Design Concepts- Week 5

Lab.1

Objective: Using expressive typography, focus on how you can best grab and pull the viewer into a tag line or slogan. Choose one from the list provided and breathe creative life into the words. The point here is to focus on using letters and typography to communicate a message.

Lab.II

Objective: Using expressive typography, explore the association of color and font faces to evoke mood and help support an idea, feeling, or thought. Please choose one word from the list provided below (you can do more than one if you would like). Your objective is to illustrate the word's meaning.

Main Project

Objective: Focus on color and typography in your main project.

Include a description of your palette. For example, if you use split complementaries, please indicate that you have done so and list the colors. Support your color palette choices based on your site's goals.

My color palette:

It includes 2 primary colors (red and green) and one secondary color (yellow). The Primary colors are the main colors used. These triad colors since they are primary. Yellow is analogous.

I used a triadic color scheme primarily because I wanted to use red as the main color on the site. The site will be used by teachers and students and red is closely associated with school (red for apples, etc. and kids love red, in fact, many surveys say it is their favorite color). It is also a "wake me up" exciting color, yet it is warm and inviting. I felt that green would go nicely with the red. It is a cool color and offers a cool complement to the red. There is a good contrast with red, and I feel that the 2 colors look well balanced on the site. Yellow goes with red better perhaps, but it doesn't show up well in text.

I used an analogous color, yellow, as the third color for the site. I felt it made a nice complement to the red and green. It adds nice variety while keeping the palette balanced.

Include a full treatment of typography. This means I want to see cohesive decisions for font family(ies), including proper use of tracking, leading and font weight.

Because this site is used by schools for the purpose of instruction, legibility and uniformity/consistancy are of the upmost importance. Therefore the use of lots of fonts or very fancy fonts was out (in my opinion).

For the links and body text I used Verdana (regular). I did this because they are the most legible and made for the web. I also know that Verdana will be on everyone's computer, thus will look the way I want it to on all computers.

On the other hand too much Verdana is boring, I did want to throw in a font that had a whimsical, childish (but staid) look, so I chose Alba as the complementary font for the title of the site and the main headings. The use of Alba font and it's colors also support hierarchy in the site.I liked this font, because it had a wiggly look that I felt complemented the school worms.Alba text is a graphic, while Verdana is regular text.

I did not do any tracking for the Verdana body text. The only tracking necessary in the Alba font was I when I pushed the T away from the e in the word technology. I just felt it looked a little better. The letters in the Alba font were very close together, which I felt increased legibility.

I did not alter the leading for the body text/Verdana. I felt the lines were well spaced as they were. I did put extra spacing between the titles in Alba and the body text in Verdana. I felt this gave emphasis to the titles and imporved the overall legibility of the text.

The font weight is regular for both fonts. I did put a drop shadow on the site title, but I didn't do it for the the titles on the page itself. I tried putting a shadow a few different ways, but didn't like the way it looked. It looked best plain.

Final Comp:

Previous Comps:

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