studio brief 2: final crit feedback OUGD403

In this final crit we left our work out for my peers to look around and leave comments on what they though of the project and final outcome, as well as giving critical feedback on what could be done to take it further. I found that most people really liked my idea although I felt people where not harsh enough and didn't give me much critical feedback on how to improve the project.

studio brief 2: concept crit OUGD403

This was a concept crit, allowing my peers to react to my chosen word of suave and give me feedback on my rationales giving me guidance of what what font to choose as a starting point. We were first tasked with different people sketching the same letter in the style of my chosen word. This gave me an idea of people personal opinions of how they view suave. 

We were then challenged with using a small box to draw anything quickly that came into our head to relate and show that random peers word. This also gave me an insight it to peoples immediate thought process when relating to my word. As wells as this peers left notes of their opinions of my rationales. This guided toward focusing on the weight of the strokes and experimenting with serifs.

module evaluation OUGD403

I feel this project has been a crucial part to this course edging me and my peers into thinking a lot more independently and taking the first step into becoming a real designer. Typography I feel was the best way to start this course. I already knew the importance of type and enjoyed playing with the subject area last year. But didn’t get some real time to have fun with type.  This project gave me a much bigger insight into the world of typography and its importance and influence in design as well as everyday people lives, most of the time without them realising. I have become a lot more aware of typography terms and how these effect the typeface.

The logotype brief allowed me see how type influences and is a key part to the success of a company through a logo. It gave me an understanding of how logos are so important and can impact a company’s success hugely. It also allowed me to see how small changes can seriously effect the tone and characteristics of type. I liked this project as I felt it was quite a professional project and the kind of brief that I may be asked to create in the future, but for a real company.

The logotype task worked as a really good warm up for the typeface design second brief. It fed into the key concepts we had learned from the logotype project and allowed me to apply the knowledge I and learnt i.e. the importance of kerning, brackets, colour and scale, to designing my typeface. Doing this second brief took my typography knowledge up. I understood the that this was a much bigger challenge, creating a font where every letter works with each other. Rather than like a logo, where the letters just have to work as the logos word, not jumbled up. This meant keeping a consistent style throughout, ensuring the the font flows and some letters don’t look unusual when placed next to one and other.

I feel this was a substantial amount of time to spend on a project, but I feel it was necessary as a key part to graphics. I feel this project will allow me to tackle the new briefs with a much more methodical and considered approach when type is needed. This project has also really highlighted how important key fonts are, and how now I will shy very much so away from the use of crazy and unnecessary fonts. I didn’t find any part of these briefs to challenging, although I do feel I could have created a better concept for my typeface.

To conclude this module has created a steady and encouraging start to the course. It has prepared me to tackle any project with type well. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this module I’m exited to move on and look at a different aspect to graphics, especially working with imagery and type combined.

studio brief 2: creating type specimen OUGD403

After creating my font I wanted to take the project as far as possible. I decided to do this by designing a type specimen. I felt this task was almost like trying to sell my font. I got inspiration for the type specimen through looking at font smith type specimens giving an over view of what a type specimen should consist of. My type specimen had to really communicate the feel and vibe of the word suave. I know I needed my full alphabet somewhere on it and the name, as well as a description of the qualities of my font and rationale about who and what its used for. I really wanted to lean on the idea of suave having a split personality and try to convey this through the specimen. I divided the pages on both sides of the specimen to create this feel. I also enlarged the p and q and overlapped one and other in the middle of one of the sides. This was to show the difference in the characters, which would not normally be much but in this case, each letter form on one side of the letter has curved slab serifs and the other side has hairline serifs. This is to show confidence and sleekness through the curved slab serif, yet also the refined and poised characteristics of suave through the simplicity of the hairline serif. Before going straight onto illustrator I did a quick couple of sketches giving me a rough idea of where I wanted everything. I spent a long time manipulating and changing the composition so it reads best. I used a range of opacity and different greys to create the layered effect of words, to describe suave and what I want the font convey. I also decided that I wanted to add some colour into the mix instead of just greys which I feel would have make the piece not look nearly and charming and probably quite dull. I did this through making the decision to make the word suave gold. Originally I wanted and embossed gold word, but soon came to the realisation that with my time constraints I would not be able create my font so I could use it in letterpress. As an alternative I decided to use the vinyl cutter in the digital printing facilities. This allowed my font to be perfectly cut out on gold vinyl which then meant I was easily able to peel out the lettering and hand stick it onto the specimen completing it, as well as giving it a bit more life and making the font seem more charming.

studio brief 2: further developement OUGD403

After developing some ideas that I liked. I then chose the two most liked by people in my interim crit. From this I went on to develop these to designs through seeing what style of font they should be in i.e. bold italic, etc. from this I had to make a personal decision on what font I thought was most functional to represent the word suave. I found the Helvetica style not nearly as impactful when done using the letters abcde. Even so, I felt the bold was by far the most successful making the serifs stand out and give it a sharp personality.

Using Bodoni, I feel worked really well and create a more fluent letter forms through using more than one type of serif and manipulating the letters. only keeping the original contrast between thick and thin strokes.

I chose to take Bodoni forward as my chosen font. I then went on to do a small mock up of the full alphabet lower case in this style. It worked really well and letters all worked with each other.

After I knew fore sure that this was my final design I took to the drawing boards and drew on a larger scale all the letters. This allowed me to then scan and use illustrator to trace over the letters to create the most professional clean aesthetic as possible.