Brief:
This brief is a live competition brief. You are required to submit a series of three typographic posters that focus on the word "opposites".
Dictionary Definition
I began by defining the word opposites, to really understand what it meant, and to help find inspiration from this meaning.
- Being on the other side
- Completely different
- One member of a binary pair of opposites cannot be the other
E.g.
Adjective - opposite directions/side
Noun - hate is the opposite of love
Adverb - [object] is the opposite to my [object]
Keywords
Incompatible, pairs, across, other, dissimilar
Initial Ideas
I have written down some initial ideas, which I then collected some research for, to help me to decide which idea to choose, as this is only a one week brief, I do not have time to lose by changing my mind at a later date.
- Words (Eww, Yuck, Gross) spelt out with food combination that don't go well together, for example, cereal with mince. The letters could literally be cut out of food (such as the cakes made in typogateux) or could be placed together with different foods.
- Similar food idea, this time 'Eww' would be made out of food which is typically known for being disgusting, such as sprouts. This word would be placed next to a word like 'Yum', which would be made out of popular food, such as cake.
- Colour opposites, as found in the colour wheel, placed next to each other - e.g. blue and orange
Each word could be the colour of its opposite.
- Ambigram of opposite words, e.g. love and hate. (An ambigram is a design that may be read as one or more words from the form it is presented but also another viewpoint. The words can be the same word, or different, such as the opposite form)
- Quotes about opposites e.g.
1. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. If you hate someone, you still care.
2. The opposite of good is not evil, but apathy.
3. Opposites attract
4. Hate is the opposite of love. Hate is a strong word, but then again, so is love.
- The grass is always greener on the other side; people always want the opposite to what they have. For example, people with curly hair may want to have straight hair, someone who is busy may want to relax, but if you did have what you want, you wouldn't want it anymore. Sentences regarding this thought.
- The letter forms could be doing the actions of the words they display, but they would be placed next to their opposites. e.g, run/still, stop/go, start/finish.
- The letter forms could have personality traits / physical attributes, and they would be placed next to their opposite. e.g, fat/thin, young/old, shy/confident, big/little, tall/small, clever/stupid, nice/horrible, pretty/ugly
- The writing could be reversed, such as displayed being reversed in a mirror.
- The letter forms could have contextual meanings, showing opposites such as in class or wealth. Rich could be next to poor, and each word would be adorned with decoration relevant to its meaning. For example, rich could be wearing pearls, where poor could have scruffy rags. Also, dirty, which would be dusty, could be next to clean, which would be sparkly. (Text with image)
- Opposite sides of the world. A map of the world could feature 'you' and 'me' and opposite places, to suggest a long-distance friendship/relationship. Could have a quote underneath to explain situation. 'You took my heart to the opposite side of the world.' Also, the text could be made out of the flag of the country where it is placed.
- Relevant illustrations could replace letters in a word, but allowing the word to be readable still. Day could be placed next to night, but the a could be replaced with a sun, and the i could be replaced with the moon. (Image as text)
- A series of photographs from day could be arranged to make up the word day, with obvious daytime activities/weather situations etc. This collage would be placed next to a night one.
- Changing the quote 'opposites attract' with the idea of a broken heart being shown through text.
- There are two opposing sides to a story, or to a person. A good and a bad conscience exists. There could be an illustration of a person with good on one shoulder, bad on the other, but each word would represent what it means, such as a halo on good and devil horns on bad.
Idea
Opposite - Yuck & Yum, Mmm & Eww and Tasty & Gross. One refers to disgusting food, the other refers to delicious food, in my opinion, or to stereotypical taste.
Concept - I will create the letter forms of the opposing words out of the delicious or disgusting foods, and then photograph these.
Possible foods I could use:
Pizza (easily cut), cake (baked into shape), chocolate bar (pieces snapped out), bread (easily cut), roll out icing (easily cut)
I did some primary qualitative research by asking my friends what foods they liked and which they disliked.
'yuck' foods - baked beans, fish, nuts, custard, turkish delight, pickles, prawns, mushrooms, hummus, pineapple, sprouts, spicy food
'yum' foods - pizza, lasagne, chocolate, pasta, peas, cheese, ham, bread, bananas, spaghetti, duck, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, chocolate pudding, carbonara, noodles, sweet and sour chicken, yoghurt, pancakes, grapes, apples, steak, ribs
my opinions
'yuck' foods - sprouts, baked beans, eggs, turkish delight, nuts, fish
'yum' foods - cake, chocolate, strawberries, pasta, pizza, oranges, yoghurt, tomatoes, sausages, bacon
New Idea
After pricing up how much it would cost me to buy the food for my initial idea, I decided to change my idea, as each poster would have at least 6 letters on it, and I needed to create three posters, so this could become quite an expensive brief. Also, I have worked with food before, for typogateux, and know that it takes a long time to turn food into typography, and I thought that I didn't realistically have time for my initial idea considering this is a week only brief. So, I decided to go along with one of my previous ideas, which is similar in the sense that it will still be 3d, as I will be photographing objects.
Opposite - Blue & Orange, Red & Green, Yellow & Purple
These are opposite colours on the colour wheel
Concept - I will spell out the name of a colour with objects that are the colours opposite. I will do the same for the opposite colour, and include this underneath so the idea is obvious.
Photo shoot
I gathered many items of different colours to arrange for my letters. I took quite a few photographs of each letter to ensure that I would get a good shot amongst the blurry photographs.
Thumbnails
These thumbnails show possible typographic poster designs for my colour opposites idea. They are just quick designs I created during the week, with some ideas being from before my photo shoot and some after, helping me to decide how I will lay out the final posters.
Initial Poster Layout
These are the posters I presented in my crit at the end of the week. They are not completely finished; I would like to neaten them up before actually submitting them for the competition.
Final Posters
These posters do not look much different to the original ones, however they are a lot neater, as I have made sure each letter is the same size and aligned correctly, and I have also removed the background.
