from The learning objectives for me This is always framing around how do they combine type and image because most visual communication designers are going to have To work with text and image together and so I work with a book I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Skolas Waddell type image message book But the purpose that I give them is to understand the power of type As a way of creating image, but also just combining type and image and then to help them learn to work at a large size And again 16 by 22 isn't a particularly large size But it's bigger than the eight and a half by 11 that they're used to or a small mobile and Then we want to encourage them to engage the viewer at various distances And I imagine some of you teach in a similar way You might have heard of this rule the 10 30 10 3 rule or 50 10 5 are you frame it? But it's basically from 30 feet away a student or a reader should see something that attracts them to bring them to the 10 feet where they get something else to get them to the 3 feet which gets them something else and a lot of my Students will design for the 30 feet and never get any closer Or they'll design for the 3 feet and never draw the viewer in so we try to talk about how can you have something different on Your poster or your piece at these various distances So I start off my lecture talking about the differences between type and image and as we've heard this morning a lot about typography It's language made visible. It's learned and so in the case of our class We're talking about singular geometric letter forms that combine to create words then sentences Usually read left to right and least in English and images represent the physical world And I often put up pictures of my kids or or a dog and I'll say you come with your own You know Experiences so you might think I miss my dog or I hated trick-or-treating at Halloween you all come with your biases So we talk about that when you're using type and image together This is the book that I pull from my lecture and is anybody in here familiar with this book or is seen in It's from 2006 and man I would love it if they would update this book because it's got terrific content But it's a lot of images that are now you know 12 years old so it would be nice if you know Nancy and Tom push them to do a second edition But in there There's actually a really great way to talk to students about these four ways to combine type and image and for those of you That are familiar with the book sit tight. I'm gonna do a super fast explanation One of the first ones is separation So separation is where the type and image just operate independently and this is a You know an hour-long lecture for me. I'm condensing it into about two minutes Type remains on its own layer type is placed in compartments or windows And this is super useful if you have a complicated background or especially in mobile or screen-based type And then the type can react to an image but remain on its own layer So these are some examples of that and you can imagine again if you have a picture or a photograph That's got a lot going on some of your students might struggle with how do I fit type on there that can read? And so these shapes the red shapes or on the right That's actually a screenshot from a mobile app just using bars And this is you'll you'll find it everywhere, especially in screen-based stuff The middle one is an example of where the type is operating on its own layer It's almost not acknowledging the images back behind so I hope that by showing them lots of examples along the way They can start to see okay. This is separation Fragmentation is another one. This is where the type and the image Disrupt one another or displace one another so here are some examples of that This is a poster on the left on Song Siu for Hangul day You can see the letter forms are actually being interrupted by the building or they're in front of the Of the street, you know on the right I think the challenge here for the students is how can you still see the letter forms and how can the letter forms and the Imagery engage one another in a more interesting way than just a layer sitting on top So this is a way to talk about again fragmentation combining type and image The third one is fusion and this is where they merge into one entity and it's almost like Fusing it makes sense. It's sort of on the scan it fuses to the surface so they share a surface or a texture Or they might even be connected through space So on the left, this is a good way for you to maybe introduce a variety of designers that you've seen or historically So this is Philippe Appelog on the left But it's a famous poster that he's done by just creating the same perspective with the typography The middle one, you know, the letter forms themselves are being affected and by the the shapes the lines that the paint likes Blue stuff that's in there whatever that is and I don't think you can get much more fused than Stefan Sagmeister's poster Where his intern actually etched the letters on to him with an exacto blade So that's fused on the skin literally and then the final one is inversion And this is where type and image trade rolls the type becomes the image and so examples of that are, you know Hand-drawn letter forms is sexually the project on the right or the poster on the right as a project I do with sophomores in typography where they have to pick a line from a song and then make the letter forms But it's where the type is starting to do the work for you as opposed to the photographs or the imagery that's back behind it So we do that we I go through those four and then I have the students bring in their own images And we just do an in-class exercise where I I give them a quote And I've got an hour to basically try and combine Type and image using the four different methods and you know most of it's pretty crappy stuff You can imagine but it's it's a pretty quick exercise for them to even start to articulate why is one different than another almost everyone top left is separation and then we've got Fragmentation down below fusion upright and then the type is image They almost always just resort to a typeface and mask the image in which is a lame-o way to do it But that's how they're starting I Show them lots of examples of type on posters. We look at unit editions We go to typographic posters or I've got lots of examples for them So I'm I'm primed and ready and critique one where I say present two to three different concepts So at this point they would have had to pick their amendment do some research on it And then show these initial concepts don't try and get bogged down in the perfect kerning or the right color But we want to know what your idea is Rather than I'm sure plenty of your students will put up stuff and then spend 20 minutes talking about what they want to do But there's nothing up there for us to talk about because they haven't tried to visually translate it But inevitably what do they all do they resort to images first? And so this is an example of process work from one student starting from first crit moving along I'll show you more images they all resort to images and I have spent so much time This is a particular student who is dealing with the Second Amendment and gun rights And so this is actually a picture of him He hasn't been affected by guns in any way, but yours your left wondering What do I do with this text and and what do the numbers mean was he shot six times like this? You don't they're having a hard time figuring out what their ideas are here, and that's obviously part of the process Moving along he started to get a better sense of what he wanted to say Which was that the NRA was somehow distorting the Second Amendment? And so he's actually got the text from the Second Amendment back behind and and I'm during critiques here These are group critiques reminding them. How can the type do the work for you? Why is it that you have to rely on a single image? What can text do for you? And so he's got you know images of guns, but if you're saying NRA Maybe guns aren't needed So it's sort of a matter of when can you show something and when can you say something? And so what he ended up with was this one which is that and you can see a well-regulated militia That's part of the Second Amendment that text in the back And it's being distorted by the NRA which is sitting up top So he's working on that 30 10 3 kind of read and around the outside This is a detail of the outside He is highlighting the various congressmen who are receiving money from the NRA and at the time There was a quote from John Thule who's Republican who said in the case of a shooting get small So that's actually what this small text is that's in the center So he's kind of worked hard to sort of combine. It's all text at this point But to create that that various levels of the read This was another student and he was all over the map again This is process But you know when you stick a picture of Melania Trump up there in handmade tail We're not going where he wants us to go and this was about the 19th Amendment and that everyone has the right to vote at the time And so it just became a very confusing for him to rely on images rather than text Trying to talk about women's rights in the middle and part of this is them trying to figure out what their exact idea is Along with being able to visualize it. So he moved then later into Angela Davis who's a political activist trying to sort of put text in there that people would read But of course then we have debates about well, how much text you want on a poster and are people going to actually come up and read all of this Again starting to hassle him on how can you make type do the work because he's trying to get across the idea that No matter what group you're part of whether you're handicapped LGBT a Woman whatever race you are you all have the right to vote and so rather than try and find one image that ends up being Clichéed he started to play with words and this was his final solution Which I thought was actually quite strong in terms of just being able to engage people from various distances and let the type do the work for you another student this was There are other process works in between but she was playing with the idea of Colin Kaepernick and taking a knee But again starting on the left with fairly cliched images Moving again into the middle. You also can't get terribly good quality images for a large poster So she ended up with a version on the right She had many versions in between that looked a little like the Death Star in being constructed with the typography But these were quotes from Colin Kaepernick How could he get across the idea of football or she could get the idea of football across without actually showing that So being able to understand that maybe typography can do some of that work for you a Few more examples This was a student that was going after the first amendment But also using Colin up Colin Kaepernick just the idea of him being able to take a knee So his text is the white text, but she's also used Martin Luther King His text is the black text and she was trying to get across the idea that Struggle is a part of progress and so she's actually got both of them there and this becomes a matter of okay You didn't need an image of a football you could get across the idea through the the grid structure on a football field And then she has the the text in there from the first amendment a Few others, you know again raising generation hate. How can you this was after the first amendment? This was there was an uptick in Bullying and students, especially in elementary schools Bullying other kids about race and and gender After Trump was elected and so just playing the scale of typography on the right was gun control The idea that it is complicated that there's two sides I thought this one was a little less successful because you just read complicated, but you don't get much more I think you know it's guns and complicated These two were about right to privacy so again along the way as we're critiquing we're talking about what are the ways You're combining type and image so you can see fragmentation is being used on the left You still have to be able to read the word commodity This was about students and right to privacy and the one on the right was about the government How they're actually using technology to collect some information from you We have the power he actually use these are all googly eyes those little googly eyes that move around and so his actual Poster has all googly eyes It's hard to make them all look in the direction of DC But it was the idea that states have the rights have rights and power versus always just looking at the federal government And then on the right, you know the the idea that yes, you can get across pretty quickly This is about Donald Trump and this is about his view of Freedom of speech but distorting the type in some way rather than just sitting it on there and type setting it neatly So the students start to see again separation. How could I get that small type on there and have it be readable? So reflections in the project the pros I think is it's a it's a really useful way Or it has been a useful way for the students to learn about combining type and image And the students obviously get to choose a topic that they're interested in which is good rather than me Assigning them all to the same one The cons I think here are that some of the amendments tend to be a little more complex than others and when only one or two Students are working on one of the amendments. There maybe aren't enough people in the room To respond to them or give them more critical feedback on their specific topic So if you were interested in trying this you might either choose two or three of the amendments that are more popular And have them work on those and we'll say that it you know in later classes that I have them I can make it show up in the work So I can remind them wait. How are you combining type and image? And is there a better way to do that? Excuse me the separation one. I think works quite well, especially when you're on screen They learn about the power of using types so a lot of them, you know Again, they initially rely on images, but they start to realize oh the typography can actually do the work for me here Which is good So I'm going to do a quick test with you guys on the far left Which one is that fusion fragmentation separation inversion stuck on the skin on the far left Fusion right excuse me. So that's Sagmeister What about the second one buck this type only has to be inversion What about the third one? separation right so that's from the guilt group, but you can see if you have a Complicated image. It's a lot easier to put those kind of shapes on there and then on the right far right Fragmentation right so I think there just is more depth when the images in front or behind of the text Which is great slow more interest So thank you