Expressive TYPE
By Olivia Albers
Here are my preliminary 20 sketches for the word “escape�. A couple of themes I went with were jail, a key, relaxation, and a maze.
For the word “queen,� I thought of royalty and some of the key words we wrote down when we did the word mapping exercise in class. I had London themes, gems and jewels, the band Queen, and sketches based off playing cards.
For my first 20 “sneeze” sketches I thought of mucus and all the gross things associated with sneezing. I had a tendency to draw too many add-ons to my sketches that couldn’t be made out of solely type. On my next set of sketches I focues on only using the type to make the expressive type sketches work.
This is the sketch I chose to base my final escape design off of. I played around with the idea of using the key to convey the word escape, but people weren’t making the connection with the old-fashioned key and escape. One person I showed this sketch to immediately understood that it was supposed to be a maze and how escape worked with the picture so I considered this design to be more successful.
These are the final sketches that I based my sneeze design on. I liked the movement of the “e” with the sketch on the left, but loved the way the mucus letters looked too. I wanted that sickly feel for the design; something that made people go, “Ewwwww.” So, I decided to combine two ideas.
After trying many designs, I settled on the card theme. I didn’t want to be cliche and create a design that represented the queen of England. I thought the card idea would make sense to people without hitting them over the head and being too obvious. I liked the shape of spades, but thought the queen of hearts would be easier for people to make a connection with.
My final maze design was fairly tedious to make. I made all of the letters out of a lowercase L and had to place each straight line individually. I like how the outer “e� is bold and really acts as a container while the other smaller letters would still confuse someone who would going through the maze.
I really enjoy how this design turned out. I love all the texture and grossness the font brings and the movement I created by misplacing the E. The three movement lines next to the “e” were made out of one half of a capitol H. All in all, this design screams the word “sneeze” to me.
When I was thinking how to properly translate the word “queen,” I wanted to use a font that was classic with a regal quality to it as well. I didn’t want something overly gaudy or obnoxious. With this Harrington font, I think I found the perfect balance. To put my own personal stamp on the design, I created a heart out of several different letters and symbols. I put the heart in place of where the Q’s tail would be as a play on the phrase “queen of hearts.” I like how the color red pops off the page and adds an unexpected element to the design.