Research in to artist typeface.

Graphic Design Project Ar tist Typeface.

Wr i t t e n a n d d e s i g n e d by A m y B a r s t o w

The Brief

For the current brief I was asked to work as though i would be designing a pictoral type face for Font Bureau. This is a digital type studio and a leading founder of typeface design. The typeface will have to be based on an artist of my choice that will have been carefully picked out of many that I am going to carry out research into and choose the one that I feel I will be able to create the best typeface from. I am going to have to carry out a broad visual investigation into a range of artists an designers, design a whole alphabet based on my chosen artist and demonstrate the font working at different sizes. I will have to show evidence of the process that I took to get to my final outcome through hand generated

thumbnails

experimentations. work

in

both

The black

and font

and

will white

digital have and

to

c o l o u r.

From this I will be able to create a range of promotional materials including an advert for the typeface.

A downloadable pdf sample sheet of the font, design a front cover of the font bureau specimen book and also design a web page to promote the font which follows the style and design on the existing site.

P D S L a y o u t s .

z

Creating layouts is a massive part of this brief I knew that I was going to have to present my work on Issuu which is a online publication platform which will turn in design documents into a reading experience similar to reading a magazine or book. This will make viewing my work a lot easier and look for professional. I thought that to make this is good as I could be I would first look into some layouts that I had found on other issue sights, in online magazines and images from the interest of previous magazine layouts from various publications. And see if I could find any differences in design between different types of magazines and work out which types of layouts would be most effective and appropriate for me.

The direction that I would like to go in would be quite minimal. I don’t want a lot of confusion on the page but I do like when the text overlaps onto the image and the image can act as a background to the double page spread. Id like the experiment with halving pages so that the right side is all images and the lef t has all text. I want to star t editing my own image that I am going to take in the street of typography in different cities, working with collage and scanning that in but not including any text would be interesting so that the image can speak for itself.

Here are some quick sketches of layouts that I did so that when I was creating my own for the issuu portfolio that I am going to create as a way of showing my work and research. I had to think about the composition, and the type that I used to label each one of my pages. I found it a lot easier creating the first few on in design, as I was able to turn on the guidelines so that I could keep things within boundaries.

Columns are really important when placing your copy within a text box.

Mariscal

I went through some of the ar tist that I like, whose work I have already looked at in the past. Mariscal is one that defiantly jumped out to me when I saw it. How he jumbles around with different founds and uses image to convey the meaning and the theme of his work is really interesting, these are things that I could use in my own typeface and fashion into my own ideas.

His work is really varied so to make my typeface relevant to his work I wouldn’t have to stick to one particular style. I could also run with his concept in some work that I’ve seen, he bases different fonts and work on different cities and locations. As a rough idea I could use each letter to depict a city in the UK and the things about it that make it unique.

Armin Hofman’s work is ver y simplistic and this is something that I really liked about it. It reminds me of a symbolic kind of alphabet that can be recognised but only just. He keeps the main par ts of the alphabet so that it can still be read and this leaves an interesting ef fect that makes the viewer realise something about the way that they read the alphabet without even thinking about it. Its moderns and this style grabbed my attention.

The lack of colour compliments the design and style as its just less fuss.

B e n Va u t i e r Hand

generated

text

I

something that I have liked to look

handwriting

into in previous briefs and also

due to the situation or what I am

when I’ve been out just taking

w r i t i n g f o r. T h i s i s a t h e m e t h a t I

photographs on my own in different

could look into when I am making my

cities. It’s per sonal and gives a real

own typeface through Vautier s work.

sense of personality to the work.

‘

K

U

N

S

T

’

K u n s t ’ i s a p i e c e o f Va u t e r s w o r k . H a n d d r a w n serigr aphy on board using black lack, 50 X 70 cm.

I’ve noticed a lot about my own and

how

it

changes

Oldenberg.

T h i s i s n’ t w o r k t h a t I w o u l d typically like at all, usually I prefer more under stated wor k and occasionally I can find this kind of this too pretentious and I have a hard time wor king out the message and relating to it. But I think what drew me in was how odd it was, the location, the wor k, the content, the colour and materials used. It reminds me of c h i l d r e n’ s p l a y f o o d , i t ’ s q u i t e uncanny to see something that you would have played with as a child being shown on such a mass i v e s c a l e . Fr o m t h i s I f e e l I c o u l d create a kind of fantasyland, uncanny typeface. Using real life food or something along those lines.

Christo

Christo and Jeane-Caude where a married couple who made environmental works of ar t. They covered historical landmarks and well-known monuments in cloth. They way that I interpret this to cover up things so that they don’t get ruined, they are protecting the landmarks of our world from us since we seem to be destroying ever ything else. It done to a massive scale on such monuments as The gates in NYC. I find it so fascinating at how they where able to create this and also how beautiful it looks. This got me thinking about experimenting with fabrics whilst designing my typeface, typefaces have been used in the past that where made to look like fabrics such as the Phase Eight logo that is found on the front of their shops.

T h r e e A r t i s t s

I have narrowed it down to these two artists, Armin Hofman and Ben

Hofmans work is totally different, it seems to follow patterns and shapes, he

V a u t i e r. T h e y b o t h h a v e c o m p l e t e l y d i f f e r e n t s t y l e b u t I t h i n k t h a t

has a lot of 90 degree angles within his typefaces this can make them look

through my rough drawings I have been able to come up with some basic

clinical and modern but also not every letter follows the same shape, so it comes

ideas and concepts for my typeface. These are the two that I feel sparked

out with quite a random look. The kerning and tracking of the letters are always

m y i m a g i n a t i o n a n d i n s p i r e d m e m o r e c r e a t i v e l y.

Ben’s typefaces are a

exactly the same. This is because his way of working is so particular and he

lot more lose, they resemble hand-generated type and this is something

sticks to the shapes that are symmetrical so his spacing has to be equal. They

that I have really enjoyed looking at in the past and was a theme that I

are totally different artists, and I think I will generate two different options.

explored in my first doodles. The tracking and kerning between his letters are quite random and don’t usually follow the same exact pattern since the type is supposed to look free like handwriting. They both generally have a limited colour palette and this is something I need to keep in mind for my own work so I found looking at both their works helpful.

For my third artist or designer I am going to chose Viktor & Rolf, I think that the way in which they design is inspiring, I have always loved looking at their clothes, the way that they find ways of collecting the materials and making something beautiful. The cuts outs and the innovation. I think that this artist is totally different from any of the other ones that I have researched that I think it would be more of a challenge to try and create

a

typeface

that

embodies

their

designs. From this I would like to experiment with t e x t u r e , c o l o u r, s h a p e , t h e b o d y, p u s h i n g t h e boundaries and seeing how far you can go before something isn’t legible or practical anymore.

I thought I could include some of the quick drawing that I did after looking into my research and picking out my three that I really like and would like to continue with. They aren’t anywhere near finished but they where done in a few minutes in my doodle pad. They are all very different and I haven’t taken into consideration the kerning or tracking of the letters at all. They where simply done by hand, some without even using a ruler to set out lines. But I thought I don’t need to be doing that yet since this is how I will generate ideas and usually I get my best ideas from mistakes and ideas that fail and don’t look so good. They trigger an idea for me.

CHECK OUT THESE QUICK THUMBNAILS FOR T YPFACES.

Ben Vautier Inspired Font

This is small mood board that documents the design process in which I went through to get to one of my final typefaces. This was inspired b y t h e w o r k o f b e n V a u l t i e r. H i s l o s e and free style was made me want to look into hand generated type but give it a different twist. I have included most of the experimentations that I did, documenting different stages of the typeface getting neater and making changes such as the size and how much decoration there was to the letters. I then put the final drawings into the scanner and uploaded them to illustrator and life traced it.

B

O

L

D

This is a typeface that I have designed around the fashion line of Viktor and Rolf. The basic idea that I took from this was that sections from a lot of their designs have been cut out to create an illusion that parts of their body is missing but if you a c t u a l l y l o o k c l o s e l y t h e g a p s s k i m o v e r t h e b o d y. I u s e d multiple lines to represent the feel of the material that is used in their dresses and how it flows creating body and texture.

I went through a lot of sketches, to get to this final design. I experimented with which sections of letters to miss out. These didn’t seem to work so well at some letters looked well with cer tain areas missing and then this would make them more legible. Once I came up with what I thought would be my final design I put it in to illustrator and was able to make adjustments s u c h a s b r i n g i n g p a r t s o f l e t t e r s c l o s e r t o g e t h e r, c h a n g i n g t h e design so that there was less curves in some and also tried to keep them all to a similar size but always to the same height.

B

O

L

D

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ARMIN

HOFFMAN

This is one of a few typefaces that I have designed that have been inspired by the work of Armin Hoffman. I thought about the fact that a lot of his work tends to keep to geometric shapes and outlines so I experimented with how letters would look if they had been kept into the format of a triangle. There are different examples of various triangle shapes and dimensions. I found that the taller the triangle the better the alphabet would look because this would mean that the letters where more true to the original shape of the letters making them more legible and allowing the kerning to be more separate. I added onto this idea but went in different directions with it. I haven’t developed it as well as the other ideas that I have but I thought that when I decide which one looks better I would add onto the design and develop it.

This is the development that I have done on the previous font.

I’ve experimented with using it to create a word to make sure that it is legible. I put it into illustrator so that I could life trace it and get a sense of it I would have to do any more d r a w i n g t o m a k e i t n e a t e r. I c a m e o u t r e a l l y well and I was able to experiment then with different point sizes and how it would look in bold. The only problem that I came across was that the thicker you make it some letters become distorted and due to the simple nature of the font some letters will end up looking the same as others making words harder to read. If I were to continue with this design I would experiment with creating the rest of the alphabet, as this one isn’t c o m p l e t e r i g h t n o w. I w o u l d a l s o t h i n k a b o u t changing the design of some letters like the A and the O. I would also like to experiment with the punctuation design but this is relevant for all the fonts that I have created.

This sis the second font that I have create using the work of Armin Hoffman. I took the idea that I had to showing lettering in a shaped format and thought about doing a more circular style font. From this I did experimentations with how the letters would fall into the circle and if any bits of them could be missing. I like the look of this font but feel as though its quite interesting but I prefer the thought of doing a more simplistic font.

N o t e s

F o r

M y

F i n a l

F o n t .

Here is more development of my final font, i refined the edges of the text allowing it to look smoother and the joining lines of different segments arent noticable anymore. I achieved this by using the pen tool and creating one smooth line rather than pieceing together dif ferent lines. I created sizing boxes that i could stick to whilst editing my text. I wanted them all to be the exact same width and height when possible. I have totally changed the design on some letters such as the S and J, ive added extra cur ve to the J as it looked as though it was the odd one out. The S was also too different, it was made of linear lines but obviously the S is the most curved letter so i experimented and came up with a design that had both curved and linear qualities.

The image itself is pixelated so you can see the real detail.

The next thing that i am going to do will be to a r r a n g e t h e m i n a m o r e a p p e a l i n g w a y. A l l i g n a l l the letters into equal rows and i will also start thinking about the promotional material and its design.

Here are my two samlpe sheets that i have created, they have exactly the same amount of content on them but i displayed them in both portrait and landscape so that i could see which one would look better and since it will be going behind the cover sheet for the specimen book. This front cover is por trait so it only makes sense to choose to display it protrait. I have included the title, a copy of the pull alphabet and the punctuation andnumbers that i also designed in the same t y p e f a c e . I s h o w e d t h e l e t t e r A i n f o u r p t s i z e s t o m a ke s u r e t h a t i t w o u l d s t i l l b e l e g i b l e .

Font

Bureau

Specimen

Book.

Another part of this unit is to create the front cover of a specimen book. These are images of previous front covers that where designed by font bureau.

I feel that their design style is quite contempor a r y a n d m i n i m a l . I n e e d t o t h i n k a b o u t c o l o u r, composition and what style I am going to design this front cover in. I think that I will try to stick to their original design style so that my work is relevant. I could use my own typeface on the front of the book but zoom into one of the letters that I find the most interesting. The only text that will be used on the front will be ‘Font Bureau’ and ‘A r t i s t T y p e f a c e ’. I a m g o i n g t o s t a r t b y c r e a t i n g thumbnail designs but generally I find it easier to start with really rough drawings and do most of my experimenting on the computer so I can create different variations and designs as I go along.

Specimen

Book

C o v e r.

First i star ted of f doing small thumbnails in my sketchbook to get a feel for what i t h o u g h t l o o k e d n i c e a n d s h a p e d t h a t c o m p l i m e n t e d e a c h o t h e r. I t h o u g h t a b o u t looking into shapes and also involving elements of my own font as part of the d e s i g n f o r t h i s f r o n t c o v e r. B u t n o t s h o w i n g t h e m a s l e t t e r s r a t h e r u a i n g t h e stucture as a pattern or design. From this i was able to create the shapes in my drawings in photoshop and then i could easily experiment with shapes, colours, o p a c i t y, a l o t q u i c k e r t h a t i c o u l d i f i w a s d r a w i n g a n d t h i s s a v e d m e a l o t o f t i m e .

These are a few variations of one design that i created using the B in my typeface.

But from this i was able to generate more sophisticated designs, this is just a start.

I moved on from one of those previous deigns, took a segment from it and changed the coloring. I made it so that the lines would become negative space within the circular segment. I liked the way this looks, it seemed tribal, and decorative. It was able to be simplistic and minimal whilst also being interesting and designed for purpose. I think that the black is more exciting and bold i n c o m p a r i s o n t o t h e g r e y. I t c o m e s a c r o s s a b i t b l a n d s o I increased the opacity of the grey to give a deep black.

The white and black really compliment each other and the design leaves enough room for type to be fitted in.

The first type experiment that I did seemed to be quite squashed up so I wanted to move the text over into the black but to be able to do this I would have to make half of the text white so that you could sill see it over the black segment. This gives a interesting style and allows me to make greater use of the space on the page. I wasn’t sure if this was too much white space so I continued with my experimentations.

These are other experimentations that I went on to generate through playing around on Photoshop. I centered the black circle so that more of the pattern could be seen. I messed about with the size and shape of the circle seeing which one worked better on the A4 page. Again I feel that the all black one is the most effective and having most of the page covered by the oval is really effective.

It reminds me of a shield, symbolizing a union of people and designers. I also thought that this particular design gave a good sect i o n f o r m e t o p l a c e t h e c o p y. R i g h t i n t h e c e n t e r o f t h e p a g e i n w h i t e t e x t . I f o u n d w h a t w a s o r a t l e a s t l o o k e d l i k e t h e t y p e f a c e s that had been used in the original specimen books that I had previously looked at and tried to keep to their pt size so that it would look like it could fit in with the set. It did seem quite tight to me so I will have to look back at these once I have all my options.

Web

Page

The next thing that I had to design was a cover that I could insert into the existing Font Bureau web page so that it would look as though my font had been places on their website. This would be a good way for me to see if my font looks in place and could pass for a real professional typeface. I thought that I had to design it in a way that would illustrate how I came up with the design itself and my inspirations. My font was inspired by Viktor and Rolf, the idea came to me from a line of couture dresses that they made, they consisted of a lot of ruffles, and layering of material. Some parts of the dresses had been cut out to create the illusion that parts of the models where missing. So I thought why cant I do this through my own design, take par ts out of letters so make them a bit more confusing but still legible. The material was the first thing that inspired me so I created a collage from a image that I found on the internet of one of their designs, cropped it, manipulated and photo s h o p p e d i t t o b e c o m e a n e w i m a g e a l l t o g e t h e r.

This was the background. From this I overlapped the initials of the people that had inspired my own work and duplicated the lettering to created a layered ef fect just like their dresses.

Design

A

D

V

E

R

Here are some examples of adverts for fonts that i had found on the font bureau website.

The show examples of how the font could be used and what kind of advertising it would work well with. In this case the font is quite retro and sixties so that products that it is a d v e r t i s i n g a s s h o w n i n t h i s s a m e w a y. T h e n t h e r e i s a s e c o n d s h e e t a t t h e b o t t o m w h i c h h a s a s h o r t o v e r v i e w o f w h a t t h e f o n t s h o u l d b e u s e d f o r i n t h e o p i n i o n o f t h e d e s i g n e r, t h e i r inspirations for this font, how they came to design it and how he feels the font should be used in the future. I am going to be creating my own version of this and will have to think about what i feel is an appropriate use for my font, how i came to design it and the influences and inspiratio for this design. It gives me the chance to explain my thoughts towards the font.

T

M

O

O

D

B

O

A

R

I created this mood board from images that i took out of company magazines and the asos magazines because i thought that the route my advert would have to go down is fashion advertising and publishing since this is something that i enjoy doing. Designing double page spreads and experimenting with layout.

I also feel that it is appropriate since my font derived from the design of viktor and rolf, a fashion h o u s e w h i c h i s w h a t d i r e c t l y e f f e c t s w h a t w e w e a r.

From this i was able to generate ideas of what kind of design i could do and i came up with the idea to set out my advert as though it was a dps in a magazines like the ones that i read such as c o s m o , c o m p a n y, e t c . I t h o u g h t t h a t i w o u l d b e appropraite to course images from magazines and the internet to use in this since i wanted to do a section on high street fashion due to the fact that i feel designer labels like Viktor and Rolf are what shapes the way that we dress through high streets designs like topshop and other high street shops.

My final advert showed images of high street fashion, i used my font as a heading on the left hand page “YOU WEAR THE TRENDS�.

I also used the typeface Abadi MT to write out any smaller subheading since i think my font is more of a headline font rather than for copy because so far i only have the designs for a u p p e r c a s e f o n t s i c n e i s n t a p p r o p r a i t e f o r c o p y.

*The images that made up my final piece came from c o m p a n y u k m a g a z i n e s f e b r u a r y 2 013 e d i t i o n .

D

Final

Evaluation

of

my

font.

Overall I feel very confident about my sans serif font, I think that the design is well thought out, it relates back to my designer that inspired me. I think that I did enough development and am confident that I generated enough ideas to come to the final outcome.

It’s neat, accurate and smooth. The kerning of my font is quite close together because it is so simplistic I think that it can handle the small kerning which can sometimes make more intricate and complicated serif fonts harder to read. During my design process I was able to ensure that all the letters would be to the same height and would always align straight on a linear line.

I notices that the leading of my lines could also be quite small because the characters where so well c o n s t r u c t e d t h a t t h e y w o u l d n ’ t m e r g e i n t o e a c h o t h e r.

I have created a fold face for this font so that it could have dif ferent variation for dif ferent used like headers and titles. This was successful but I was only able to make it one size thicker due to the fact that if it got any thicker the multiple lines would blend together and the design would be lost. This is due to the face that the weight of the letter is quite high.

Punctuation such as bullets, full stops, dingbats, question marks etc. where all created in the same style and this was a great way of developing my font fur ther like professional fonts would be. I had to keep to just black and white which made things a lot simpler but I do think that if I had had to represent it in colour it would still have been legible.

I was to do this again or I had more time on it I would start to create lower case letters for this type f a m i l y, I t h i n k t h a t t h i s w o u l d p r o b a b l y h a v e a l i g h t e r weight and wouldn’t consist of as many lines making it easier to read since copy is usually written in lower case and smaller so it would have to be as legible in a smaller pt size. I would also experiment with creating more punctuation like hash tags, and more dingbats.