typographic identity, part deux

These are the iterations of the four concepts I chose from sketching. The top two were from my original set of sketches; the bottom two were from a second set of sketches I did in class on Wednesday.

In clockwise order, starting in the upper left corner, the fonts used to create the marks are Avenir Book, Futura Book, and Helvetica Neue Ultralight. I think all four concepts convey similar things from my list of words describing myself. I see most of them as simple, fairly basic in look, at least at first glance, in most cases, and solitary. They aren't ornate - I feel like script cursive fonts are the furthest thing from who I am. I relate to the private, organized feel that some of the Avenir and Futura marks possess. I also think the Helvetica marks contain a lot of these qualities, but I'm also on board with these ideas because I find lightweight typefaces to be super eye candy. I love them, so I naturally like these marks.

Making the marks was relatively simple. Illustrator wasn't hard to use, as I expected it to be. Sometimes, I don't like Illustrator, so that's what I anticipated. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

typographic identity

Just some progress on this project. Who doesn't love making typographic identities for yourself?

This is the list of words that I had come up with prior to starting the sketches- 

love 

red 

heart 

simple 

funny 

tall 

thin 

awkward 

private 

solitary 

reserved 

watcher 

listener 

hesitant 

devoted 

over-thinker 

scattered 

stressed 

chaos 

organize 

details 

perfection

laugh 

quiet 

outgoing 

yearbook 

theatre 

teaching 

high schoolers 

christ 

faith 

hope

not ornate

basic

layers

straight forward

not vulnerable

These are the 30 thumbnails that I came up with using the four different typefaces I chose. Those four typefaces were Futura Book, Avenir Book, Helvetica Light Condensed, and Chapparal Pro. I saw each of the sans serif fonts as tall and thin, simple looking, and cleanness about them. Helvetica had a stressed, kind of chaotic feel about it because of the condensed weight. Futura has a connotation of perfection, so I picked that because of my desire to try to make things "perfect."Avenir had a very basic quality about it when I saw the typeface. I picked Chapparal Pro because of how awkward it appeared to me. It does possess a sturdiness and straight forwardness about it, but the odd quirks - the slant present in most of the stems, the combination of bracketed and slab-like serifs - made me see the typeface as an awkward, funny kind of typeface.

I think the thing that influenced my sketches most was the idea of possessing two sides to yourself. I think that the way I perceive myself is different from how others often perceive me. That was something that I started playing with a lot in the sketches.

color harmonies, rehashed

There are my reshoot photos - the photos used in the presentation. All were taken on a Canon Rebel T3 with a f3.5-5.6, 18-55mm lens.

analogous

complementary

cool

split complementary

square

tetradic

triadic

warm

I find books to be comforting. That's probably what attracted me most to them as a theme. I haven't incorporated the other elements that we talked about into my presentation yet, but I did play around some with a few of them.

yahoo

Yahoo logo

interesting? thoughts? I think it's kinda ugly.

color harmonies

I chose books as my theme for this project. The spines and covers of books are where I created my color harmonies.

analogous

complementary

cool

split-complementary

square

tetradic

triadic

warm

This was the first time I used my camera. I have used a DSLR camera before, shooting for my high school yearbook, but it's been a few years. I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things, using it again. I might try a reshoot later on some of the combinations, attempting to get better results out of it.

Nonetheless, it was fun to shoot again. I missed it.

more gestalt exploration

I found some new pictures for a couple of the gestalt forms, and I picked the ones that I liked and felt worked best.

 Closure

 Continuance

Similarity

Proximity

All of my compositions were made out of cut shapes. Because of this, I had the thought that my images should echo shapes in a similar fashion. 

Closure

Continuance

Proximity

Similarity

project one

Futura Gs from part 2 

The Futura font has an element of perfectness to it, coming from its mechanical and geometric connotations. This perfectness is seen in many of the letters - the lowercase a contains a perfect circle and so on - so when one looks at a letter, the connotation built into the typeface automatically makes you think the letter is likely perfect. However, upon closer inspection, one can discover that this isn't always the case. The G, which looks like a perfect circle with a cut and terminal added, is not made out of a perfect circle. The shape is slightly asymmetrical. In this part of the project, I chose to fix this, but also comment on the idea of something being perfect. I aimed to be as precise as possible with the making of the first G. After cutting that one out, I traced it six times for six more G's and used three of the negatives. They were then placed on the wall in a geometric-esque shape, in line with the geometric form of Futura. However, because of human nature, these G's aren't actually perfect. It's impossible to achieve with the hand. At a first glance, any given G might look perfect, but upon closer inspection, none of them are, just as the original Futura G.

For the final part of the project, I decided to use the uppercase G again, to name parts of the letter. Still using the idea of the font being 'perfect' but not actually being able to achieve that quality, I made a G using the same process I did for the first G on part two. Therefore, the G is slightly altered from what the actual Futura G letterform is, but not so much in a way that it becomes unrecognizable in its anatomy. To label each part, I traced the part name from my laptop screen, from words set in the Futura typeface. After tracing an outline, they were filled in with black Sharpie marker. Finally, they were cut out using a straight-edge and xacto knife, and place on the wall in position corresponding to the G.

I wanted to continue the idea of perfectness can be a thought, but in reality, is never achievable in this portion of the project. There is a precision to the making of each part of the piece, but there is a human quality about each part that gives away the imperfections, which is something that I find enjoyable.