Rustemia

RUSTEMIA A typeface for alternative weddings Created by Savanna Morgan

table of contents

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1 Problem & Concept 2 Research 3 Development 4 Meet Rustemia 5 Rustemia in Action

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PROBLEM & CONCEPT What started it all? He popped the question. My closest friends, boyfriend and I took what I thought was just a little get away to go hiking that actually turned out to be the biggest surprise of my entire life. My boyfriend asked me to marry him on top of the windy mountain and, you guessed it, I said yes.

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Here comes the problem. As a designer, I wanted to create everything for our wedding from scratch. My fiancĂŠe and I are anything but traditional; I have had red, blue and purple hair in the past year and have half an arm of tattoos. Naturally, our wedding is going to be different. After searching the web for inspiration, I only found frustration. It seemed the only typefaces available were generic or too fancy.

I thought that there had to be other couples wanting the same thing I did. I knew what I needed to do. I would create a typeface for alternative weddings.

October 31st, 2015.

We adopted the hashtag #Halloweengagement

WELCOME to the wedding world

Church steeples, lace, and pearls are the rulers of this vast empire we call the wedding industry. Every girl counts down the days until they get to put on that big white poofy dress no matter if they were born wearing heels or lived their life on the soccer field.

But why? We have our own individual style in our daily life, why shouldn’t it be even more evident on one of the most important days of our lives?!

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Traditional vs Alternative In no way am I saying that one is right and one is wrong. The problem is finding a typeface that compliments the alternative style of the picture on the bottom and not just the top.

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RESEARCH

I began my research by looking at weddings that had rustic, free-spirited, and edgy themes. What better place to look than Pinterest! I also discovered a website called Rock and Roll Bride that is solely dedicated to weddings where the bride and groom are usually covered in tattoos and have brightly colored hair. I was on the hunt for something that would make my typeface be intriguing to all brides like myself. It was in my research that I discovered both the feel and form for Rustemia.

Who says a tattooed bride can’t be beautiful?

HERE COMES the not-so-traditional bride

Everywhere you look there are tattoos, beards, and flowers in baby pink hair. On the other side of the wedding industry, there is a culture brewing that is making waves. I learned quickly that I was definitely not alone in my desire for a custom fit and truly unique wedding. I also discovered the perfect way to represent these weddings with my typeface.

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Colored Hair - Don’t Care It doesn’t get more alternative than these two couples!

SOMETHING TATTOOED is the new something blue

The majority of couples that had alternative weddings were covered in tattoos. I have a few tattoos and personally think they are one of the greatest forms of self-expression. No tattoo is exactly the same or means the same thing to the owner. Much like a signature, someone’s tattoos embodies their personality. After this realization, I knew that I wanted my typeface to do the same!

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Inked Elements The bold, quirky character of American Traditional style of tattooing perfectly embodies the bold, quirky couples that would use Rustemia for their weddings.

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DEVELOPMENT

In this section, I begin to develop the elements of Rustemia. Drawing from American Traditional tattooing, I incorporated thin, hair-line serifs, bold and thin strokes. I also make decisions to use geometric and industrial-like forms in the curves of each letterform. Take a peak at my sketches and scribblings to see my process.

Skin to Paper Here I took the elements of tattoos and attempted to implement them in my typeface.

RUSTIC + BOHEMEIAN

An “alternative” wedding has a unique, freespirited, and enchanted aesthetic so I wanted my typeface to have the same. Therefore, I decided to give Rustemia uniqueness by making it a serif typeface that incorporated calligraphy because every handwriting has little imperfections that show someone’s personality. At the same time, I wanted it to be bold, eye-catching, and easy to read. I designed Rustemia to be used in small amounts on “save the dates”, invitations, banners, and websites.

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Unorganized Organization Starting at the bottom page, I went through the questions that were prompted on our project sheet to help us create a solid concept for our typeface. On the top, I broke down the three characteristic I wanted Rustemia to have: calligraphic elements that are simple and easy to read quickly.

Skin to Paper American Traditional Tattoos

After raiding the web of all American Traditional tattoos, I decided to stick to these three images for my main inspiration. The image directly above is where I got most of the elements for Rustemia because it represented this style of tattooing so well. The three pieces I took from this tattoo lettering were the thick and thin stroke weights, the thin serifs, and the curves. I knew that after making these decisions, my typeface would work best as display text because it could be difficult to read in large blocks of text.

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Trust the Greats Instead of trying to make a typeface from thin air, I looked into the great typefaces to find one that embodied ATT. Zapf Book and Galliard were the two contenders but I wound up going with Zapf Book because of it’s industrial form. Galliard was simply too elegant.

SKIN TO PAPER

Development continued

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My development was off to an OK start when we had guest designers pay us a visit. They suggested I make rules for myself to make sure my typeface had unity and to make the design process much easier. In order to make these decisions, one of the designers told me to look up calligraphy videos to get an idea of how certain strokes work together.

Another designer told me to take Zapf Book and type out “wedding words” that Rustemia would most likely be used on. I looked at words like “reception”, “save the date”, and “invited” to make major type decisions.

Top left: I researched a little history on wedding invites and how their hierarchy is determined. Top right: I continued playing around with stroke weights and letter forms.

Bottom left: I began to get more specific on where I wanted my x-height, cap height, and descenders to be.

Bottom right: After guest designers took a look at my work, they made suggestions as to how I can improve and speed up my process.

SKIN TO PAPER

Development continued

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After a meeting with Professor Speaker, I made a decision on the form that would define my typeface. The shape I created in the bowls and curves of my letter forms would be repeated throughout Rustemia. I cut out the industrial and block-like oval shape and rearranged it in whatever way I needed it in order to make the next letter form. Above, I used it for both the top curve of the majuscule B and P and miniscule b which I just flipped over to make p. I then turned the shape right-side up and used it to create the curve in h.

Top: The beginnings of A. I played around with the miniscule a lot before I made a definite decision.

Bottom: Once I was married to my form (pun intended), I traced out several different sizes and cut them out. These little guys sped up my process about ten fold!

SCREEN TO PAPER

My process of bringing O and o from hand rendered to Illustrator and finally to Glyphs.

Some stroke weights had to be adjusted to create more unity between letter forms. I began to notice problems with my typeface as I digitally traced them into my computer.

I attempted to make the right strokes of my letters thinner than the left but once I saw them drawn out and next to each other, I realized they needed to change.

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Bringing B and b into Illustrator I had to adjust curves in the majuscule to make the strokes more uid.

SCREEN TO PAPER

YIKES! This was a wake up call for my typeface. I had some serious work to do on stroke weights and the placement of said stroke weights. After I put my letter forms into words and scaled them up and down, the “wonkiness� made itself very apparent. At this point I knew I would have to make some design compromises in order for Rustemia to be functional.

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Functionality VS Individuality Although I was not able to keep my initial design to make the right side of every letter thinner than the left, I was still able to express the ATT in the serifs and thin crossbars.

what Tattoo boom

BUMPS IN THE ROAD

One letter form that I struggled with the most was X. I had the form I wanted to use but could not make a decision that I was happy with. These are a few visual examples of my thought process as I attempted different arrangements of the form.

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X Marks the Spot This letterform was the most difficult for me to make decisions on. I think it may have been because my mind kept wanting to see X as it is used to seeing it instead of allowing it to become something new.

YOU'RE JUST MY TYPE

Rustemia was designed to be used mostly as display text so I needed to research the best way to pair it with other typefaces. The type choices I made for this type specimen book were made to compliment Rustemia. I looked at wedding invites with alternative aesthetics and even found a flow chart of how to create your own. A lot goes into the wording of a wedding invite that I did not know about, from who is paying for it to what kind of ceremony it is going to be.

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Top: I searched for other wedding invites that I could imagine Rustemia being used on. They had apparent hierarchy that I wanted to implement into my invites.

Bottom: I discovered several websites such as designschool.canva.com that had a ton of tips on pairing typefaces for all sorts of different situations.

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MEET RUSTEMIA The full type specimen of Rustemia broken down into majuscules, miniscules, numerals and punctuation.

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ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrst uvwxyz1234567890 $!?&(,.;:'")

ABCEFGH IJKLMNO PQRSTU VWXYZ 34

abcdefgh ijklmnopq rstuvwxyz

1 2 34 5 6 7890$ &

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(,.;':"?!)

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IN ACTION

See Rustemia do what it does best! Here you will find Rustemia on save the dates, invitations, wedding websites, and even way-finding at a wedding venue.

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Happily Ever After Rustemia came out as a bold, unique, and quirky typeface fit for any bride planning on having an alternative wedding. I plan on using it for my own wedding soon!

14TH OCTOBER 2016

SAVE THE DATE

SAVANNA & BRYSON - CLEMSON, S CAROLINA

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WEBSITE SAVANNA BRYSON HOME

PHOTOS

SCHEDULE

DIRECTIONS

REGISTRY

SEARCH

PHOTO GALLERY Welcome to our photo gallery! Here are some pictures taken by the one and only Abbie Robinson, my great friend and fellow AU student. Our proposal took place in Black Balsam Knob in North Carolina on Halloween of 2015. It was absolutely stunning (and cold)!

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VENUE SIGNAGE

A typeface for alternative weddings

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