artist typeface you are required to design a pictoral typeface with advertisement.
artist typeface artists
ELLSWORTH KELLY
ellsworth kelly is another of my favourites. his work holds no strict lines or infact any explanation to what it is, you are able to freely interpret his work as your own. for example the red on white image in the second row, i see that as a heart, but someone else might see it as an animal track, or even just a red smudge. i wanted to take this idea of using lines to tell the story rather than having to draw out and illustrate one by one the different letters, just draw on a page and see what happens when you try and turn that doodle into lettering. His works demonstrate unassuming Nolan Kelly often employs bright colors. techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. ellsworth kelly was born in 1933, he is an american painter, scupltor and print maker and was involved with the minimalist school. there are certain periods that you can use to relate to him. Hard edge painting being one of those, monochrome painting, colour field, minimalist and post painterly abstraction. in an interview with gweneth paltrow he said “With painting, it’s all in the eye. My eye is very impersonal. It can say what is good and what is bad right away.” his painting is very much unplanned, he takes small booklets around with him and he draws rectangles, squares, images from life and then applies them to his work. for example, someone’s handbag may be a basic enough shape for him to immitate, and then re-work into something else he found, thus creating these masterpieces.
development ellsworth kelly
ellsworth kelly was ofcourse the inspiration for this set of developments. i thought that i could take the approach that kelly has taken through his work and try to apply it to this font style. i chose to look at two different angles when approaching this artist. one where the letter is closed off in a box, much like the work that kelly has produced already. i decided to draw out my ideas and scan them into the pages as so to illustrate further the plan that th i had to turn this into a working font. the idea of using boxes wouldn’t be so i would close down the font into a box, but cut off certain areas of that font to create something where you have to look at the letters in the boxes to figure out the sentence. however, having the font within the boxes could mean that the letters themselves might be different in sizes/thickness due to them not filling the boxes like any of the other letters. the second idea that i then had was to take a particular image that i liked of ellsworth’s collection, for example the one below and turn that th idea into a font so that i would beable to tie in the artist easily with the font i had made.
frank stella
Frank stella. One of the main reasons i chose stella as an artists is because i love his geometric shapes and the way that he is able to combine different shapes and you dont question whether they’re meant to fit. his work like this inspired me to try and create the alphabet in the same way using a basic font as a guide. i’m going to try both serif and sans serif to see which one works better but i think that sans serif will work the best as it has clean lines, trying to fit a serif font, even a bold flat one would be tricky, but it might also have a nice effect and allow me to merge more shapes into the design itself making the lettering distinct and inividual. M 12, 1936) is an American painter and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. in 1970 Stella introduced relief into his art, Frank Stella (born May which he came to call “maximalist” painting for its sculptural qualities. The shaped canvases took on even less regular forms in the Eccentric Polygon series, and elements of collage were introduced, pieces of canvas being pasted onto plywood, for example. His work also became more three-dimensional to the point where he started producing large, free-standing metal pieces, which, although they are painted upon, might well be considered sculpture.
development frank stella
Frank stella is an artist that i have been using to make a font style. this is one of the fonts that I have made that doesn’t require a doner -font for the artists style to latch onto. i have been looking at the different ways that his work uses lines and curves to create the lettering in this font paying particular attention to the letters that would require more thought as they either have too many gaps or need more pieces to help make the physical letter. the ones that th i have explored here are ‘b’ ‘q’ and ‘a’ merely just to test the theory on how the actual letters would form and what amount of colours across the letters i would need for example, if the letter required two pieces like the ‘a’ then there would be two colours already assigned to that text, and for three the colour would always be the same so that there was more continuity between the entire text rather than a mixture of different colours that didnt have particular continuity when reading. as you can see through the development of all of the letters there was a point in all of them where i had to find the certain cer angles that fit with each letter but all of them were based on the original outline of how i write each letter. the g for example needs more work as there isnt a real clarity as to where the line that flicks out to seperate the ‘g’ from the ‘c’ it is just missing a piece that would make it an ‘o’ so that needs more development but i do feel like this is one of the strongest ideas that i have from my artists so far.
KENNETH NOWLAND
kenneth nowland a new artist that i have found when researching the mininalist school and ellsworth kelly. I thought that the linear and circular textured paintings that noland was creating are something that would tie in nicely with the minimalist theme that i have to my research. the white/offwhite negative space surrounding the images is something that i would like to replicate within my alphabet. the colour palette used here is a similar one to kelly’s in that there is no strict rules about what colours can be used if it goes, it goes. he like kelly works in the field of abstract art, m his main movement being colour field. Most of Noland's paintings fall into one of four groups: circles, or targets. chevrons, stripes, and shaped canvases. Instead of painting the canvas with a brush, Noland’s style was to stain the canvas with color. This idea sought to remove the artist through brushstrokes. This made the piece about the art, not the artist. He emphasized spatial relationships in his work by leaving unstained, bare canvas as a contrast against the colors used throughout his paintings. Noland used simplified abstraction so the design would not detract from the use of color. [1]
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN
i found this artist through looking at artists relating to ellsworth kelly, the simplicity of the designs that he has is something that i love in art. i wanted to continue the styles and techniques that i have discovered in the other artists. mclaughlin unlike the others has a particular colour scheme, never too much colour to overload his simplistic patterns. the repeat rectangles are something that developed in his later works as an artist. his techniques are mostly, printmaking, sculpture and painting. this style of work appeals to me more so than a busy painting with too much detail. John McLaughlin was an American abstract painter. Based primarily in California, he was a pioneer in minimalist and hard-edge painting he was one of just a few American artists creating abstracts. McLaughlin's work is characterized by a simplicity expressed as precise geometric forms, usually rectangles
comparison artists this image is quite similar to the image by john mclaughlin in the ways that it has the reginmented lines within the circles that match up to the lines that mclaughlin makes in all of his images.
kenneth noland
john mclaughlin
there is always a seperation in his images to allow the eyes to make sense of the two different colours. as they are always opposite i think that i could use this within my work to make certain letters seperate from others - just to replic replicate his work.
this image also uses texture which is what seperates the two and visually adds more into noland’s images.
there is a minimalist colour scheme within the images that noland creates this is also a reacurring feature within the images from mclaughlin and some of the other artists.
the texture that is around the edge of the circle can be recreated manually or digitally, as there are paint splatters and the smudge effect both of which are made with the stroke within a brush/finger or a dragging motion.
i think that having a neutral colour around the letters works alot better on the eye and makes it seem as though the whole thing is enclosed.
i think that the different colours within this image are what gives the added emphasis of the painting itself. mclaughlin though there isnt alot of detail to his work can be placed right into the minimal era,
Jackson Pollock
jackson pollock is a favourite artist of mine because of the way that he creates his paintings - essentially care free! there are some patterns to his work but i think for the most part it is chance that rrings together the images in his paintings. there is a limited colour pallette unlike the ones in the artists that i have chosen before him, and ofcourse there is no structure at all. i chose him due to the fact that there is little resraint to his paintings and i wanted to replicate this pattern within lettering. Paul Jackson Pollock, known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his uniquely defined style of drip painting. After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique, turning to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas.
gene davis
when researching the minimalist movement i came across this artist. when frank stella started using just lines in his work a few other artists followed, kenneth noand, Robert Motherwell, Robert Ryman and ofcourse gene davis. he was an American painter known especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color, and was a member of the group of abstract painters in Washington DC during the 1960s known as the Washington Color School. his style of work appeals to me as there is so much control over every line that is in the art yet there is a sense of getting lost wtihin the lines that draws you in. The paintings he creates typically repeat particular colors to create a sense of rhythm and repetition with variations. keeping the ‘beat’ similar throughout all of his paintings is something that i will beable to replicate when it comes to making the alphabet match.
development gene davis
this typography idea is good in theory but there would need to be a doner font in order to make the font idea work. here i am going to show the idea with two different fonts to make the font more apparent, there are two differnt ideas that i have here, so i will also display those. the one where i can layer the lines to create the letter, or the one where there is a singular line to show the letter and that is either curved or angular.
add another page this is looking at what angles create a different feel for the lettering when it is just lines. i am also going to be doubling up the lines on these to make it represent the gene davis artist examples. there are three letters here, curved, angular and double coloured - all three are quite effective and are a full representation on how the gene davis style can be translated into a font style.
timeline of type 0
300 b.c.
100 b.c.
200 b.c.
100 a.d.
formal greek alphabet
roman alphabet
old roman curvasive
classical iconic/eastern alphabet adopted and used in athens
early formal lettering styles as preserved on inscriptions
an early script used for informal writing
300
200
roman rustics quicker and slightly less formal
classical roman lettering fully developed and in use
1300
1500
1400 GOTHIC
angular, compressed book hands that are paired with ornate, rounded capitals
1800
1700
humanist
baroque, rococo
a balanced writing style synthesising carolangolian and romanesque with classical and roman forms
letters in which the axis varies widely as type more further from its origins. embellished letters
renaissance type movable type expressing italian printers classical and humanist design
modern/neoclassical italics, mannerism script hand typed with more exaggerated form/ axes
fraktur a gothic blackletter style used mainly in north europe
rationalised letterforms with a vertical axis and increased stroke content
500
600
900
700
unicals formal book hands that have elements of roman capitals, curves and rustics
christian styles
insular, merovingian styles
lose compositions and lettering influenced by the greek
new styles from the british isles/ france less rooted in the roman tradition
half unicals
CAROLINGIAN MINUSCULE A NEW ALPHABET PARTIALLY BASED ON HALF-UNCIAL SCRIPT. THE ORIGIN OF OUR LOWERCASE ALPHABET
alphabets with ascenders and descenders that use both cursive and unical forms
CAROLINGIAN STYLES A REVIVAL OF ROMAN LETTER STYLES
present day
1900 arts and crafts a revival of the handcrafted forms inspired by classical and medieval times
advertising type bold, extreme and experimental letters often ornamental
art nouveau
bauhaus
organic, fluid and expressive letterforms
geometric and mechanical forms
post-modernism deconstructed type and digital experiments
de stijl
modernism
elemented, geometric and gridbased lettering
rationalised, precise forms, putting bauhaus ideas into practice
dada lettering and type that celebrate the chaotic and absurd
psychedelia, pop revivalism warped letterforms, and a revival of the nineteenth century styles
typefaces of the minimalism movement i thought that it was important to have something to refer back to when i was looking at making my font. so here are some of the examples that i found were made in the minimalism movement.
minimalism typefaces
starting top left - the images are; ein frohes -1960 Bifur typeface - 1901 italian advertising - 1964/65 Julia Trigg - 1935 ben shahn -1963 wes wilson (psychedelic lettering) - 1960’s (p
All of these artists/typefaces are going to be influencing my final typeface, and due to the era i thought that it would be useful to show the direction that i was going in when it came to the era i was focusing on. i’m looking mainly from these images as to how the type is constructed and the continuity within that type face. from this i’ll beable to determine how my typeface will be (influenced from the artists and the 1960’s)
minimalism movement The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity. the minimalist movement is one of my favourite movements of the 1960’s early 1970’s. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postminimal art practices. One of the first artists specifically associated with minimalism was the painter, Frank Stella, four of whose early "black paintings" were included in the 1959 show, 16 Americans, organized by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The width of the stripes in Frank Stellas's black paintings were often determined by the dimensions of the lumber used for stretchers, visible as the depth of the painting when viewed from the side, used to construct the supportive chassis upon which the canvas was stretched. The decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, but pre-conditioned by a "given" feature of the physical construction of the support. In the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes. There is nothing else in his painting." th i made of the different movements to do with the alphabet and lettering being created minimalism is something that came just after modernism which then lead onto in the timeline of type that post-minimalism and pop art.
design ideas
tried with a different font
i prefer this font alot more than the other one due to the wide angles that the letters are set at.
DESIGN IDEAS
this shows the small trip of two shapes being layered and what effect that would have once coloured. these are just rough observations of some of the shapes that i might be using more frequently than others - for example, the half square and the slice image are things that may be used to connect a piece of lettering together. i’m working on the colour scheme that would need to go with this concept as you wouldnt beable to have a mixture of colours, each layer needs a colour (i think) that will most likely be the next step within this project. projec the images below aren’t an exact representation of how the shapes might look as they arent accurate but this is a cleaner version to see how the layering technique looks graphically.
everything in the shape of the letter has to match or the feel of continuity between the letters won’t be there.
DESIGN IDEAS
b i think that these shapes are working well with the whole continuity effect, but there needs to be more seperation between the colours for it to represent the artists that i have looked at. for example, john mclaughlin is one that uses minimal colours but having all of these variations means that i’m not representing the artists. if i cut up the shapes into the different layers and work about with the colouring I COULD MAYBE REPRESENT THE ARTISTS IN THESE DESIGNS. M
doner font that i’ll be using for this experiment
however, making this font all 3d will require a simpler texture that will go over the letter itself so that i can seperate the letter evenly making it all 3d with the pattern i have created.
instead of making a 3d model like i planned on, i thought that perhaps using shapes to make a block letter would be better for the image of tying all of the different artists together. all of the attributes of the artists that i haven’t already transcribed - kenneth noland and john mclaughlin, also perhaps jackson pollock but i think that as he doesnt really conform to the minimalism era that i might only beable to use his technique for the textured areas of the letters. i think that th i could perhaps use a layering technique for the shapes, but i think that making the shapes fit the letter fully instead of making it 3d. i could use the opacity layering to make the ‘3d’ effect apparent, but i could also use different angles to show the seperation between colours that the artists have made with their work already. there aren’t any previous artists that i can find that do this to take inspiration from or mould my font ideas onto.
making the letters 3d and use them as pieces in a ‘puzzle’
design ideas sticking to the idea of using certain shapes for certain letters this is the principle. what would happen is there would be a block of letters and within that block there would be small windows indicating what kind of letter was being represented . if i were to map out what letters belong to what shapes i would beable to determine what gaps i’d need within each shape and whether i would need to perhaps alter any of the existing shapes.
de fg
this is an example of how the typeface would look when took in the style of a combination of all my artists. having the simplicity of the letters in shape form and allowing them to then be cut away to reveal the actual letter behind. this can be done for all letters
the simplicity of this type could be effective yet at the same time a hinderance as there would have to be time spent when reading the type itself, though i do like this font as i like how it ties into this era of minimalism that i have decided to focus on.
REFINEMENT OF IDEAS looking at the minimalism design i think that there was room for improvement when taking ideas from ellsworth kelly. cutting off the letters when looking at a typeface can sometimes be difficult as you need to make sure that the other letters dont resemble the same features and when put into a sentence they dont get mixed up and make your sentence look unreadable.
instead of using squares i think that using rectangles fits better withi the layout of how i want the typeface to develop.
i like the way that this font idea looks however, due to me needing to cut a font off into rectangles i would have to have a font already made for it to be the same height/weight and everything else for continuity effects. it would work on the different levels with bold, italics and the normal thin font.
full font inspired by ellsworth kelly and his use of small spaces to create art
refinement of ideas moving on from the other design ideas i wanted to explore this one further taken from frank stella’s geometrical design work here are the experiements that i have found to be intereting when put into letter form. the way that the shapes can double up t give the feel of his work but also create lettering is something that i want to explore more. here i have only started out with the first 16 letters as to see how it would work for thickness and continuity - but i don think that th this is the final piece yet. although there are certain aspects of the 16 letters that i like, i dont think that they all hold similar characteristics - some are too minimal, some are overly complicated, i haven’t yet struck that balance in which frank stella did in his work.
development of letters
from the old d that i chose to draw, to one that i have looked at the artists work with.
there are different ways that i could present the letters for example there are certain areas that needed improvement like these particular letters. i have put an image of reference when it comes to the artists influence as i think that i was starting to stray off onto my idea of frank stella, rather than what his actual art work looked like.
the components of the d that i’ve made. all have the same width and keep the same constraints that the d would have if made in the same way as everything frank stella made. now all that i have to do as i have grasped this concept is apply it to every other letter.
letter colour development/outline letter outline/development there is a technique of making your own font that i have found is to mirror the letter before to make sure that they are all the same, unison is key if you want a working font. i am trying out a similarity with three colours to test and see if there are any benefits to using differnt colours or whether it would be best to keep the variation within the three colours that i have chosen here. also, pastel colours work better with the thinner lines as they arent as harsh.
if i were to try these letters with a different thickness -
i think that black and white works really well when there are thinner lines within the font rather than smaller gaps as they dont merge and you can define the different areas of the letter so that the artist’s influence is recognisable.
i’m not feeling that this weight font isn’t the way that i think that this font should go. this isn’t something that i will be keeping, however, i do think that as i am getting the shapes for each of the different letter i need to start making those letters into more defined shapes rather than having just the lines.
colour development these are the colours that i have chosen to keep my letters all the same when going from black and white to colour.
these are the two development g shapes that i have been working with i think that for the purpose of the geometric shaped idea that the one on the left will work better.
all four of thees colours are alternating between themselves and i dont find that interesting enough to be taken aback and though of as frank stella inspired.
colour development to see what colours will go in line with the letters that i have already made. i have used one of frank stella’s images for reference of how the colours should mix with eachother.
always lkeeping the black and white perspective look.