Final Artist Typeface Project

Module: TFD1064 Design for Communication Design Graphic Design Group Project - “Artist Typeface” Taylor Nicole Sim U1255608 07446054004

tnstypography.tumblr.com

Artist Analysis

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) is a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. He is most commonly known for his support on the cubist movement.

I decided to use Picasso as one of my 8 artist influences as I love his use of sharp edges and the appearance of layers he has created through colours and textures.

I decided to work from his Cubism period and wanted to primarily focus on the blue self protrait of himself below, due to the numerous layers it appears to have purely from clever painting.

“I’m excited to try this out as I believe the lines and corners will make for a good typeface with it being edgy and almost 3D looking.”

Pablo Picasso

The first step I took when analysing Picasso’s work was to decide what media I wanted to work with.

I chose papers as I up of multiple layers Before I experimented using water acrylics, biro - however, I did the colour sampling would prefer to use.

thought the self portrait could be made which would eventually make it look 3D. with papers, I took some colour samples wax crayons, pencils, felt tips and know that I wanted to use papers so was purely so I knew what shades I

After All my sampling in both colour and media, I went ahead and drew what I thought would make a good letter that represented Pablo Picasso’s work.

I’m really pleased with sharp edges and straight lines in my ‘A’ drawing, so I believe this could be one of my final artists I take forward.

Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay (1885 - 1941) is a French artist who co-founded the ‘Orphism’ art movement which is noted for it’s use of strong colours and geometric shapes.

His later works are more abstract and reminiscent of Paul Klee.

He loved to experiment with both depth and tone within his works.

I chose to use Robert Delaunay based on the two images here. I particularly love his use of circles and repetitive patterns. He has also managed to incorporate the Eiffel Tower, Paris, into the piece directly below which I really love because it is slightly random amongst the circles; I will be looking into how I can create my typeface from these circles.

“The image to the left (Endless Rythmn) has letters already jumping out at us waiting to be made into a typeface. I will try to use this as my main source of inspiration for my examples.”

Robert Delaunay

With Delaunay’s work, there are letter’s already coming out of it using the circle theme, I attempted to transfer them into letters.

For these examples I used water colours which I think looks quite good. However I don’t think this is the most creative and experimental font I could come up with.

My initial steps when looking into Robert Delaunay’s work was focusing on the colour and what media I would use to create the appropriate appearence as it is the major component in his works. I started off with water acylics using mainly primary colours, I did like how they worked out but I wanted to try use a different technique to what he did.

I ventured into wax crayons, oil and soft pastels.

I didn’t really like how the wax crayons turned out as it didn’t give me a block colour. The same goes for the soft pastels, the colours came out very muted and pale so next time I would try use a different media.

Martin Sati

Martin Sati gives located in Seville journey in 2006.

name City,

to that

a small graphic studio started it’s professional

They focused on art direction, graphic design and illustration.

The label is headed by J.R.Martin who studied graphic design and fine art in Seville. J.R.Martin has worked for many high profile brands such as Google, HP and Kellogs.

I chose reminded was little. have to

this artist based on the image below as it me of the Scribble game I played when I You would scribble and then someone else would transform it into an object or person etc.

“I love the simplicity of the black and white colour scheme, the bold patterns amongst the shapes and the additional coloured face.�

Martin Sati

My first approach to Martin Sati’s work was to test out different writing and drawing media as his work looks hand drawn.

I bgean with wax crayons and colouring pencils but they didn’t give me a neat enough edge. I also tried standard drawing pencils but again, the colour wasn’t bold enough and the lines weren’t smooth either.

Just for testing purposes I wanted to see what water colour would look like. Here I only used grey which was a little too faded for what I wanted, so I should have also tested black. However it was definitely too thick so in the end up, I was left with fineliner which would have been my first port of call anyway.

I genuinely really like this sample, I think it has emotion too it and personality, especially with the added coloured face. I tried to incoporate that into some rough ideas for some letters and although I do like the face in my image, I don’t think it works for letters. If I was to take this forward I would remove the face and use looser lines.

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns who works

(1930) is an American contemporary artist primarily in painting and print marking.

He is best known for “Flag” (the bottom image). His work is often described as a “Neodadaist” as opposed to pop-art.

His early works consist of flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers, whereas further along his career he became more abstract.

I chose Jasper Johns as my eyes were immediately drawn to the use of bold, primary colours and it gave me a lot of ideas on different ways to print.

“I plan on exploring different textures through different medias such as paint, paper, wax resist and ink. I also want to try using a potato to stamp with (carve out my design and use paint).”

Jasper Johns

When I look at Jasper John’s work, I don’t see intricate hand painted pieces that are highly detailed, I see blocks, free hand and bold shapes.

So to get what I was looking for I had to move out of my oil pastel and acrylic phase and think more simply. That’s when I came up with potato’s. I used to potato stamp a lot when I was a child, of course my mum would cut out the shapes for me, meaning this time I could experiment myself.

I did test out some other colours and media but I already knew that I wanted to use poster paints as they would give me that bold, vibrant colour that Jasper John’s work is known for.

I actually really love how this artist sample turned out and I think that you can notice the resemblence and artist influence in the work. I also wanted to try out different textures so I used cardboard for the stars, artist paper for my lines and graph paper for my letters.

Goncharova

Natalie Goncharova (1881 - 1962) was a Russian Avant-Garde artist who works in the cubism and futurism movements.

She was also a costume designer, writer, illustrator and set designer. She attended Moscow’s school of painting, sculpture and architecture.

I chose this artist based on the Russian influence and European appearence. The colours and overlaying shapes remind me of Picasso’s work in the Blue Period. In the piece to the left, I love the addition of the square red typeface and the feminine frilly lace and doileys which make it look like a tea room setting. The image below also has the European theme too it, I think that this is put across through her typeface choice and although the colours are a little bolder, you can still connect it to her style.

“I will explore Goncharova’s style using different media such as soft pastels, water colours, ink and acrylics.”

Goncharova

For me, Goncharova’s work is very intricate in a simplistic way.

There’s lot’s going on in her work yet when you look closely, it’s all very minimal, including her materials.

When I first looked at her work I knew instantly what media I wanted to try create this with: water colours and wax crayons. This would give me a resist affect which would automatically give it more character like her’s has.

I worked primarily in blue shades which gave it an eerie feel but added the pop of deep red in the letters to give it some focus. Although Goncharova’s work isn’t three-dimensional, I added pieces of lace and tea doiley’s to create the intricate tearoom appearence that could be being shown in her work.

For the letters, I took forward the lace detailing, line work and some influence from the already existing, European looking ‘N’ .

Sabrina Ward Harrison

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) is a Canadian artist and author.

I studied her during my time at college as a textiles student and loved the mish-mash of colours, patterns and found objects.

With the typography in these images I can see that it looks hand drawn and that no two letters are ever the same style.

To me they look like they have come out of a magazine. To transcribe this appearence into a typeface, I would do it in all upper-case which would ensure that they all remain the same height size. “For this sample I will be focusing on the image below.

I particularly like this one because of the contrasting colours and the cut out words and images. If I was to make the image to the left, I would use different fabrics, dried flowers and make sure that there is lots of texture and layers to the piece.�

Sabrina Ward Harrison

This piece was definitely the easiest to recreate as it is something I did quite often in my Textiles class. It is purely made up from numerous layers of different colour, shapes and textures. I primarily used water colours for the background on this but did want to use soft pastels for some lettering further on. I used deep reds for the loose lines behind the cut out magazine letters and cardboard which definitely adds a feminine touch the cold, boyish greens. I tried to carry this femininity forward into my letters with swirls and soft edges.

BO130

BO130 is part of the ‘Microbe’. He’s a graduate from the London College of Art and Printing. He is a graphic designer, illustrator and street artist who gets his inspiration from the urban lifestyle.

“For this sample piece I would either use a rough sketch in pencil and fineliner, perhaps using water to smudge the ink so it had more substance like the image below. I would also try it out using my graphics tablet on Adobe Illustrator CS6.”

BO130

I chose BO130 based on his urban originality and that I hadn’t yet chosen an artist like him. What I love about his work is that it’s all free hand drawings, none of it has used a ruler and it doesn’t really matter if you make a small mistake as you won’t be able to tell. Initially I was going to draw it pen to paper so I tested out a variety of shades of black in pencils and pens and found that fineliners, like Martin Sati’s work, worked best for this sample. However, I then noticed my opportunity to use Adobe Illustrator to recreate the face.

I’m really happy with this outcome and love the added repetitive face in smaller and darker shades of black. For the letters however, I went back to fineliner and although his work is great, I don’t think there’s enough complexity to the letters.

Arman

Arman is a French-born American artist (1928). He began his career by creating paintings with found objects; he went on to actually create his pieces FROM the found objects (can be seen in both images). He is best known for his ‘accumulations’ and destruction/recomposition of objects.

I chose him from the list as many of my selected artists are already typographers and I wanted to see what I could come up with purely from a piece of art. I particularly chose this image to work from due to the rich, bold colours of the tubes and paint and although I haven’t used colour for my own take on it, I would still stick to using bright colours.

“I will use different objects, just as he has to create his work, to form my sample letters. I really love this work because I have worked with found objects before and thoroughlly enjoyed working with different pieces to create art.”

Arman

I chose arman based on his use of found objects and I thoroughly enjoy working with old vintage items and things you would find around your home and garden.

With these pieces he has used artist equipment which shows that you can even make art out of art!

I knew that to get the desired affect for this sample I would have to test it out for myself. Seen as though I had a large amount of old acrylic paints and not a lot of spare paintbrushes, I took forward the paint tubes and created a three-dimensional example of some letters made from these tubes (an image of these can be seen further along). This example is definitely my favourite piece i’ve created so far, therefore making it a strong contender for me to take forward.

After using objects for a sample, I needed to test out some physical letters that could be transferred to a computer and used as a typeface. I do love this font as it’s very artistic and different; it would take a long time to produce this font however.

Alister Dippner

Alister Dippner found his fame on YouTube and began his proffessional career working on the “Ghost Town” album cover (bottom image).

I chose this artist as he is ultra modern in comparison to my previous artists and his work doesn’t really follow a particular movement other than it’s what he enjoys painting.

From these images I will look at the image on the left hand side.

I would take forward the spiral, shell shapes and curls from her hair and the loose brush strokes around her face and the birds.

“For this sample, I can image soft pastels working well to create the blended lilac, blue and pink tones in her curls. I would also experiment with water colours, acrylics and again ink as once you add water you get a nice deep uneven finish.”

Alister Dippner

Allister Dippner was pointed out to me by a friend and I instantly loved his work. Based on this reaction I knew I had to include him as one of my research artists.

Before I started my example, I had a rough idea of how I wanted it to look: I wanted different shades and tones of purple running through the hair, blending together easily, creating an almost angelic look.

Unlike before, I didn’t test out media’s first and soon I regretted it.

I tried using Felt tips for this piece as I knew they would give me bold colours as well as the line definition in her curls. The addition of water was to blend all these tones together so that it had a more flowing feel.

However, this didn’t exactly turn out how I had hoped, with the colours not blending very well. Therefore I sampled soft pastels and acrylics and found soft pastels should have been my choice of media.

This artist made it very difficult to take letters from, so I found myself using the curls as my main influence. They’re nice but nothing special.

Additional Typographer’s analysis

A r m i n Cassandre Erik Van Hoffman Blokland

Armin Hofmann is a Swiss graphic designer and is head of the Basel School of Design. He is well known for his colourful posters which emphasised the economical use of colour and fonts.

I chose to study Hofmann as I really love the simplistic, no curves theme he has within his typefaces. They resemble the Greek alphabet which appealed to me as I have a fascination with history.

The ‘Cassandre’ Typeface was created by Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, born in Ukraine to French parents in 1901.

He was most well-known as Painter, Poster Artist and Typeface Designer. He went on to build his own Advertising Agency called “Alliance Graphique” and was commonly known for his posters advertising travel.

I chose ‘Cassandre’ from the list as the font is well known for commonly representing the 1930’s/40’s and these are some of my favourite era’s.

I love the minimalistic appearance it has, theres little to the letters but yet you still know what they are. I think that my sketch symbolises the same simplicity of the ‘Cassandre’ font and with some editing and tweaking it could really work well.

Erik Van Blokland was born in 1967 and studied Graphic and Typographic Design at the Royal Academy for Fine and Applied Arts in The Hague, Holland.

I chose him as he has had some history at the Font Bureau and other places which makes me think he has had a lot of experience. I chose this image to work from as I really like the mixture of colours and sharp, edgy layers. Mine isn’t an exact copy of his work, it’s slightly thinner, no layers and simply in black and white. However, if I chose to take this forward into further research (3 artists), I would make it slightly thicker and add varying colours for the Colour Copy that is required.

J a v i e r J e a n Pierre di Mariscal debuffet s c u i l l o

Javier Mariscal, 1950, is a Valencian Spanish artist and designer whose work spans a wide variety of mediums.

I was really drawn towards his name on the list of given designers and when I started research on him, I understood why!

I love that his typography isn’t all one shape and size, that they’re all different colours, with different patterns. They’re not all in one case either, varying from upper to lower - I would adapt this so that you could use both for a digital typeface. However, I think that if I did use Javier Mariscal as my influence then I would perhaps only create a Display Type as I think the sizing and colours etc won’t work well as a Text Type.

Jean Dubuffet (1901 - 1985), was a French painter and sculptor.

He didn’t believe in the traditional values of beauty so therefore painted in a more authentic and humanistic approach.

Scuillo was born in Paris in 1961 and he began publishing his own magazine, “Qui? Resiste” in 1983, in which he experiments with typography and design.

I chose this image from all of his work due to the amount of letters jumping out of it!

You initially see it as a bundle of sribbles or something a child might have made, but when you look closely you can see the outlines and beginnings of letters.

With a little refinement, I managed to bring out some of those letters in the same free handed form and added a little depth to them by using his lines.

He was awarded the Prix Charles-Nypels award for his Typographical research, which has a very fresh and energetic approach.

His typefaces are strikingly modern and he is known for making more of an impression through Typography than most designers do.

I chose his work due to the colours and simplicity in the way he has built his typeface; it has a somewhat child like appearance.

Some letters are one continuous stroke and others are in separate blocks - I think that this structure is one of the things that attracted me to his work.

chosen three artists

Arman

I was initially only going to do hand sketches of the letters for these chosen three artists but decided it would make it easier to decide on one if I new what they would look like digitalised.

I drew the letter A as my tester to show varying sizes and created it by using my graphics tablet (I used this to give it a hand drawn look).

When it came to writing the artist’s name using my new typeface, I realised that this isn’t a font that can be used for both Upper and Lower case typing.

If I were to draw in lower case, I think they would become too squashed together and you would lose the boldness and some detail.

I do think this a great font for Upper Case typing!

Arman

I was a little put off this typeface when I realised it couldn’t be made into a multi-use font. However, when it came to practicing the font in different thicknesses etc, I think it works really well!

The bold ‘B’ created a little concern at first as I thought it might lose it’s quality and become quite boring. However, even though it looks quite basic I still like the appearence.

The italic ‘E’ also worked out better than I first imagined. I thought that with it being at an angle that it just wouldn’t work. But looking at it now, I think its only the direction of the paint that has changed so it’s still the same working artistic font from the start.

Pablo Picassso

My second chosen artist is Pablo Picasso. For me, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I should take this forward as it just had so much attitude and personality.

These images to the left are basic, rough outlines of what my letters for my Picasso inspired font would look like. As you can see from these examples, this font would be able to be made into both Upper and Lower case letters making it a lot more versatile.

Before creating them on the computer, I practiced using different shades of card to create the layered look I was after and then placed them onto cardboard which I think made them look very simplistic and stylish.

For the last letter ‘C’, I just wanted to try out what it would look like with a little extra detail within the triangles. I do like this as it gives it a hand drawn look as well as being sharp and precise with the angles and lines.

To show my typeface in various sizes I chose the lower case ‘A’.

I chose this because it is one of the letters that has multiple lines in and you can see the desired affect clearly.

From this example you can see that this font would work well at any size.

Pablo Picassso

Knowing that my typeface could be both upper and lower, I felt more confident about taking it further. I knew that it could be used in italics as there wouldn’t be much difference to the form, only slightly angled.

For the colour copy, again sticking with the ‘A’, I thought it would look at it’s best if I stuck with the colours I had origianlly used that were influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period.

Again, I took my time developing this font, cutting out the letters before hand to make sure that it would work correctly.

I chose to write his name in capitals to make a bolder statement and although my colour copy is just coloured outline, I think this block colour also works well for display text.

Martin sati

My third and final chosen artist is Martin Sati. I chose him due to my other two artists being fairly structured and same throughout the typeface and Sati’s work is a lot looser.

These letters to the left here, are rough ideas of ways to develop this font and have been scanned in from my sketchbook.

I really love the simplicity of the ‘T’ , it’s clean and straight to the point. The ‘S’ is also lovely within context but wouldn’t work well as a typeface in my opinion.

I continued to write the artist’s name in capitals, again to make a statement. You can also see from the practice letters above that these can also be used in both upper and lower case letters making it more of an accesible font to writers.

Although it can be in both cases, I think this text would only work well for Display Text’s as it would be far too detailed to write with.

This image of his name is one of my favourites and I love it even more with the bold black circles and thin narrow lines.

Martin sati

When it came to creating a size guide for my typeface influenced by Martin Sati, I knew I had to choose a letter that held enough information about that font. I went with the letter ‘T’ based on that you can get multiple circles with full patterns inside along the top and you can see the use of rough narrow lines as well.

I think tha this size guide shows that this font is capable of working at most sizes.

However, I do think that it won’t be much smaller than this whe the design will become un-recogniseable so I believe with this font, the bigger the better else there is the chance of losing the patterns and forms.

I decided that for the outline of this typeface, I should remove all the patterns from with the circles so that it is just straight forward, clean and crisp and I think this looks really classy and elegant.

I knew that the typeface wouldn’t have to change much for the Italics copy of the letters and I think that the letter ‘B’ looks great.

I was a little aprehensive about how the font would look in bold and was unsure on how to tackle it. Eventually I settled on making the rough lines thicker and keeping the circles the same. I do like the thick lines, however I don’t think it look’s bold enough to be classed as ‘bold’. I would perhaps try making the circles a little thicker and slightly adjusting the patterns within them to appear bolder too.

Final Chosen Artist

Pablo Picassso

From my three chosen artist’s I thought that the obvious choice for me to take forward was Pablo Picasso.

I think that it was the only font that had direction and character too it and was something that could keep developing. These are my final drawings of the typeface.

Pablo Picassso

After I had finished my drawings of the final typeface it then had to be digitalised.

These images are my final outcome after transforming them into digital OUTLINE copies.

I used grids and guides to make absolutely sure they were the same height etc and found that the line tool was the best thing to be invented for this font!

I am extremely happy with how this typeface has turned out and that you can easily tell who influenced it.

Pablo Picassso

I already know that this font works well in Bold so I had no worries when it came to giving it thicker strokes.

I changed the stroke width from 1pt to 4pt which I think was the best thickness for this font; if it was any thicker the letters would soon begin to lose their shape and form.

Pablo Picassso

To create the italics copy of my typeface I had to rely heavily on the grids provided on Adobe Illustrator CS6.

Transforming this into an italics font took longer than it did to create the original font. Instead of taking the lines straight up and down, I took them over by 4 squares (8 squares make up a whole square). I think that this was just the right amount of angle the font needed to take it into a different state yet remain familiar to Picasso’s work.

Pablo Picassso

I decided to include a colour copy as the typeface had originally been made in colour and I wanted viewers to see it in the state that I had developed it.

Although I haven’t shown any examples in the block colours (his name is in block colours in a previous slide), I think the outline gives the audience a clear indication to what the letters look like in colour.

Pablo Picassso

Advertising

Font Bureau Website

Font Bureau Specimen Book

References

Pablo Picasso

Sabrina Ward Harrison

www.tate.org.uk

ambitiousfailures.tumblr.com

Javier Mariscal www.siongchin.blog

www.doupine.com

365-days-of-illumination. tumblr.com

Jean Debuffet mine-dart.blogspot.com

BO130

Pierre De Scuillo www.morganephillipe.blog. lemonade.fr

www.zazzle.com

Robert Delaunay www.tate.org.uk www.blanchardmodernart. blogspot.com

Martin Sati All images from: www.martinsati.com

Jasper Johns www.wetcanvas.com Joseph K. Levine Fine Art Ltd.

Goncharova www.tate.org.uk www.pictify.com Cassandre www.designhistorytimeline. info

www.eurekart.files.wordpress.com www.gallerydriver.com www.flickr.com

Alister Dippner All images from: www.imamachinist.com

Arman All images from: www.mag.monchval.com Armin Hoffman www.aiga.org Erik Van Blokland www.domusweb.it