Visual Language: Sequence Through Space

In groups of three in visual language we created a letter which is made from different parts hung in different places, which only works as a letterform from one angle. This is a sequence of type moving through space, as seen on the Channel 4 adverts. This challenge seemed easier at first than it turned out to be. We created a Z out of three equal sections, but then as we tried to place the pieces, we realised that the parts would have to be different sizes depending on where they are placed to work as a letterform. We kept experimenting until we got it right, and then as we knew what we were doing, we created a miniature letterform. Here is a photograph of the letterform from the front, and one from the side showing how it doesn’t work from the side. I have also videoed this.

No News Is Good News: Part 1 - Posters

A statement of fact based on my research

British Comedian Russell Brand marries American Pop Star Katy Perry in India

Brief: Produce three high impact posters that deliver a message (a statement of fact) from your research. The posters must work as a set, and the first must be produced using only type, the second only image and the third being a combination of the two.

Ideas: Type Only

• An elegant, romantic, interlinking typeface
• The ‘B’ of Brand could be placed on its side to look like a heart

  
• A font could be created with is a mix of both the fonts used for Brand and Perry’s personal branded products
• Type could be placed in the shape of a love heart, or the shape of the country of India

  

Image Only

• An over emphasized features cartoon drawing of Brand and Perry in traditional Hindu wedding attire, or shrunk to be toppers on a wedding cake

  
• A wedding related illustration of the pair containing hearts, cake, rings and other symbols of marriages

  
• An image of the pair in wedding attire cut out of a red paper heart, in the style of illustrator Rob Bryan
  

  

  
  
• An Indian wedding illustration, with the heads of Brand and Perry over sized as if replacing the heads if the Indian couple
• The statement is spelt out with drawings

  

Type and Image

• The shape of the country India contains the statement in the middle, with symbols connected with marriage decorating the outside of the page

  
• The shape of the country India contains a cartoon style illustration of the pair, with newspaper style heading overlapping edges, and symbols concerning the pairs occupations and lifestyle scattered around the outside of the country

  

  

  
  
• The type is made up of smaller images concerning the pair, marriage and India
• The statement is spelt out with drawings, with type underneath to make it obvious what it means
• An image of the pair in wedding attire cut out of a red paper heart, in the style of illustrator Rob Bryan

Development of Design Ideas

I decided to develop my favourite design ideas on Photo shop and Illustrator

Image Only

I have made my statement of fact with images only using pictures found on Google image

I then decided to recreate these images on Illustrator, allowing me to make sure I am only using two colours as stated in the brief. I chose to use red to symbolise love, and gold to symbolise the luxury of the wedding of Katy Perry and Russell Brand, and then white as I felt that this colour would go well with red and gold.

Initially I tried placing a red background behind these images, and used a golden outline, however, I thought this made them particularly difficult to understand. I played around with different thickness of strokes, colour of strokes, and background colour until I found a style I thought looked good, would be able to work as a set as was understandable. 

Final Design

Type Only

As inspired by the image of the Goodfella's pizza box, recorded on my design context blog, I experimented with arranging my statement of fact text into the shape of a love heart. The second example shows the design after I neatened and corrected it.

The font I have used is Myraid Pro Regular. I did try this idea with different, more decorative fonts which relate to romance, but they made the text quite difficult to read. As stated in the brief, I needed my work to be clear, understandable and high impact, and so I decided to stick with this font. 

For the final piece, I turned the image horizontal, as I decided this was what how I wanted my other pieces, and as it was stated in the brief that the images must work as a set, I felt I needed to change the orientation of this design. I was still unsure about the use of font, as I wanted to ensure readability but also use a font that was visually attractive. I decided to create my own font on Illustrator, by messily tracing around an existing font, which I also used in the type and image design. 

Final Design

Type and Image Combined


I redrew a neatened image of one of my earlier design ideas onto card, simplifying it so that it would be easier to cut out with a scalpel, and also to make sure the design was kept clear and understandable. I kept important aspects but also tried to ensure the image would still be visually attractive. After cutting out the image I scanned it in. I was really unsure about which way to apply colour, but decided on a similar concept to the type only piece, to ensure the images work as a set.

Final Design

Changes


After the feedback from the evaluations I made some changes to my image poster. I have made the drawings simpler, and added an arrow to mean 'in' and I have taken out the heart as this was not part of the sentence I was trying to explain through image. I have concentrated on editing the colours so that the piece works better in a set than it did with a white background.

Here I have altered the image poster to be image and type. However to use this in my set, I would need to edit my existing image and type image and change this to only image. I have changed the orientation of my piece to vertical, and have grouped relevant things, such as "British Comedian Russell Brand" onto their own line. I think the text matches really well with the images and the layout not only makes the image easier to read and understand but is more exciting that just two lines. I really like this image so would like to use it in part 2 of this brief.

Visual Language

Today we went back to basics to recap over language skills that we had not thought about in years. 

Dictionary Definitions

verb a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.

adverb a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or otheradverb or a word-group, expressing a relation of place, time,circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there).noun a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things ( common noun), or to name a particular one of these ( proper noun).pronoun a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this).adjective a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.
subjective pronoun a personal pronoun that is used as the subject of a sentence. (I, you, he, she, it, we, what, who and they).

After this, we thought about what was important in a paragraph. We did this by shortening newspaper articles down into 160 characters (for a text message) and 140 characters (for a 'tweet').

OMG is Rooney getting dropped by Fergie? Lol. Fergie refused 2 tlk about the players future after reports claimed Rooney didn’t want 2 sign a new contract. City should sign him. Rofl.

Layout, Frame and Format

The basic principles of graphic design are layout, frame and format, and they are what I looked at during visual thinking. The composition is a fundamental element for any piece, for example with a magazine layout. I have tried to convey different words through type using a five square sequence.

Catch

The Times New Roman A is falling, and is caught by a bed of A's.

Slip

The A's start off in a straight line, and gradually slip towards the bottom.

I showed my sequence to other members of the group to see if what I was trying to communicate was understandable to others.

Expand

For this task we worked in groups to produce twenty squares showing the opposite of our word.

Adobe Illustrator Induction

Experimentation using Adobe Illustrator

Brief: Create 26 variations of one letterform

Week One


Before this induction I had a very small knowledge of Illustrator, so have started with very basic steps. I have manipulated an existing letter, mainly by altering the counter.

Week Two

I learnt how to use the pen tool to trace a shape, how to create curves, how to apply pattern and colour, how to create my own letters with shapes.

Development

I chose the letter p instead of k which I had been using in my visual thinking brief, as I wanted to alter the counter as I had in my inductions. The letterforms I have created were made by experimenting and playing around with different tools and settings to help give me an understanding of how I can use Illustrator creatively. 

.1. Original  .2. With Pattern  .3. Edited Serifs & Counter Shape  .4. Without Counter  .5. Shrunk Counter Shape  .6. Rotated & Enlarged Counter  .7. Altered Anchor Points  .8. Remove Handles .9. Recreated Shapes With Rectangle Tool  .10. Recreated Shape With Eclipse & Rounded Rectangle Tool  .11. Altered Opacity Of Layers  .12. Altered Brush Stroke  .13. Altered Brush Stroke  .14. Altered Brush Stroke .15. With Pattern & Stroke  .16. Created From Different Fonts In Style Of Visual Thinking Letterforms  .17. Changed Opacity Of Layers  .18. Stretched Anchors  .19. Created From Different Fonts In Style Of Visual Thinking Letterforms  .20. Outline Only  .21. With Scatter Brush  .22. P In Front Of P Brush  .23. Changed Stroke Weight & Outline  .24. Used Perspective Selection Tool  .25. Used Perspective Selection Tool  .26. Added Symbols  .27. Different Layers Of Opacity  .28. Altered Scale  .29. Pucker Tool  .30. Twirl Tool .31. Twirl Tool .32. Crystallise Tool  .33. Wrinkle Tool  .34. Scallop Tool  .35. Bloat Tool  .36. With Shadow .37. Blob Brush Tool .38. Blob Brush Tool

Final Piece: A1 Poster

Personality Alphabet

Brief

To create an alphabet and 6 glyphs for a partner, as well as a name badge, based on five adjectives which describe the partner. The alphabet should be created by manipulating existing letterforms. 

Eddie's Adjectives

For Eddie, I decided he was laid back, informal, mysterious, fun and indecisive. I then defined these words to get a better understanding of what I would be to communicate.

Laid Back: Relaxed, unhurried, free from stress, easygoing, carefree, horizontal, not strict, free from tension Fun: Amusement, enjoyment, playfulness, jokes, whimsical, flamboyant, animated, social, not serious, merry, foolery Mysterious: Obscure, full of mystery, puzzling, secretive, curious, not easily explained, confusing, inexplicable, unknown, strange, baffling, incomprehensive Informal: Casual, irregular, natural, easy, breezy, cool, light hearted Indecisive: Unsure, uncertain, unstable, doubtful, shaky, lacking assurance, inconclusive, mixed, wavering, insecure

Possible typography ideas

Existing typeface experimentation

I decided to experiment with existing fonts which I felt were relevant to what I was trying to communicate about Eddie by copying out his name in each style. It was important to make sure that each style worked with Eddie's name, as I would also be creating a name badge. 

Champollion Outline - Jigsaw - Wyvern Blocko - Glyphic Neue Wide - TX Gitter - TX Tiny Tim Gimpy - Trisec - Nurse Ratchet - Liquid Sex Italic - Crystopian - Twister

 - This is Eddie's favourite of the fonts

Development

There are different elements from the fonts which I like, so I continued my development by creating new ideas bringing together these elements.

Trisec (Uppercase with shadow) - Trisec (Uppercase with backwards italic and bits missing) - Mix of Twister and Trisec (with shadow) - Mix of Trisec and Champollion Outline (with shadow and backwards italic)

More experimentation with Mix of Trisec and Champollion Outline

Mix of Trisec, Wyvern Blocko and Jigsaw

The a has opened edges, the b has closed edges with shadow and the c just has closed edges.

I thought the style of the b worked the best, so decided to also mix in Champollion Outline, the font which Eddie preferred, and experiment with some letterforms in this mix. I also experimented with the idea of physically leaning back a letter, to show how I believe Eddie to be laid back.

I really liked the style I had created from the mix of existing fonts, so decided to continue this experimentation with the rest of the alphabet and the chosen glyphs. However, I was unsure whether I wanted the letterforms to be leaning back or not, so tried some letters with this idea and some without. After asking Eddie which style he preferred, and thinking about which style I personally thought was more attractive, I decided not to lean back the letters. 

I decided to use each glyph for a particular reason. The division sign shows how only a percentage of Eddie is revealed to me. The asterix is used to block out letters in offensive words, so I have used this to show how Eddie blocks some of himself out. I have used the email symbol to show that Eddie is confident with technology, and the pound sign to show he is interested in money. I decided not to use the and symbol as I didn't think it would work at a small size. I developed the symbols so they would fit in with the letterforms I had created.

Final Name Badge

Based on the design decisions I had previously made, this is Eddie's 4.5cm x 9cm name badge.

Final Pieces

A1 White Paper & A1 Tracing Paper

Hand Drawn Typefaces

On these A1 sheets feature my completed and neatened alphabets and 6 glyphs after development.

Testing Readability

I scanned in each letter, and re arranged these on to the computer to test the readability of the typeface when used for sentences, and at different sizes. I think it would look too much because of the quantity of lines to use this font for a large area of text, but I am pleased that the typeface does work at different sizes.

I also tried Eddie's full name for a different name badge.

Illustrator Experiment

To test whether handcrafting was the right idea, or if this style of letterforms would have been better suited to being created on illustrator, I experimented with creating the letter a with the pen tool. At this stage I have very little knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, so I have simply created this letter by tracing my hand drawing. The curves are cleaner and smoother, and there are no mistakes or smudges as with the hand drawn style. However, I don't think the imperfections in my hand drawn type face matter, as perfect and neat was not what I was attempting to portray. Instead of perfect curves, I prefer my slightly messy hand drawn style.

Further Development

After recieving feedback from my tutor, I decided to take a step back from my illustrator experiments and continue to develop my designs. The feedback can be seen on my PPD blog.

I have created this small design to show how the letters should look if they were in the correct proportion. I have also removed the block shadow and made each letter harder to read, and removed the closed lines, all of these being issues that arose after feedback.

The shape of the maze line in some letters gave away what the letter was about, which was not what I was trying to portray, so these design ideas are examples of what my alphabet could look like if it were truly portraying the characteristics I believe Eddie to be.

T was a problem letter as it did not look visually correct, so I have tried to fix this.