Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Tipping, and I'm really looking forward to learning with you today all about lettering and graphic design.

We're going to do lots of thinking, talking, and exploring together in this lesson.

So shall we get started? Let's go.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to create letter designs using graphic design principles.

Before we start, I would like to introduce you to some keywords.

We'll be using these keywords during the lesson, so it might be a good idea to write these words down.

The keywords will be using today are, graphic design, typography, font, typeface, style.

I'm going say those again and I would like you to repeat them after me.

Graphic design.

Typography.

Font.

Typeface.

Style.

Good job.

Now let's take a look at what these keywords mean by looking at their definitions.

Graphic design is the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.

Typography is when we arrange letters and text in a way that makes them readable and visually appealing.

Font refers to the size and weight of letters.

Typeface is a set of letters that share a similar shape and design.

Style, or letters or art, have a distinctive appearance.

Pause the video here to make a note of these keywords, and when you are ready to continue, press Play.

These are the learning cycles that we'll be working through together in today's lesson.

The basic elements of typography in graphic design and creating stylized letter art.

In the first learning cycle, we're going to explore the basic elements of typography in graphic design.

Graphic design is the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.

Graphic design can be used to communicate a message like packaging or a street sign.

It might also be decorative like an album artwork, or a book cover.

We see many examples of graphic design throughout everyday life.

Look around you.

Can you see any examples of graphic design? Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think and press Play when you're ready to continue.

Could you spot any? Or the types of examples you could see could be clothing brand logos, book covers, or maybe food or drink wrappers, there are some of the everyday things that we see.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Which of the following is an example of graphic design, A, B, or C? Pause the video here and have a discussion with your partner and press Play when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? If you said that C is an example of graphic design you're absolutely right.

Well done.

A graphic design arranges visual elements in different ways to convey a message to an audience.

These visual elements include typography, symbols, colours, and shape.

One element of graphic design is typography, the art of arranging text using size, weight, and spacing.

So we've got size, weight, and spacing.

So can you see you've got the different size of those letters.

The thick or thinness of those letters, which is the weight, and then the spacing.

These three ingredients make up a font.

A font refers to the size and weight of letters, but a typeface is a set of letters that share a similar shape and design.

So you can see here the font on the left and then the typeface.

Graphic designers choose various fonts and typefaces to convey different messages.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

A typeface is? The art of visual communication.

The technique of arranging letters and text.

A set of letters that share a similar shape and design.

The size and weight of letters.

Pause the video here and give yourself time to answer this question and press Play when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? If you said a typeface is a set of letters that share similar shape and design, you are absolutely right.

Well done.

Adjusting the font and typeface of text affects the way it is seen, which can change the meaning and emotions it conveys.

Take a look at the way, great has been written here.

How does changing the font and typeface convey different meanings for the same word? Take a look at each of these and have a discussion with your partner.

Pause the video here.

How does it convey different meanings? And press Play when you are ready to continue.

What did you think? How did changing the font and typeface convey different meanings for these same words? Well, Jacob took a look at this one and he said, "This font has a personal, "authentic feel making it seem more approachable "and informal." Whereas Sam took a look at this font and she says, "It looks formal, clean and professional.

"It might be useful for letters or important documents." What did you think about those two fonts? Now with a partner, I'd like you to pick font A or B and discuss how the typeface conveys emotions.

So look at A and then look at B.

And the words you might use could be trustworthy, traditional, formal, modern, clean, elegant, romantic, playful.

So pause the video here, and give yourself some time to talk to your partner about one of these fonts and discuss how the typeface conveys emotions.

And press Play when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? Maybe you said that A was quite traditional and formal, and maybe B was quite romantic and playful.

Typography can be used in posters to create inspiring and impactful designs.

By changing the size, weight, spacing, and rotation of the font, the words are transformed and come to life.

Many graphic designers work with typography and lettering to create visually interesting artworks.

Sam is asking, "What can you learn about typography "by looking at different designs?" While graphic designers who use typography include Paula Scher, Saul Bass, Morag Myerscough, Alan Kitching, and Julia Trigg.

So you can learn a lot from them about how they use typography in their designs.

This brings us to our first learning task.

I'd like you to look around your classroom and identify five examples of typography.

Note the font size and weight used in each example.

You might want to use words such as regular, thin, italic, bold, large or small.

Pause the video here and give yourself enough time to do that and press Play when you are ready to continue.

How did you find that? Well, hopefully you were able to find some examples of typography and were able to describe the font size and weight used in each example.

Maybe you spotted like Jacob the fire exit sign, and spotted that the font is bold and large, and the typography was clear and easy to read.

Well done for having a go at that learning task.

This brings us to the second part of our lesson.

I'd like to have a go at creating stylized letter art.

While it may be important for texts to be readable in graphic design, letters can be used in creative, experimental, and playful ways.

Examples of this include Bob and Roberta Smith's, Gardens Are the New Galleries.

Robert Indiana's Lily, from The Garden of Love series.

Alan Kitching's, Rules of Typography and Morag Myerscough's, Art is our Expression and Our Sunlight.

Typography can be designed to convey specific moods, emotions, and ideas.

Can you see how each of these words reminds us of the themes they refer to; spicy, sweet, digital.

Pause the video here and have a quick discussion with your partner about how each of these words and the way they've been designed reminds us of the themes they refer to, and press Play when you're ready to continue.

Could you see how in the spicy we've got the flame that indicates that heat? And in the sweets we've got that icing and those sprinkles that remind us of those sweet treats.

By giving letters a distinctive appearance, they develop style.

The style of these letters is achieved by considering the fonts size and weight, as well as different colour combinations.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Is this statement true or false? The only use of letters is for reading words and text.

Is that true or false? Pause the video here and take a moment to think about this and press Play when you're ready to continue.

If you thought that that was false, you are absolutely right.

Now why is this statement false? Pause the video here and have a discussion with your partner about why this statement is false and press Play when you are ready to continue.

If you discuss with your partner that letters can be used to make interesting and beautiful designs and that they can also convey moods and emotions, you are absolutely right.

Well done.

Now contrast, balance, and emphasis are three principles of graphic design which can be used to create a distinctive style of typography.

So contrast, balance, emphasis.

Looking at those pictures, what do you think we mean by those three principles? Well, contrast is when noticeable differences occur between two or more visual elements, you can create contrast in typography through colour, black and white, size, and weight.

So those are all the ways in which you can show noticeable differences.

Balance in typography can be achieved by creating a sense of harmony between elements through their position, weight, distribution, and alignment.

So have a look at these here.

Can you see how the graphic design principle of balance in these examples occurs? Emphasis can help to focus attention in on a specific area of text, words, or letters.

So here are some examples of how emphasis can be used in typography.

Take a look at those there and you see how the emphasis has been applied either to text, words, or letters.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Can you fill in the missing word.

Contrast, balance, and what, are three graphic design principles? Pause the video here and have a think about that missing word and press Play when you are ready to continue.

If you said the missing word was emphasis, you are absolutely right.

Contrast, balance, and emphasis are three graphic design principles.

This brings us to our final learning task.

I'd like you to design and draw a stylized letter using your choice of shapes and colours.

Incorporate at least one of the following graphic design principles, so contrast, balance, or emphasis.

Now, it's optional you can have a go at using digital tools to experiment with different fonts and typefaces if you've got those available.

So pause the video here and have a go at this learning task and press Play when you are ready to continue.

How did you find that? Shall we take a look at an example? So maybe when you were drawing and designing a stylized letter, you might have drawn something a bit like this.

This B has got colour contrast, so you can see the red and the blue.

It's got balance in the weight, and it's got emphasis on the outline.

It's quite nice and thick, isn't it? In this example, contrast was used between the two colours.

The weight and position of the letter is balanced, and its outline is emphasised.

So they've managed to incorporate those graphic design principles in this letter, and hopefully you were able to incorporate one of those principles.

Well done for having a go at creating a stylized letter.

Before we finish this lesson, let's summarise what we've learned about graphic design and the art of letters.

Examples of graphic design can be found throughout everyday life.

Typography involves designing the style and appearance of letters using different fonts and typefaces.

Different styles and techniques can convey various emotions and messages.

Graphic design principles such as contrast, balance, and emphasis can be used to enhance the visual impact of letters.

Thank you for joining me in this lesson today.

I hope to see you in the next one.

See you next time.