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.