Typography experiments



Above are some of the ideas I came up with when
designing my own typography

The theme behind Wednesday's session (for the Graphic's week) was typography. And today we was able to play around and explore different ways to create typography. We was given an hour to experiment with this - focusing on 'outside the box' thinking and trying to come up with ideas that are completely different to our normal ways of generating ideas. I need to be able to experiment outside of my comfort zone because otherwise I cannot grow as a serious designer. So during this time I played around with may different forms of producing typography - before do this I write down several ways I could do this, one of these being to 'snowflake it' (when your a child you fold paper and cut into it to create a snowflake)



I did this to see I could create a letter however it didn't work out but I did generate some nice decorative circles which lead to other ideas of drawing inside this circle. I also experimented with 2-D means by jotting down several ideas on paper.  Some of the ideas I did like whereas others I didn't but by putting all the things down from my head (even if they didn't work) meant I could see which ones worked and which didn't.  My favourite experiment I created was A and V (to the left) stencilled letters because it was so neat but displayed a lot of colour within. What I mean by this is that I could contain messy and crazy designs within the letter by using a stencil. I liked this concept because it could represent memories - how they are contained by a person. I really like the top design with scribbles since this detail isn't acknowledged until the viewer looks closely at the letter. I also like the watercolour splats on the V because it creates a pretty and fine feel.

 

After our experimental stage we were told that we needed to select one of our designs to create the entire alphabet as well as the numbers 0 - 9 with the chosen typography. I choose the stencilled style (A and V above) because it has a really interesting outcome that could be developed well. To the right you can see my process of how I create these letters. With masking tape I shape the negative space into a letter or number -which at times was difficult because the letter was curved or had a lot of lines such as the G or K. It meant I had to use a scalpel to cut out curves (which was really thin and detailed.)  I did need a lot of patience to complete some of the letters. Before I adding the designs over the stencils - I took this photograph. One of my tutors pointed out that they liked the stencil on its own because it has an organic and simple feel. And I must admit that I felt bad destroying the stencils that took so long to make (but it was fun to scribble over.)

This image to the left shows the stencil once I have fully scribbled over each letter (which took less time than actually making the stencil.) I took this photo because I really liked this stage - the stencil makes the scribbles look 3-D and I really like the way that the designs look before taking off the stencil. This shows that the best designs can be an accident - so this could be a good development if I pursued this idea.

Above is a detailed view of my typography named 'scribbles'

Here is the finished outcome when the stencil is fully removed. It has left behind only the design and a white space where the stencil was placed. The only thing that was challenging during this part of the process was pulling of the masking tape gently enough without ripping off some of the paper it was attached too - however I managed little damage. I really like this design because the letters can contain any design and have the same neat outside. I like that the inside is scribbles but the outside is clean since the to ideas are opposites so the overall the design is striking. To develop this idea I could look into different stencils or inside designs.