Design Principles module briefing.

Alphabet soup - Typeface. OUGD403

These are two quick designs I have done using the typeface I have been working with to show what my final outcome may look like. I think the second one with the letter forms the same size works best out of the two, but I need to find a way to also incorporate the glyphs I have done onto the final piece.

Alphabet Soup - Typeface OUGD403

 From the research that I've done on my partner and some typography I have started to play around with some different scales and fills for the type. We had a group crit on Friday and the feedback I got from that was that I needed to look more into how the letter forms will sit on the page and to look into the negative space of the space a bit more and so I have used this to come up with some more interesting ideas for the final outcome. 

I want to create a piece that is bold and outgoing much like how my partner is, and so I think it would work really well if the type is lots of different sizes on the page and overlaps to show that my partner is complex and confident.

 

The final typeface that i have chosen to work with is 'Elephant' by Julia. I chose this because although it looks quite bold and simple, there are a few little details which make the typeface more interesting, which i think shows the confidence in my partner.

 

Alphabet soup - Typeface. OUGD403

Brief

Design a typeface for a full alphabet and glyphs (a to z, !, ?, @, £, :, .) that represents the personality/character of your partner. You will discover their personality/character through a series of set questions. Using your newfound appreciation of the anatomy of typographic forms and the wealth of research that you have already gathered, focus on the manipulation of existing letterforms in order to solve this problem.

Background / Considerations

Experiment with a range of possible line qualities, marks, colour and paper types. How will colour help the communication? What papers can you work with? Do you need to draw, photocopy, photograph, collage, trace or combine processes? Your final resolutions should read as convincing, well crafted and clearly presented typographic forms.

The person that I am making my typeface for is Ellen.

 Questionnaire

 What is your favourite colour? Black

What is your earliest memory? In nursery, fighting over the rainbow coloured bike

Which living designer do you most admire, and why? Antony Peters, Simple and colourful designs, quirky and interesting.

What is your most treasured possession? Macbook

What would your super power be? To be able to read minds

Which piece of graphic design do you wish you had created? Either the Apple or the coca cola brand

Who would play you in the film of your life? Emma Stone

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party? Robert Pattinson, Heath Ledger and Ellen Degeneres. 

What makes you unhappy? Animal cruelty

What would be your fancy dress costume of choice? A dorito or an Ork.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? OMG, Awesome, Groovy, All that jazz, Haha. 

Before researching into typefaces i wanted to get a better idea of who Ellen was as a person, so i came up with a few more questions of my own that i thought would do this. I found out that she is a very loud and confident person, so my typeface has to be big and bold with lots of pattern. However she prefers clean and simple lines so i will have to keep the pattern simple and to a minimum to suit it more to her taste. Her favourite designer is Antony Peters who uses very simple pattern and colour which i think is really beautiful, so this will be my starting point for research.

Antony Peters - aka Imeus design

Antony Peters uses mostly design for print, particularly screen printing with many layers and bright colours. The lines are really clean and simple but there is always an element of pattern or repeated pattern in his work. I love how he keeps to a limited colour palette in his pieces and how simple the actual designs are, but when layered up on top of one another then prints work really well both as a single piece or within a collection. 

More research into Typefaces:

Studio8 design

Studio8 do a lot of design work for print in magazines and books, and a lot of typeface design. I love their way of playing around with the layout and size of the type on a page and i think it works very effectively.

Alphabet soup - Visual Thinking. OUGD403

Brief

Produce a set, series or sequence of ten letterforms that explore and communicate your interpretation of the word that you have selected from the randomisers. Using your newfound appreciation of the anatomy of typographic forms and the wealth of research that you have already gathered, focus on the manipulation of existing letterforms in order to solve this problem.

Background / Considerations

Think visually. Consider what the visual essence of your subject matter is and how best to communicate this. What are the obvious responses? How can you beyond these? How subtle can you be? Do your ideas operate as a set, series or sequence? The following terms may prove useful: Trace, erase, layer, combine, outline, silhouette, and surface. Consider the most effective and controlled use of media appropriate to your subject matter. EXPERIMENT with a range of possible line qualities, marks, colour and paper types. How will colour help with the communication? What paper stocks can you work with? Do you need to draw, photocopy, photograph, collage, trace or combine all of these processes?

For this project we were each given a word with which we had to create 10 letter forms to do with this word. My word was 'Boom' and so i began with a mind map to get down a lot of my ideas. 

I really liked the idea of using sound waves and vibrations to show the word Boom in as many ways as i could think of, so i then did some research into this kind of imagery.

Most of the imagery i found used a lot of lines and waves which i thought would look really good within a typeface.

 I found this better B in a magazine online and i liked how it flowed, so i created the R using these ideas of smoothness and flow.

 These lines are the sound waves from a sonic boom, which i thought looked really interesting. I like how I've layered these up to create a pattern that looks almost like a Spirograph drawing.

The final 10 pieces had to be presented as 10cm by 10cm pieces, but we could use any paper we wanted as long as it was in black and white.

1.

2.

 3.

 4.

 5.

 6.

 7.

 8.

9.

 10.

I'm really happy with my final 10 pieces and i think that they show my word quite effectively, but some better than others. My favourite ones are one, two and ten, mostly because i think they portray 'Boom' in the best way. I also really like the patterns and shapes created inside theses three letter forms.