Expressive
TYPE By Emily Gregor
Part 1
Through
this project, we learned some words are expressive on their own, while others need more thought to bring about the ideas inherent in their meaning. We were asked to select three words from the list and visually interpret their meaning using only letterforms and punctuation as illustration. We could manipulate the words by type choice, size, weight, case, spacing and composition on the page to reinforce the meaning. We could also crop the letterforms while keeping our concept in mind.
I used mind mapping to help me brainstorm more effectively and come up with ideas I thought would be interesting to work with for this project.
Preliminary Inspiration for “Shoplift”
Preliminary inspiration for “Invisible” Preliminary inspiration for “Launch”
First off, were we had to draw 60-90 sketches of our words that we chose. I was drawn to Invisible, Launch, and Shoplift. I tended to lean toward thinner more modern typefaces. In my initial sketches I added too much onto my words to express their meaning so as I continued the project, I had to rework and figure out ways to communicate my message without adding as much to my words. I had a lot of difficulty coming up with ideas that weren’t cliche for “Launch” because every Google search only yielded photos of rocket launches. I had the most fun with creating “Invisible” and I created a lot of options for “Shoplift” to work with.
I had the most fun with Invisible. I played with every connotation of the word I could think of and just really tried to see what I could do with it. As a result, I came up with a lot of ideas that wouldn’t work at all, and a few that I thought I could work with further to create my final pieces.
Launch
is definitely the word I struggled with the most. I was really intrigued by the word and really wanted it to work, but at the end of the day I still had difficulty coming up with a form that worked. I was really intrested in playing with flying paper airplanes and anything that strayed away from the stereotypical rocket ship idea of Launch.
Part 2
After a productive in-class critique we were off to construct more sketches to help us iron out how we were going to solve the problem for our final designs. I liked having help a lot because I honestly needed the direction to help me figure out what I wanted to do and what I was going to manipulate further. I still had a difficult time with launch (If I had had more time I probably would have ended up picking a different word, because even now I can’t say I’m happy with the result. I was just so determined to find a way to make it work.)
Part 3
After a second in-class critique, I was really able to see which of my designs were working and which ones really weren’t. Launch continued to be an issue, but Professor Ward helped me figure out something that helped, I still wasn’t happy though, so I continued to mess with it, in hopes of a revelation that unfortunately didn’t come. I ended up being the happiest with Invisible and I was pretty happy with Shoplift, I liked my font choice, but I wish I had approached it in a way that would’ve made it a little more visually interesting.
c
h
oooo
h
launc
h
launc
l
l
la u n
invisible invisible invisible invisible invisible
h
launc
the final selections c
l
la u n
f
h
t shopli
invisible