TYPE AS IMAGE: FALL 24
Prof. Mary Banas
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at
Tufts University

Tu 8:30AM–2:00PM
230 Fenway: B211A

When contacting me, copy my personal email for best results:
mbanas01(at)tufts.edu
mary.banas(at)gmail.com

Office Hours:
Fridays from 12–1pm, on zoom
203.641.5386

How to make an appointment:
https://calendly.com/mary-banas/office-hours
please book this by 9am on Fridays, email me to give me a heads up that you have booked it.

Graphic Arts Area Instagram
Permissions doc for GRA IG is here

Syllabus
01 Description
02 Learning Outcomes
03 Assignments
04 How We Work
05 Studio Culture

Tufts University Policies

Calendar

Briefs01 Alphabet Book
02 Studio Experiments
03 Poster
04 Sequence

Readings

Tutorials (including how to print!)

Resources

Review Boards: Advice

Talks

Drive

Index

Type as Image

01

Alphabet Book

A series of experimental, rapidly-created letterforms created by hand using paper, cell phone camera, scanners, and found materials from your environment resulting in a collaborative book made using the RISO printer and bound with an elastic band.

Project Description

We are starting with a mini experiment that will cover a lot of ground and get you warmed up for the semester. It will also be incredibly fun.

Part 1: PAPER EXPERIMENTS
You have some letter pages. Manipulate these letterforms to create new images. Print out your own letters on pages and make more.

Part 2: OBJECT EXPERIMENTS
Create new letterforms from found materials. For example, you can make them out of tape, ground meat, dirt, your hands, shadows, your hair, candy, shaving cream, sticks, photograph or make a rubbing of a crack in the sidewalk that looks like an “Y”... ETC.

Requirements:
—only work in black and white (includes graphite/pencil)
—create 20 new “letterforms” or compositions
—*avoid* large areas of smooth rich black, the RISO printer works better with a little texture

Suggestion:
—6 Helvetica/paper experiments
—6 made out of found material
Use these 12 letters to make your 20 compositions

How to do this work:

Consider the following ways:
—cut
—tear
—slice
—fold
—crumple gently
—crumple intensely
—roll, wave
—place on scanner and move while scanning
—draw on it
—draw around it
—shade it in
—trace it onto a new sheet

Experiment with all of these materials/modes, at least once:
—graphite/pencil
—charcoal
—pen
—big fat marker
—ink and brush
—tearing
—folding
—cutting with Xacto knives
—using the scanner

PRINTING RESOURCES:

Link for printing on Jumbo from the web:

jumboprint.tufts.edu/MyPrintCenter

Download Jumbo print drivers here

Part 1 (started in class)

PDF of Alphabet is here

only print the pages you need

Resist over complicating your letterforms or compositions. You will have the opportunity to layer colors on the RISO. Focus on experimenting with familiar and unfamiliar ways of working and manipulating the letterform.

How to document your paper experiments:

Photograph or scan the letters that you made, bring them into your InDesign document —

1. Open Adobe InDesign

2. File > New

3. 11x17, change units to inches, un-check “facing pages”, name your file

4. When you are in InDesign, use File > Place to place an image

5. To edit your image from Photoshop, go to Window > Links, use the hamburger menu, choose the image, and select “Open With Photoshop” — after you make your edits in Photoshop save the file with the same name and it will automatically update in InDesign.

6. Work iteratively by duplicating your pages.... In the”Pages” palette, select the page you want to duplicate, on a Mac computer hold down the “Option” key, drag your page slightly to the right until you see a vertical line, release. You should see the page repeated. Make edits on this page and keep moving forward. You can edit and select your favorites later!

If you are using the lab computers, here is how to save your files for use later on another machine:
File > Package, save the packaged file on your Google Drive or other place that works for you. The packaged file will include a PDF. This PDF is what you should print out before class, and what we will use for printing on the RISO.

Upload your PDF to the class Google Drive folder (X_Name) -- letter underscore Your Name.

Part 2

Make things from objects in the wild (found in your environment) — after you make these, you will photograph them, bring them into the computer, and lay them out on your 11x17” pages in InDesign.

necklace

oats

rings

ribbon

matches (outside!)

grapes

leaf

wax

ribbon

Another way to think through the steps of this project:

Project Schedule:

WEEK 1
Project introduction, make and manipulate letterforms in class, mini Photoshop and InDesign tutorials

WEEK 2

DUE:
20 Letterform Compositions at 11x17” size, as both a PDF and printed out

Put the PDF version of your work in the class Google Drive Folder, we will use these PDFs for class. If you have a USB/flash drive, please bring it to class, as that is the easiest way to get the files on the computer there.

I am still confused, what am I bringing to class?
—Quantity: 20
—Size: 11x17”
—Composition can be: “pages” or “poster” style, or a mix of both
—Format: PDF (to send thru computer) + print outs (to use on the RISO glass top in the future when we print on RISO)

In class: review compositions

FUTURE DATE (TBD)
Printing on RISO and assemble books

WEEK 2

Email the studio manager Louis Meola (louis.meola@tufts.edu) to get an orientation to the RISO room. There is a laser cutting guillotine in there, a sticker printer, an electronic stapler, and a shearing paper cutter. Louis will review the best practices and rules of the room. You will learn the code for the key for the laser cutter and how to use it. I will teach you how to use the RISO, Louis may or may not review this with you. After the orientation, Louis will grant you permission to book the RISO machine for your work outside of class and give you card access to the room—you need this for our future work.

Complete your orientation before October 15.

FUTURE DATE TBD (MAYBE OCT. 15)

Together in class we will create a book. Everyone will print multiples of their letterform pages and we will “bind” them together with an elastic band.

Right now I estimate the book will contain TWO compositions from each student (e.g. if my letters were “M” and “B” I would contribute an “M” composition and a “B” composition to the class book) — this may change when we are working together, for example, we may decide as a group to add more.

First, we will plan our book as a class. We will use your black and white printouts to take a look at what we have. We may decide on a sequence. We will choose which ink colors to use. Students will group their files by ink color and we will run the pages for that color, switch the color out and run the next batch of pages. After that, we can get weird and experimental by printing things on top of other things. We will let the process and the possibilities and limitations of the RISO printer guide our outcome! It will be exciting and surprising.

If we do not have enough time for each student to print their compositions on the RISO together in class, you will need to reserve the space and complete your prints before next class.

FINAL WEEK FOR THIS PROJECT

Final 11x17” book due, containing a page from each classmate, bound with elastic band (we will exchanges pages and bind with the elastic at the top of class)

02

Studio Experiments

Week 1: FORM
Week 2: PATTERN
Week 4: TEXTURE/SURFACE

Overview:

Students will generate formal typographic experiments with a letter, a word, and a phrase exploring the possibilities and limitations of typography and letterforms as form, image, texture + surface, and motif. This is the most important work of the semester as it will inform everything else and is your chance to delve deeply into process and embrace experimental making.

FORM

WEEK 1

Over the next 3 weeks you will continue to practice and expand on your experimental making. The Alphabet Book was an introduction to this idea, but moving forward you will have the opportunity to focus on a new area each week. The focus for our first week is “form”.

Form is: shape, structure, appearance, construction, arrangement. We are going to spend this week looking closely at letterforms from different typefaces.

This week, you will continue your practice from the previous week, but choose any letterform as your subject (or multiple letterforms). You will engage with a project called “Franken-Form” or “Franken-Glyph” by Lucy Hitchcock. For this endeavor, you will familiarize yourself with different type classifications. Then you will choose 4 typefaces from 4 different categories. Using scissors and xacto knives, you will cut the typefaces up, noticing the interesting parts, and create a completely new glyph. What you make may resemble a letterform, but most likely it will not. This is going to be an exercise in looking closer at letterforms, appreciating their nuances and beauty, learning about type categories, and creating something completely new.

PATTERN

WEEK 2

Previously, you created new (franken) FORM from typography and began to train your eye to look closer at typographic letterforms to became more familiar with their beauty and limitations.

This week we are slipping back into abstraction, a little bit. We will be learning about patterns and what makes a successful PATTERN.

You will practice making all over flat patterns. You will look at a lot of examples and use at least one as a direct reference for your work. Next class we will tape up your experiments in the classroom.

TEXTURE/SURFACE

WEEK 3

The focus this week of Studio Experiments is TEXTURE/SURFACE

We will consider typography as a TEXTURE and visual SURFACE.

Consider and understand the difference between a texture (suggests tactility) and a surface (suggests depth).

03

Poster–week 1
October 1

• TARC
• PGDA
• Stuff We’re Not Talking About exercise
• Kick-off poster brief

Poster–week 2
October 8

• Poster slides
• Review mood boards, discuss ideas in small groups
• Look at references, build your file, make sketches
• Prep for next week! We need a cover for our book...

RISO week!
October 15

We are printing RISO all class — please bring your pages as a PDF in Drive as well as printed out on 11x17”

Meet in the RISO room

Connect/email Louis in advance for training (you can get in the room with us, but need access to use it the rest of the semester, and need to be trained by Louis for access)

💥 RISO Handout by Vin

Poster–week 4
October 22

• Book party; make books
• Social media permissions
• Review sketches
• Learn how to tile
• Review student slides for inspo
• Tech Q+A demos

Poster–week 5
October 29

• Distribute books to library + gallery, sleeves
• Review courses for next semester
• Visit printshop, touch papers?
• Tiled poster crit
• Intro sequence project

November 5 — no class (vote!)

November 12 — no class Veteran’s Day is Nov. 11 (sub Monday’s schedule)

November 19

• Poster is finished
• Send poster files to printshop
• Review Sequence proposals and paper prototypes

Poster–final week
November 26

Nov. 26 = final poster crit <3

Your studio experiments will inform a speculative topic-based poster or series of posters. This is the largest project of the semester. This project will explore typographic and formal hierarchy as well as making meaning.

This is a 5-working weeks project over 6 total weeks
We will be printing on the RISO on Oct. 15th, all day. Make sure you get trained to use the room before that date, email Louis to make an appointment: louis.meola@tufts.edu

With this project we will explore:
—grids
—typographic hierarchy
—call to action
—speculative content
—making meaning
—composition
—dynamic tension
—iterative processes to design
—analog and digital processes
—mood boards
—making reference
—print production
—bleeds + crops
—tiling

04

Sequence

Oct. 29: kick off

Nov 5 (no class, election day)

Nov 12 (no class, sub Monday)

Nov 19 — proposals & paper prototypes

Nov 26 — draft 1

Dec 3 — draft 2

Dec 10 — last class, final crit

︎︎︎ In a way, we come back to the start,

for this project you will edit and order your formal typographic experiments to

create meaning, The final form for this will be in the form of a printed book or screen experience; students will choose to incorporate their own writing, an existing text, or no additional text. This should come together rather naturally for you, and is an important but lighter assignment because of the timeline.

School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University

smfa.tufts.edu