ALPHABET SOUP

dAvEs TYpEfAce

Another week,another brief but this time its a 2 weeka...that doesnt mean theres time to slack off!

So,i have to design a typeface based on the personality of my crazy partner Dave West. Through a kind of questionnaire/interview thingy of crazy mad and slightly personal(because im just nosey!) questions i now have 10 words that sum up his character/personality.

Funny,friendly,upbeat,chatty,honest,sarcastic to name a few.

Even though its an individual project,i can always go and get more info from Dave,about Dave which is cool.

Again my dictionary is playing a vital role,trying to sum up Dave in one word would help me...at the moment im thinking 'fun'

still quite broad though

just some ideas,taking existing letterfoms,manipulating them...

even though the final typeface has to be produced on trace, working in colour just helps.My theory is COLOUR=HAPPY!

ah man,that sounds pathetic

Anatomy of Type

Black ink pads,rubbings and shapes????

producing a font using only 2 shapes is hard,especially when you get dealt a triangle and hexagon

mine are the inredibly crap ones in the middle(below)but i like the idea of creating unique letterforms from existing shapes.simple yet interesting.

VISUAL THINKING 1-ALPHABET SOUP

'Produce a set,series,sequence of 10 letterforms that explore and communicate your interpretation of the word that you selected from the radomizer.' (are we actually not allowed to use the 'R' word????????????? i say it a lot...thats one word eliminated from my vocabulary,forever!)


I chose EXAGGERATE! im thinking compared to some of the other word this wont be too bad. Where to start,hmmm,exaggerate means big right?...dictionary(always a good'un in tricky situations,i need words to inspire me)

Exaggerate is 'Magnify beyond truth,overstate' hmmm...theasaurus?? Exaggerate is

Amplify,Embroider,Emphasise,Enlarge,Exalt,Inflate,Magnify,Overdo
Overestimate,Overstate

these definitions are hopefully going to help me,i hope.

some big letterforms,some small...















just some experimentation thinking along the lines of 'enlarge' and 'emphasize' and yes,again i had my craft knife at hand.

exaggerate=inflate=balloons

'set,series,sequence of 10'-may as well use the letterforms that make up 'exaggerate' as it contains 10 letters!

















Letterforms=enlarged,emphasised by colour. This is EXAGGERATE,i think and it seemed to work.
I've learnt from this brief,keep it simple!

'What is Graphic Design?'......i dunnoooooo! (in the words of Kate Fenton)

CONVINCE US-PERSUADE US

Why should our vowel,the letter O,exist?

At this point, even though it was the very FIRST brief, i think the letter O was starting to annoy me having just done the summer project. But positive thinking being my new thing and this being the first brief of 3 YEARS,i was also excited...and quite scared too!

'As a group...' could be good,could be very bad.Lucky for me my group was awesome man.I feel bad for them,they had to put up with me!
As a group we decided to highlight the importance of our vowel,O, to the world. Without O, we felt that a huge amount of facial expression would be eliminated e.g. shock,surprise because the mouth forms this shape when these emotions are expressed. Vocal sounds containing 'O' would also be eliminated from existence.

So, we pretty much wanted to persuade and convince 'the world' that without the vowel O we cannot function as 'normal human beings'. I guess that we're trying to say is
'A world without O=NO EXPRESSION,NO EMOTION'!
sounds kinda cheesy but hey!

We decided to deliver a 2 minute video (the guys in the group being the masters of film,sound and editing!) interesting for me as i have NEVER made a film before, but kinda felt i didn't pull my weight as part of the group because of this. Our presentation then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIcbMaz2Pv4

and just because it was proper funny...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkrlxtcgbSw

Expressionless,emotionless Matt! We thought masks of some kind would work well,to hide our own expressions and feature.This means brown paper bags!(and finding them ain't easy let me tell you) lets just say the Primark staff must have thought i was mad,mad,mad!

Happy Matt!

the difference in these 2 masks being

1.square/'O' shape eyes

2.closed/half 'O' shape mouth

(though i think the 'half circle' shaped mouth was where our
message got confused.)

storyboards...

...images for flyer handout.Initially we were going to produce election style flags but due to time,handouts seemed more appropriate...

...plans and props...

The presentation film was quite successful considering we only had a week and this was the first brief. We didnt want it to be dead serious but also didnt want to miss out communicating our message to the class. The film being in two halves allowed to do this. The majority of the film was visual,which again was another challenge that we overcame with the use of 'high quality' props!and text on some slides.We all pulled together as a group and this is what we managed to produce which is pretty awesome.

Thanks guys!!xx