Study Task 2

Today I started work on my second typeface for study task 2. This time I chose to develop a script font, as I feel that this is arguably the most different from the Roman font. By choosing these too probably more difficult fonts first I hope that when it comes to developing a Block or Gothic font I will have learnt enough from experience to do a really good job. That is not to say that I'm not pleased with the result of the Roman font or don't anticipate being pleased with the Script font.

The main thing I've took from having already developed a typeface is that I shouldnt be so strict and numeric with my rules on how bold each letter should be (numerically at least), and that I should sketch out a set of 12 letters at each stage before judging what, if any, changes need to be made, because by doing it this way I'll see the bigger picture and hopefully avoid being counter-productive.

My starting point was Lucinda Calligraphy

I started with the light, I drew a fairly basic line showing the
basic shape of each letterform, apart from the upper case Y,
which I created myself to so it didn't have a descender. 

I then thought that the lines weren't dainty enough to use as
as script font, so I traced over them using a thinner pen, whilst
keeping roughly the same shape, I was happy at this point. 

My first stage for the bold was to thicken the a traced copy of the
thin font without making the letters to illegible. I think generally
I succeeded with the exception of the upper case Y, which is
somewhat unsurprising as I drew the initial letterform for that myself
with no consideration for how it would look in other font styles. 

I then had another go at the bold, this time focusing on making
the terminals constantly pointed rather than having large flat
sections, which struck be as not being particularly dainty, even
in comparison to a bold letterform. I also focused on the upper
case Y to make it more legible. I was pleased with this set. 

For the regular I traced the outline of the bold around the
outline of the thin to give me some sort of guide as to what
sort of shape and thickness the letters should be. This was
my first attempt. Unfortunately there were inconsistencies with
the thicknesses and the counters. 

Another thought I had about the previous stage was that the
letters were generally too thick. To get around all these problems
I traced the basic shape of each letter using the same pen I used
for the first stage of developing the thin font. I then doubled
the thickness of the lines in most sections of all the letters, only
thinning it down when I was approaching the terminals, as this
meant I could keep the pointed terminals consistent throughout
the typeface. The points are something I will work on further when
I digitize the typeface.

Study Task 2

Today I "finished" my typeface for Study Task 2. Before today all I needed to finish was the italic font. I had previously started working on this by hand, but after re-visiting it I decided to do it digitally, as I've learned from previous sessions in Design Principles that not all typefaces use Italics, some use Obliques, which are a sheared version of the regular font, although this mainly applies to Gothic fonts.

One thing I did notice when looking at the font before I did the obliques however is that it did look very much like a Gothic font as opposed to a Roman one, due to the line weights, which were only inconsistent in the Bold font. I'd been referring to it as a Roman font on the basis that I was intending to add Serifs to it on completion, but it has since sunk in to my head that weather a typeface has serifs or not isn't what decides if it's Roman or Gothic. 

Clearly my typeface is a Gothic one, and I'm happy with it as I do feel the glyphs do work together. Because of this I have decided against adding serifs to it, hence why I questioned my earlier use of the the term finished. But because of this uncertainty I'm going to develop another typeface that I hope will be more successful than this one due to my understanding of fonts increasing as I've developed this typeface.

Fancy Wood

This type intrigues me because of how it would look from different angles rather than how it looks from the photographed angle. From other angles it may would probably look like a pile of bits of wood due to the gaps and layers within it, and this is a concept that could be used elsewhere. 

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/Fancy-Wood-is-a-Fancy-Mood/8981891

Diversiplay

One of our CoP lectures was about how type is the visual representation of language, this font sums this up perfectly. 

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/DIVERSIPLAY/8165751

Bauchstaben

I like this font because of how it shows that individual fonts can have their own personality and be inspired without being obvious.

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/BAUCHSTABEN-typeface-design/9802423

Growing Type

I found this on the internet and just think it's quite cool because of how different it is to any other sort of type I've seen.

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/growing-type-grass-2013/8985495

Handloom Picture Company

Handloom is an Advertising Agency who's branding I really like for it's use as type as image and the bright colours, which is something you don't often see in the branding of other creative companies due to current design trends.

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/handloom-picture-company/8574699

Study Task 2

I developed the regular font for my roman typeface today, as well as making a start on the italic. This wasn't too difficult to do because I found the midway point between the light and bold.

I then scanned this into a computer and sheared it at an angle of 7.5 degrees, printed that out, and used that as a base for the italic font. I found that I needed to shear it more, and as shown below, it didn't take me long to realise this and I soon stopped working on it. 

Design Principles - Hierarchy of Type

Today in design principles we learned about how the first thing you notice when looking at a page isn't necessarily the thing at the top of the page, but is more often than not dictated by something that stands out through differentiation from the other things on the page, generally via colour, image or shock tactics of some sort. We also learned that what you look at next isn't dictated by what the next most outstanding thing on the page is, but what your eye naturally looks at due to the layout of the design. This is known as the hierarchy of information. The thing you look at first is at the top of the hierarchy of information, then the next thing you look at is the second thing in the hierarchy of information. We then differentiated this from the hierarchy of type by doing an exercise where we cut out the first section of type our eyes were drawn too from a newspaper page, then stuck it down on a piece of paper. Then cut out the next piece of type we looked at and stuck it down and so on. The piece of paper we used showed us the hierarchy of type. The thing at the top of the page was top of our hierarchy etc etc.

Frame (Photoshop) - Final Crit

The final crit took the format of us leaving our work out with three questions written by us for half of the group to answer on a sheet of paper.

The questions I left were:

1. The numbers were intended to be disguised amongst the background, to what extent have I achieved this?
2. How long did it take you to realise that I'd used rulers? Does the distance you looked at the designs from make a distance to this?
3. The mock up is a lot lighter than the designs, how much difference does this make from the initial designs in terms of the contrast and transparency of the numbers.

Generally the feedback was that the idea was good and that I executed it well in the way I edited the photos transparency and contrast, and that generally people engaged with the designs as they took some time to look at them to figure out what they were made out of. All in all I was very happy with the feedback as I felt I had achieved what I wanted to achieve, which was:

1. To create designs that were nothing like any of the designs I saw in my research.
2. To create designs that would not only attract the eye of the customer, but hold their attention for a while as well.
3. To create designs that would work well in most frames, not just a specific style of frame. 

One useful piece of advice I was given was that I should consider putting some branding on them somewhere, as they look very generic at the moment, and would potentially be more professional.

Frame (Photoshop)

Today I used one of the photos of photo frames used in my research to show how my design would look as an actual photo frame backdrop. I did this using various effects in Photoshop.

I started by distorting my design so it was at the same angle
as the frame, I then added a layer mask to make sure my design
didn't cover over part of the frame.

I then added a paper texture to the design using the transparency
modes, as well as filling in the reflection of myself in the frame.
Both these layers were also masked.

I then lightened some areas to give the effect of reflected light
in some areas, this made my reflection stand out a bit more and
made it look more like a photograph. I also added a slight shadow
inside the design to make it look slightly set back.

How my finished mock-up looks.

Frame (Photoshop)

Today I made my design into the required sizes and in both landscape and portrait orientations in order to show how the design works as a concept as well as just a one off. The changing of the orientations didn't really take much doing because of the nature of my designs.

Study Task 2

Today I did some further work on developing a typeface for study task 2. Developing the light weight was fairly straight forward as shown in the previous post, but when I drew the bold using the guidelines I set myself previously I found that the letters looked very chunky due to having the same line weight. To change this I drew the set again but by using the decided bold line width only for lines or parts of lines that run vertically, with the horizontally running lines being considerably thinner, the variation of line width increased while the letter form still maintained it's boldness.  

Frame (Photoshop)

This morning I started working on the outcomes for the first brief of UGGD405.

Original Photo Of The Ruler

Edited Exposure To Lighten The Picture

Edited Curves To Darken The black Bits

Experimenting With Transparency To
Achieve The Overlapping Effect

Dublicating The Ruler At Different
Angles To Create A Background

Duplicated The Rulers Multiple Times To Create
Darkened Areas In The Shape Of Numbers

Made Grayscaled To Get Rid Of The Horrible
Yellowish Tint That Was Building Up Due To
The Layering.

Frame (Photoshop) Interim Crit

Today was the interim crit for the frame project. The questions I asked were:

• Which was the most relevant concept and why.
• What sort of shops could you see that concept being in.
• Have you seen anything similar in your research.
• Who do you think would buy it. 

The feedback was very mixed. A lot of people thought the ruler concept was most relevant to the brief, but then it would be in shops such as Ikea, which is something I wanted to stay away from, hence the more quirky concepts of the other two. I think subconsciously I had already written this idea off. 

There was concern within the Goldilocks idea that the violence (to a very slight extent in my opinion) was in a design primarily aimed at children, and this could detract parents from buying it. I'm not sure how true this is, because to be honest, if I was buying a photo frame for any reason, I wouldn't even consider the background photo. What was encouraging though was that like me, they'd not seen much like it in their research, because I wanted to do something new. 

I think the most positive and useful feedback came on the Betty Boop idea. Although no-one really answered the question of what shops they'd be found in, there was positive feedback about the idea which I hadn't considered. Someone commented on the fact that the eyes are looking in different directions involves the buyer more, and someone said the the fact that Betty Boop is a brand would help the frame sell. I'm quite sure not everyone read the spider diagram I drew explaining the idea, because those two comments said nothing about the innuendo behind the concept, which suggests to me that it isn't strong enough. The most useful comment was that the tone was unclear, because I was using the tradional style of Betty Boop but making it more adult, and for it to work clearly I would have to "break the stereotype", which is something I'll look into further, as the Betty Boop idea is the one I would want to take forward.

However, it dawned on me that this idea doesn't lend itself too well to the photographic and photoshop element of the brief, which is a main part of the assessment. After seeing other peoples work and ideas I came to the conclusion that the Betty Boop concept was too over-thought and complicated anyway, and as I can no feasibly take 3 photo's of a little girl fighting bears, I am pretty much forced to run with the ruler idea. Fortunately I have picked up some ideas from other peoples work about layering and using lighting to make the composition more interesting, which addresses my primary problem with this idea, which was that it could possibly have been quite dull and boring.

Frame (Photoshop)

Below is what I intend to take to the crit on Friday.

Concept 1

Using photo's of rulers to make up the shapes
of the numbers of the dimensions in inches of
the photo frames.

Concept 2

Goldilocks fighting the 3 bears rather than running
away from them.

Concept 3

Betty Boop looking happier and more excited
as the size of the frame increases, intended to
be a play on penis size innuendo.

Brief 1 - Frame (Photoshop)

Summer Project - Pre-Uni

A – A Levels

Before starting college I thought that A Levels were going to be really dull and boring. Fortunately I was surprised for the better, my tutors were all really easy to get along with and I made some great friends there despite there being a large amount of people at college who I’d known from secondary school.

B – Bike

Cycling is something I enjoy doing either by myself or with friends. That said, I do particularly enjoy cycling on my own as it gives me time to myself where I can just think. It was hard to come by this sort of peace when I was living at home, and I think that’s the main reason I started enjoying going out on my bike so much.

C – Chocolate

Chocolate is amazing. I’ve always loved it, at one point in year 7 I used to eat three bars a day. I’m not all that addicted to it now, but I still love it. I remember watching the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in infant school, and ever since then I’ve had a love for chocolate.

D – Disney

I’m not really a big fan of films, because generally I like watching shorter shows like the Simpsons and Futurama that I know are going to be good, rather than sitting through a film for 2 hours only for me to possibly not enjoy it. That said, I’ve always enjoyed watching Disney films because generally they’re easy to watch. My particular favourites are Finding Nemo, Kung-Fu Panda, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

E – England

I’ve been abroad quite a lot for holidays, and as much as enjoy it for a change of scenery, I always find myself missing England. I think it’s particularly important to appreciate our country at the moment given how volatile other parts of the world are.

F – Formula 1

Formula 1 racing isn’t something a lot of people enjoy watching, people tend to find it boring and monotonous. I just think it’s great to have a sport where teams need to work so closely together in order to make things work properly for them, and at such high speeds they need to be sure that things are safe. If there’s even a slight miss-calculation by just one member of the team, things can go wrong very quickly. It’s this sort of unpredictability that’s the reason I enjoy F1.

G – Games

I’m a big fan of playing FIFA, I don’t really enjoy playing it by myself though. It’s the competitive side which I enjoy about it, so I’d much rather play it with someone else than on my own. I’ve always been quite a competitive person, so I take most games I play quite seriously. Over the summer I’ve developed a love for playing snooker and pool, but I’ve always enjoyed playing Monopoly and Chess as well.

H – Holidays

I know it sounds rather contradictory that I like going on holiday as well as saying I like England, but it’s difficult to not enjoy going on holiday. I can’t think of anything more relaxing than laying in the sun listening to my iPod, knowing that if I get too hot I can jump in the pool. The only thing I don’t like about going on holiday is flying, which is something I really hate doing, everything about it is uncomfortable. 

I – Internet

The fact that people across the world can talk to each other for free using the internet is pretty impressive. The internet is great, I can’t imagine our society being the same without it. I know it has its down sides, mainly people being able to find things they shouldn’t, and cyber-bullying. But generally, I think the internet is definitely a good thing, and I can’t imagine life without it.  

J – Jack Sparrow

Going back to my enjoying of Disney films, Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean is probably my favourite film character from any film that I’ve ever seen. I particularly enjoy him in the first film, where his characters sense of humour is at its best. I think the irony of him being the way he is rather than the stereotypical pirate is what makes him such a great character. 

K – The Killers

The Killers are my favourite band. I only really started listening to them when they released human in 2008. Since then I’ve bought all their albums, and heard all their songs. I saw them live in Sheffield last year, but I ended up over-paying on the tickets because I was on holiday when the tickets went on sale, but they were sold out when I got back. Despite paying over twice as much for tickets as they were originally on sale for and me and my mate being completely sober, it was easily the best night out I’ve ever had. 

L – Logic

I’ve always been mathematically minded, and because of this I’ve always thought and worked in a logical way. I can sometimes find it difficult to spontaneously come up with an idea. I have to have some sort of starting point, and then work my way to some sort of conclusion with one thought leading to another thought. It’s just something that’s a bit strange about me, as most art and design people tend to be a lot less rigid in their thought process in my experience. 

M – Manrique

I was on holiday in Lanzorote in the Canary Islands a couple of years back, and having already been to 3 other of the islands, I knew that the buildings were all the same. This was because of a man called Cesar Manrique. It was his idea that was adopted by the Canary Islands that all buildings should be no more than 3 stories high, and should be either white or cream. His influence was so strong, that when a massive dark-coloured hotel was built in the capital of the canaries (Santa Cruz, Tenerife), there were bomb threats even during the stages of construction. I think it’s amazing that design can have such a strong influence on people. Manrique lived in Lanzorote and I visited his house, which is now one of the main tourist attractions on the island. Manrique built the house himself and made use of the natural lava bubbles in the land to create rooms. It was possibly the most visually attractive building I’ve ever seen. 

N – Neville Brody

When doing A Level graphics, Neville Brody was one of the designers I researched. Normally I’m not a fan of using loads of colour in typography, hence why my work is all in black and white, but ever since I researched Neville Brody I’ve liked how he’s bold with his use of colour, and tends not to stick to a particular colour scheme. I think this is because I tend to be rather rigid in my use of colour, and so this is something about his work that I wish I would allow myself to do.

O – Ocean

For as long as I can remember I’ve always loved the sea. The idea that there are so many different animals living in the sea that humans will probably never discover them all amazes me. The sea itself has an oddly calming sort of influence about it, which is particularly strange given how powerful it has the potential to be. I’m not really the sort of person who is inspired very often, but I always feel a strange sort of sense of inspiration whenever I’m by the sea. 

P – Pool

At college I played a lot of pool with my friends who’d moved up with me from school, but it was a great way to start talking to people who I hadn’t met before. I enjoy playing pool because it has the competitive element to it without it being too serious, as well as it having an element of skill to it.  

Q – QI

I’ve always been a fairly inquisitive person and I tend to want to know how things work and why things are as they are. This was the main reason I took physics at A level. I tend to watch a lot of comedy quiz programmes on TV suck as Have I Got News For You and Mock The Week, but QI has always been a favourite because it’s more scientific and less topical. 

R – Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter is a German artist whose work I saw at an in the Tate Modern Gallery in London when I was about 10. A particular painting called Abstract Painting No. 439 which he painted in 1978 caught my eye, and is really the reason I started to like painting and art in general. When choosing my options for GCSE, art was the first one I picked despite not being great at it, and so it was suggested that I did graphics instead. I chose both, and I enjoyed graphics so much that since then I wanted to do a degree in it. 

S – The Simpsons

I’ve watched the Simpsons for ages, and it’s probably my favourite TV show. Despite being a cartoon comedy show, I’ve found that its comedy is rather relatable to graphic design. When I watch old episodes that I watched when I was younger, I find different parts funny to what I did when I watched them as a child. This shows that the writers have included something for everyone, which makes for good design. 

T – Traveling 

I hate traveling, I always have done and always will do. Being quite tall I don’t appreciate the lack of legroom available on most modes of transport, coaches and airplanes in particular. It is similar to when I go cycling that I tend to think a lot when travelling, the only difference being that when I go cycling I can choose how long I want to do it for, I’m out in the fresh air, and generally it’s a more pleasant experience than being cramped up. 

U – United

I’m a big follower of football, and I’ve had a season ticket at Sheffield United for the previous nine seasons. I was never really into football as a young child, and only started going as an excuse for my grandad to go. But since the 2005 Champions League Final between Liverpool and A.C Milan, where Liverpool came back to win the game after being 3-0 down, I’ve really enjoyed watching football. I haven’t played as part of a team since Y6, because I think it’s taken way too seriously at a non-professional level, and it wasn’t fun. 

V – Viva la Vida

Viva la Vida by Coldplay is my favourite song, I remember hearing it for the first time on the radio. It was around that time when I started listening to the Killers as well, and it was mainly these two bands that made me really start to enjoy listening to music, whereas before then it was just something I’d do to help pass time when I was on a long journey in a car or was walking to a friends house or something like that.  

W – Winter

I love everything about winter, although it does all centralize around the weather, if we get snow in the winter, I spend barely any time indoors. I love sledging, snowball fights etc, and of course it’s nice to have a break for Christmas. 

X – Xabi Alonso

Going back to my enjoyment of football, Xabi Alonso is a footballer who currently plays for Real Madrid and Spain. He scored the equalising goal for Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final between Liverpool and A.C Milan, it made the game 3-3, ending with Liverpool winning the resulting penalty shootout. Had he not scored that goal and Liverpool lost, that game probably wouldn’t have had the same influence on me as it did, and I probably wouldn’t enjoy football as much as I do now. For all I know I might not ever have really gotten into football. At the time I had started seeing Sheffield United with my grandad, but really me going was just an excuse he used to go. I doubt that without Alonso’s goal in that game I’d love football as much as I do today. 

Y – Yo-Yo Loach

I keep tropical fish at home, and have kept about 40 species of them over the previous 5 or 6 years. Probably my favourite species that I’ve kept is the Yo-yo loach, as it was one of the very first fish I bought when I started up with my first fish tank. The particular one I bought is still alive today and has out-lived all of the other fish I’ve bought since. It’s called the yo-yo loach because the markings on its side look like the letters y and o.  

Z – Zoo Tycoon

Zoo Tycoon was a computer game I used to play in which you had to create and run your own zoo. I loved the game because I’ve always liked animals, always enjoyed creating things, and I enjoyed the strategic and business element behind the running of the zoo, and making enough money to buy more animals and create more enclosures etc. A friend who lived around the corner from me at the time also really enjoyed the game, and so we spent quite a lot of time on the game when we weren’t at school, which is probably why I remember it so well and enjoyed it so much.