Category: TY1DP1

Work by Part 1 students as part of their ‘Design Practice’ module.

A, S Or A, C – Initials

01/10/2020

I first started with 3 letters for my initials using fonts that I used in my previous monogram serif but later advised by Kim that 2 letters would be better and faster.

Process

I Used Garamond as I am particularly instead in Serif typeface. I started to sketch and Explore which letter i would use with ‘A’ for my design process I chose ‘S’ cause I liked the swirl around the Letter ‘A’

 

The Stages

Final Work

Conclusion

I am quite happy that I took Kim advised as I like the simplicity of the  2 letters. after comparing my work with that of my mates I regret not exploring more with the forms and layout of my letters.

 

 

Maybe if I use Futura people would take me seriously

Intro

Todays brief required us to experiment with creating a monogram from our own Initials. I was given the option to base my response on the typefaces Futura or Garamond. I chose Futura because it is a Geometric Sans-Serif. This means that it has more consistency in its weight, suggesting that the monogram will be more uniform in its design. The lack of serifs also make it more practical to connect  forms which is ideal for the brief.  In addition I feel that Futura is a personal favourite of mine, due to its uniformity in geometric design but slight changes in weight, adding variation and personality, instead of being perfectly boring. To get an idea of how to connect my Initials, I started to source some inspiration of existing sans-serif type monograms.

I found that a common way to join the forms are through overlapping them, often creating something not initially legible, thus becoming an odd form for a logo. The monograms also utilise common characteristics found in the typeface. For example the DC logo can utilise the ‘C’ by vertically flipping it to suggest its also a ‘D’. Having this in mind I decided to sketch out some initial ideas in Futura. I printed out my initials in the same size but in ‘Medium’, ‘Bold’ and ‘Condensed medium’ and cut them out. This was to give me a range of weights to experiment with as well as allow me to stencil them for accuracy. I found this was a good way to generate ideas as I could physically manipulate the type, often causing accidents leading to new ideas to try. It also helped me get a fairly close resemblance to the typeface which was helpful for alignment in my sketches. After several sketches I redrew some of my favourites to get a sense of which ones looked legible and suitable when filled in, as sketch outlines give a fall sense of space.

 

 

 

 

I chose the second Test sketch (see second image above) to develop into a monogram. this was because the ‘S’ and ‘G’ fit together so that they share a satisfying elongated curve. The distance between the two forms also generates a lot of negative space above the ‘G’ in addition to its open style counter, making it look spacious. I also liked how the ‘G’ is rotated at 90 degrees, making it look similar to an arrow. I decided to experiment on Illustrator by recreating the sketch  to try and overlap the forms to test if the forms poke through at all. I found that the spine of the ‘S’ wouldn’t align with the ‘G’ so I decided to increase the point size by 2 for the S. This gave it a slight increase in weight to hide the blemish and I think it subtly draws the eye to it more easily, making it recognisable as an ‘S’ and not an odd ornament for the ‘G’. i think started playing around with the idea that the ‘G’ looks like an arrow and made a series of forms. each one included the ‘G’ but at a different angle, as if in order it looks like its rotating. I then experimented with adding the ‘S’ onto the ‘G’ using my sketches as inspiration. I found that I created a bunch of new forms, as if they were trying to morph into my chosen monogram. I tried to place each form side by side but the ornamental style of the ‘S’ didn’t conform to any baseline. I thought that I could use the reoccurring ‘G’ as a point of alignment and started to align them vertically. I treated the forms as if they were real letters and tried to manually kern them. They all interact with one another differently so it was interesting to see how much negative space I could leave between them to make the overall ‘sentence’ seem balanced. The ‘sentence’ looked good in vertical alignment, but required a lot of negative space around it. Because of this I only added ‘Futura’ in the corner and other details in much smaller point size so the form wouldn’t be overcrowded. The final piece can be found below.

overall I’m happy with my outcome and was surprised at how versatile Futura could be considering both my initials are heavily curvaceous. It’s odd to see my initials as the base of a project inspired by a lot of fashion designer logos, but goes to show how a good typeface can make anything look important and ‘put well together’.

 

 

 

 

 

Attention and caution

   typefaces around campus

This was my presentation which I did for Eric’s project, I have taken some pictures around the campus of typefaces. which looked really different from each other and how by changing the colour of something changes the hole meaning. Especially some of the signs calling for attention and caution such as the yellow danger sign.

I have colour coded the pictures into similar colours such was blue , green and yellow. One of my slide was about the lettering to the metal. However the metal on each picture is different than the other. The metal on the library looked like steel whereas the metal on manhole is diffrent maybe more stronger I guess.

The environment is everything that isn’t me.

Introduction

The lettering in the environment project that I completed really gave me a clear understanding of how much detail there is to where we live and breathe every day. The brief was quite simple, as it said to explore and go around the campus to photograph as many sources of the environment as possible. There was quite a distinctive pattern to what I was taking pictures of, due to the fact I took quite a few pictures of letting on buildings, walls, and floors. Reading’s campus has a strong sense of vibrancy and colors to it. However, the pictures that I took, were quite the opposite of that.

Once I had all my photos, the next step was to categorize them. I displayed my photos into  different categories, that were quite simple but effective at distinguishing each photo to what type of photo is was and where it was taken.   The platform or software I used to display these categories and pictures that I took was on PowerPoint The categories that I mentioned are shown below, they include Colour and Materials.

Colour

The next part of the task wasn’t really difficult, as we just had to organise each picture into different categories. Once I did this, I then noticed after presenting these pictures on Powerpoint that whilst categorising them into colours and materials. The pictures weren’t very relevant to one another and didn’t really do the pictures justice. Which is why I do believe that in the future if I did this task again, I would just update and edit the pictures to black and white. this will hopefully let me maintain my attention and time on the letters of the pictures rather than the actual colours themselves.

The next category of the PowerPoint and pictures I took are below:

Materials

 

 

Grab and Tear it all

Obsession

What is this story about

A lady obsessed with finding a mouse but later finds  out after dismantling her bookshelf  that there is nothing and it might all be in her head

I found the subject of the story very interesting as it allowed me to be able to use the magazines to the full content

How can it be represented visually?

When I thought of obsession I thought of OCD -Obsessive-compulsive disorder, chaos, a mouse and scratch marks

At the back, I added shreds of paper to represent her taking the bookshelves apart one by one

hands: to show the obsessiveness with grabbing of the mouse

The Front                                                          The back

 

The Hardship of Being a Woman

Woman

mind map

Process

My word for this task is woman and I wanted to show how the society criticises women in general. Not only do women experience in gender inequality, women also always get objectified by others. Therefore, I decided to put on frame to it, just to make it look like a displaying item of an exhibition.

Moreover, people usually describe women as beautiful, pretty or elegant, so I think it will be a great idea to use a goddess to represent the image of a female. As the sky symbolises freedom and the residence of the gods, I used a picture of the sky that i took before as the background.

For my final, I did different hand gestures and took a few pictures of them, I then outlined and coloured them on my ipad. Those hands represented people in the society, all gestures mean their own way of rudeness and criticism. Also, I painted some blood near the intimate part of the statue, to portray the situation of woman being shamed on their period.

The animated version IMG_2409

Self-reflection

As this is not my first time doing this kind of task, I have my past experience to help me avoiding some unnecessary mistakes. However, it has been a while since the last time I made a graphic design, so I feel like this is a nice chance to warm myself up before my real classes start. Overall, the task was fun to do, I enjoyed spending the whole day on editing images and drawing on my ipad.

 

“above”, “below” and “straight on”

During Eric’s session on Monday, we were asked to venture outside and photograph examples of typography in the environment that caught our eye. I found the task interesting as it encouraged me to look at typography in a different way. I found myself paying more attention to the use of typography in the environment, how it was positioned, and the material it was made from.

We were given a couple of hours to take our photos before we went back to present three of our favourite outcomes, and discussed them with the group. It was interesting to see how all of our images differed from one another and who photographed similar examples.

We were then asked to edit and organise our images in a method of our choice. I found editing the photos an enjoyable task and decided to organise them based on perspective. I had three folders labelled “above”, “below” and “straight on” and organised them depending on how I had to capture the object.

Here are some of my favourite outcomes from the session.

Work

In Sara’s project, I created and shot a set of images that represented the noun ‘work.’ On my first slide, I show a work colleague sat at his desk designing, this is then accompanied by an illustration of his desk.

For the contrasting image, I decided to play with the idea of bullying in the workplace. This is shown by the fingers pointing at him. On reflection, if I’d had more time, I definitely would have liked to convey the ‘bullying’ scenario better. This could have been by adding a phone onto the desk illustration which showed threatening or degrading text messages.

If I were to do this project again, I would spend more time on the contrasting image and create a stronger link between the two juxtaposed images.

A learning curve

Our brief for this project was to create a graphic representation of our initials using either Futura or Garamond. To start with I simply brainstormed and sketched out a few ideas in both fonts. I chose to continue my exploration with the Futura font for the rest of the task as I felt that my initials were much clearer this way when attempting to merge them. I was struggling to find combinations and solutions due to my first initial, Y, being so angular and my second initial, C being the exact opposite. To combat this I drew and cut out the letters to experiment with them physically. This helped me massively as I could now visualise what my monogram could look like a lot easier, therefore allowing me to be more creative and push my experimentation further.

For my final design, I chose to combine two of my ideas, as you can see in the image above. Once I had finalised the structure of the design I then had a little extra time to experiment with colour. I chose to do black and purple for my first attempt with colour but found it was a little too dark and so didn’t stand out as much as I would have liked. For my second attempt, I chose light blue and orange. I went with light blue as it is the colour often associated with the city that I am from and seeing as it was my initials I thought this fit quite nicely. I chose orange purely for aesthetic reasons, as it made the monogram stand out just that little bit more.