REFLECTION ON PRACTICE
MONO GRAM
FL2017
JEE KIM
RESEARCH
PROJECT* SUMMARY 03
The objective of the project was to design a monogram for a hypothetical client, Clark Gable. The task entailed researching the celebrity so as to develop a monogram that reflects his personality. Once the monogram was defined, it was then applied to a business card, which was to include elements that reinforced the visual concept of the project.
*This project was a response to a prompt in a course, Type 2, taught in Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
01 RESEARCH RESEARCH
The research consisted of two parts: one, understanding who Clark Gable was as a person and, two, seeing successful examples of monograms and how they were applied on a business card. While going over short biographies that highlighted his major career points and life events informed me what the celebrity was known for, looking at quotes of his close friends and lovers that described Gable gave me the most profoundly unique picture of Gable’s true character. It seemed he embodied the traditional notion of masculinity, as it was mentioned repeatedly throughout the quotes that he was “the manliest of man.” Based on what I found, I felt he carried a strong sense of suaveness, evoking the image of a classy modern gentleman, much like Gatsby of the Roaring Twenties, in my mind. Ultimately, the impression I was left with was that he was “King of Old Hollywood who behaved and lived a life as dramatic as one.” This one-liner eventually helped me navigate through the design process.
What I noticed among some of the business cards I found most visually compelling all made a significant use of negative space even within the confined 3.5 inch * 2 inch space. It seemed because the limited space is so easy to fill up, a controlled use of the space keeps the composition from appearing cluttered, creating a calm and collected room for the actual important information on the card to “speak louder.” This observation later came as a critical hint during the development of Gable’s business card.
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Another critical component of my research was getting a grasp of what makes a monogram successful. Based on the examples that were presented during class, I noticed that strong monograms had economized strokes, stripped of any chance of redundancy. Also, they treated negative space as very much an integral part of the mark rather than a byproduct; it seemed as though the mark was “drawn” with negative space. I realized I had an aesthetic preference for square monograms over other orientations as I saw them their sense of stability in composition pleasing to look at.
RESEARCH ABOVE
OPPOSITE
Images of Clark Gable
Business card examples
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02 DISCOVERY DISCOVERY
In designing the monogram, I first had to choose the typeface to base the monogram off of before anything else. Having these two images in mind, I divided up my investigation into three parts, looking at a group of serifs, one of san serifs and another of script. While san serifs such as “Copasetic” and “Atlantic Cruise” were very resonant with the visual language of the most recent “Great Gatsby” (2006), when isolated to two considerably similar looking letters, C and G, the simplicity of their lines and their highly geometric forms lacked a sense of weight I was looking for to emulate Gable’s masculinity. Though the swift and elegant curves of script typefaces such as “Buffet Script” seemed a perfect fit for actor’s classiness, I wanted to avoid script typefaces all together after seeing how literal and predictable they felt for the actor. I was most drawn to “Bodoni Ultra bold” – while the extreme contrasts in its strokes were modern and sophisticated, the sheer boldness of the thicker strokes seemed to give the typeface a sense of weight that felt very masculine.
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As I struggled to find a balance between elegant and sophisticated lines and a sense of masculinity, I was advised to take a look at automobiles from Clark Gable’s time period. To my pleasant surprise, the seemingly obnoxious yet sophisticatedly contained curves of the machines aptly captured Clark Gable’s persona. This gave me a hint on making iterations using lines of a similar quality.
DISCOVERY Typographic exploration: (Top) Ultra-bold Bodoni
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DISCOVERY ABOVE
OPPOSITE
Illustrations of 1920s automobiles
Explorations of the formal integration of letters C and G
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DISCOVERY
After several iterations, I boiled down to two compositions. Though the integration of letters in (A) was interesting, (B) had a stronger sense of weight that the thinner lines with sharper curves of (A) could not convey. The enclosing circular line in (B) also made the mark seem like a seal, lending a sense of regality. As for the business cards, I wanted them to carry an attitude similar to that of Clark Gable as described by his friends and lovers, which was that he exuded the confidence of a king and classiness of a gentleman. At the same time, I didn’t want the card to seem too traditional and lacking character. Initially, I explored the idea of inviting an element of “spotlight� into the composition, using high contrast color blocks separated by steep straight lines. Once I introduced these blocks, I placed the text to the simplest of arrangement to balance the dynamic tension the blocks created.
(A)
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(B)
Clark gable Actor 714 381 9182 4963 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 10304
Actor
714 381 9182 4963 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 10304
Clark gable
DISCOVERY Iterations of business cards
Clark gable Actor
714 381 9182 4963 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 10304
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03 REFINEMENT REFINEMENT
Once the general structure of the monogram came together, the final stage consisted mostly of refining the minor details such as the shape of the stroke ends. Adjusting even the most miniscule of curves made a significant difference to the overall feel of the mark. For one, I smoothed out the sharp ends and corners to reinforce the suave quality of the curves. Because both sides of the business card had fairly simple compositions, I focused on creating a relationship between the front and the back to give the viewer an interactive moment with the card. Eventually, I let go of the idea of emulating a spotlight, simplifying the tension within the composition to just a singular line separating two color blocks. Through several mockups, with which I tested what it would be like to physically interact with the different iterations, I narrowed down to the composition which I felt carried a relationship between the front and the back.
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04 CRITICISM CRITCISM
Compared to how intimidated I used to be by logo designs prior to this project, I feel having walked through the process firsthand allowed me to warm up at least a tad to the process of symbolic mark making. While I feel I invested a fair amount of time considering and refining the monogram, I wish I had pushed through a similar breakthrough with the business card design.
REFLECTION ON PRACTICE
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NURSERY RHYME
JEE KIM
WORD & IMAGE 2