GRAPHICS: Typography

For the second day of our Graphics Rotation, we looked at the idea of typography and how it can convey, or strengthen, a particular message or emotion. We were asked to play around with various mediums to simply get a handle on the idea of typography and to practice in it without a particular brief to see how much variety there can be in the simple effect of lettering and typefonts.

 

A trip to the library showed me various books on typefonts all belonging to particular styles and/or uses. These books ranged from professional use to artistic use and even custom types for advertising/branding.

 

We were asked to pick a line or a quote that connected to our look into poetry on the previous day and to cut and paste letters from each font we found that we were to photocopy and create an A3 piece that had almost a 'ransom letter' feel to it.

Following this process, I played around with different effects that I had drawn from inspiration after viewing some of the books of fonts from the library and attempted to create my own.

The first piece I created was an experiment using 3D design to create the type by screwing up pieces of paper into the shape of letters and sticking them down onto another piece of paper. By doing this, it created a nice look and to finalise it I decided to scan it in so as to use it as a working font. Unfortunately I didn't particularly like the outcome as the 3D effect of the paper didn't translate well post-photocopy.

To develop this idea, I though a cartoonistic effect could enhance the visual of this font and give it a more vivid aesthetic. I proceeded to draw over the lines of the photocopy with a felt-tip fineliner. I think this technique definitely worked in improving on the photocopied version although for such a simple design, the process overall took quite a while.

I continued sketching various ideas and also came up with these two typefaces both of which were inspired by an existing font used on the front of one of the books I found which didn't seem to be named or even have an author listed.

At the end of the day, I wanted to digitalise another font I had done a quick sketch of in my book. When I got home I then penned it out on Illustrator and created a custom graphic in Photoshop to give it some colour. I quite enjoyed this exercise and it also gave me a feel of how typography can be used in graphic products more than just plain typefonts.