Studio—4 hours; lecture/discussion—2 hours. Prerequisite:
DES 1, 14 (or 21), 15, 16 or consent of instructor. Priority
given to Design majors. Fundamentals of letterforms and
typography. Characteristics of typefaces; formatting and
composition of type. Principles of legibility, visual hierarchy,
grid systems, and the integration of type and image. Not
available for credit to students who have completed course 22.
Rebecca Creger shows an example of Project 2: Type Hierarchy
Studies. This multi-week project is key to mastering the basics
of typography and expressing what Paul Rand calls “the
relationship between form and content,” his well-known definition
of design. Students experiment with a given set of text to create
compositional alternatives that express clear information
hierarchy and relationships.
The project begins with one size and one weight of Universe and
builds in complexity as more sizes, weights, and styles are
introduced each week.