A Term in Typography…wtf?

Week 2 of my time as an M3.5 and I’m in Type 2, a course I quite literally never saw myself taking in my life. After not passing my Thesis Gateway Review, the MDP department chair recommended I take the Graphic Design dept’s version of Comm Design 2 and Type 2 for a light term this Fall. The running joke is I might as well be taking an Astrophysics class as both subjects are equally foreign to me. My first quiz in Comm Design 2 this week made me feel like I was in high school again. On the review sheet we were given the first day I knew…nothing. Not who John Baskerville was, not what a swash or leading was, and none of the identities of any of the 10 fonts on the back of the sheet. I came away from the quiz this week only missing 10 of the 33 questions which I thought was decent enough.

As I’m sitting in my Type 2 course now, it’s apparent that every week we’re required to do layout exercises (at least 20 I’m assuming). Besides reminding me of Comm Design 1 which I took in the MDP as an M1, the exercises also seem similar to some of the same principles of Character Design. Using the same information and concepts, the designer continually churns out idea after idea until their creativity is drained for this one idea. Then all of the ideas are sifted through, the few rough gems taken out and refinement is continued week after week in an attempt to have one polished, diamond of a design in the end. I do think that I enjoy this kind of iterative design, though it is time-consuming and requires a bit of discipline.

Tracy Fullerton at USC’s Interactive Media Division talked about iterative design with making her games which I can see as well. Your first idea on what is “fun” may not actually be all that fun after the first run of rendering it. I saw this quite a bit when I was a game tester at Vivendi (now Activision). Play-testing is key. I guess in game design, all of your various sketches & ideas are put out into the first version of the game. Once the testing starts and the bugs make themselves apparent, then you start the real refinement (besides what you’ve already self-initiated through the development process up to that point).

I’m still looking for a programer to help me with this small, side project for a game. It may end up being an iPhone app, though I’m not sure how that will work with me only knowing Actionscript. There’s a free test version of the iPhone SDK that I just downloaded a few days ago so I’ll probably be tinkering with that this weekend. On that note, I do need to start being productive with something. Luke Johnson mentioned earlier in the week that he’s a man who thrives on structure & I agree with him to a point. It is very easy to spend an entire day on YouTube or “researching” through video game play & graphic novel reading. This is where the motivation & self-discipline has to come in. So without further blog indulgence, I’m off!