Artist Series: Alphabet
Erin Chabot
ARVC 315 Typography II Instructor Jason Zaleski
Introduction
Art influences other art. Art influences design. Art influences objects we see in every day life. The objective of this assignment was to create a typeface that was influenced by an artist. It is to be used to advertise for that specfic artist in future endevours. This process book demonstrates the arrival and steps of creating said typeface.
Step One:
Type Explorartion
To begin this assignment, I started off by taking note and photographing type that I see in my everyday life. I took an interest in how much type was actually around us in the world. I photographed the typefaces at various angles to create a contrast and see how those angles affected how the type is viewed.
The next step I took was to convert the images to black and white. I then traced the type. This process allowed me to get a feel for how each of the typefaces were made. It gave me a chance to think about how I could build each of my letter forms.
To conclude this exploration, the final step I took was to create a poster only using the type I traced. A mix of values, and sizes were used to create a poster that resembled what I see in my day to day life and how type can come together in different forms to build one common object.
Step Two:
Artist Exploration Peter Halley is an artist that is associated with minimalism and neo-geo. His geometric paintings have been engaged in a play of relationships between what he calls prisons and cells- icons that reflect the increasing geometricization of social space in the world we live in. His first exhibition was in 1985 and from there his paintings and installations continued to give him prominence.
This pair first started collaborating in 1961 and continued to do so until Jeanne’s passing in 2009. Together they have won 5 major awards including “Best Project in a Public Space” for “The Gates” in 2006. These two artists rarely accept any scholarship funding. They raise their own money from selling previous art works to pay for their installations.
Peter Halley Paying close attention to the use of line and geometry in Peter’s art work, I mimic this in sample letters that I then could build an entire typeface off of.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude Studying the artists work, I came across the pattern of them wrapping large objects using a variety of fabrics. I wrapped bingo dabbers in a chiffon fabric to imitate their art as an exploration of how I could create a typeface in their honour.
Step Three:
Hand-drawn Artist Type Exploration
- Geometric - Use of lines - Colours of work - Boxes - Geometric - Use of lines - Colours of work - Boxes - Perspective Element
- Collaboration - Geometric - Colours of work - Varying thicknesses
Basing off of many of my word explorations, I created the full alphabet. I used images from Halley’s collaboration with Mendini. I kept things geometric and would make it colourful. I plan to mimic the use of lines in the art work as well to help unite it with the artists work.
A continuation of letter study. I am still looking at the use of Halley’s collaboration with Mendini. I kept in mind the use of various colours and the geometric shapes. However in this form I decided to leave out the use lines to make the typefaces minimalistic like many of Halley’s artworks.
Step Four:
Computer Generated Artist Type Exploration - Play of words that could be used for future projects - Found some letter forms (Y, X and V) will be too skinny to look apart of the type face. Alterations to thicken it up and make more boxy will have be made - Edits in colour variations will also be made to fit words more uniformly
- Whole alphabet created from previous word play - Collaboration with Mendini - Geometric - Colours eyedropped from work - Boxes - Different variations, using colours and styles to keep them united - Lines like in art work to connect to artist work and unite different letter forms
- Use of created type - Play of words that could be used for future projects - Change in some letterforms. - Colour adjustment for word flow
- Whole alphabet created from previous word play - Collaboration with Mendini - Geometric - Colours eyedropped from work - Boxes - Different variations, using colours and styles to keep them united - Lines like in art work to connect to artist work and unite different letter forms
- Use of created type - Play of words that could be used for future projects - Change in some letterforms. - Colour adjustment for word flow - Elimination of lines to avoid letter dominance
- Whole alphabet created from previous word pla - Collaboration with Mendini - Geometric - Colours eyedropped from work - Boxes - Different variations, using colours and styles to keep them united - Lines eliminated in order to keep all letterforms united rather than some over dominate
Step Five:
Poster Presentation
The final stage was designing a way to present the typeface. After discussion, I decided to make sure all letter forms line up horizontally and vertically. Also in the poster I wanted to show the alphabet together as well as how it would look as words. I also wanted to show how the typeface looked in differend sizes. I kept the poster minimalistic only using the type, and rectangular like the boxes Halley uses in his paintings.
- Vertical and Horizontal alignment - Rectangular format - Letters formed in a square - Equally spaced - Size variations
- Vertical and Horizontal alignment - Rectangular format - Equally spaced - Size variations
- Vertical and Horizontal alignment - Rectangular format - Equally spaced - Size variations - Format longer with letter forms consuming more space