Produced using Adobe Illustrator.

 

Overview:

Carrying on from my previous Illustrator task, where I initiated my exploration with mesh and pattern tools, I wanted to further develop my skills and experiment with typefaces, this time, with monograms.

I was also interested in taking inspiration from past design trends, patterns and angles, primarily to help me visualise and aid me in my creation/experimentation phase.

 

Design Ideas and process: 

Influenced from the popularity of social media apps like Instagram, a fusion of retro-kinetic (more popularly seen in Japanese Design trends) and retro-serif typefaces have taken over, paired up with minimalistic colour (like neutrals and pastels) and styling (in regards with packaging and branding).  I was also curious to see if there could be a possibility to embed a 3-dimensional element to

This was something that I was really interested in carrying over, in my creation of monograms, with of course a hint of my own style and personality.

Some of my initial design ideas leaned towards the more retro-serif style, with elegant and curvy serifs, paired up with smooth cursives. Something that would be considered a lot more ‘trendy.’ But I also loosely sketched out some designs with a focus on height and patterns, with an element of movement in it. I also envisioned the use of sans serif fonts, but this was something that would require a lot of experimentation and exploration.

Soon enough, I was not really pleased with some of the results that were being resulted with retro-serif experimentation, so I decided to shift my focus to the retro-kinetic approach more (plus it would flow beautifully into my previous sticker-based design project).

One of my first design ideas was achieved through the use of the pathfinder and envelope distort tool, where I proceeded to create an outline of the letter ‘r,’ with the typeface Base Mono Bold, before using the rectangle tool to create parallel lines until half of the page was covered. The next step was to use the pathfinder tool to ‘divide’ all of the lines created and sending them to the ‘back’ of the page. All that was left to do was to combine the outline of the letter with the pattern that I created.

 

Software tutorials:

To assist me with my basic understanding on how the mesh tool works with typefaces, I decided to browse through a selection of videos on YouTube, just to get a glimpse of the process and understand any additional tips that could have been provided. Apart from using the mesh tool, I also wanted to develop a small portion of skills in regards with the warp and 3D tools and also generally see how different people approach the creation of monograms. Some of the mesh tutorials, especially with the combination of the pathfinder tool, took me quite a while to practise out, since despite it looking to be a fairly easily process, turns out there were small little details to focus upon, in order to have the final outcome (which was a really encouraging challenge for me).

 

Resources used for research and inspiration:

As established previously, most of my design work has been inspired from previous/existing/upcoming design trends and to ensure that I stay true to some of those elements, I always begin by creating a mood board consisting of other designer’s work, textures, fonts, colours and shapes, before constantly referring to this visual aid. It is a great reminder about some of the elements that could have been forgotten about. In terms of researching about design trends, different websites and blog posts reminded me about some of the features that I had previously seen on social media platforms.