ALPHABET SOUP//TYPEFACE//OUGD403

Alphabet Soup Research

I have been looking at various fonts in order to get inspiration. I have been looking at dinosaur style fonts and illustrated typography. Here is an example of Illustrated type that I really like. Its clear but still legible, his use of close attention to detail has paid off. He has incorporated a reggae style influence and also combined this with wires and speakers. This works really the colour scheme  is quite natural which works well.

 

Theo Aartsma

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/Illustrated-typography-5/885102

Here are some Dinosaur style fonts I found on dafont.com. I quite like the 3rd one down, its illustrated style is interesting to look at and also reads quite well as a typeface.

http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=dinosaur

Here I came across some typography that I like. I really like the colour scheme, its bold and eye catching. He has created a visual representation of the word sweet, using sticky colourful illustrated font. I like this style of visual communication.

 

By Stefan Chin2off

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/72736802@N00/5606068426

ALPHABET SOUP//TYPEFACE//OUGD403

Alphabet Soup Type Face

Brief

Design a typeface for a full alphabet and glyphs (a to z, !, ?, @, £, :, .) that represents the personality/character of your partner. You will discover their personality/character through a series of set questions. Using your new found appreciation of the anatomy of typographic forms and the wealth of research that you have already gathered, focus on the manipulation of existing letter forms in order to solve this problem. There is a limited colour palette of black ink.

Background / Considerations

The alpha-numeric forms within typefaces and fonts are vast. Each has been designed in response to a specific problem, set of requirements or design needs. Clarity, legibility, ease of (re)-production, usability and functionality are always considerations but the mood, personality, tone of voice of these forms is just as important to a designer.

This needs to be produced on an A1 sheet of paper.

My partner is Sam, to find out a little bit about each other we interviewed one an other. From the questions that were asked I picked out 5 answers that I feel will be good to work with. The words I picked from the list are Forgetful, Dinosaur, Loyalty, Time Travel and Death. From here I will investigate ways I deliver these meanings through type.

What these words make me think of:

Forgetful:

• Memory
• Brains
• ?
• Unreliable
• Dozy

Dinosaur: 

• Bones
• Fossils
• Reptiles 
• Ancient
• Pre Historic

Loyalty:

• Friends
• Royalty
• Family
• Team
• Trust 

Time Travel:

• Space
• Science
• Time Machines

Death:

• Blackness
• Graves
• Hell
• Heaven
• The Devil
• Skulls

Next I am planning on finding a few typefaces that I can trace over in order to change and develop them into a typeface that represents the the words I have chosen for Sam.

Critical Studies Image Analysis Exercise

 

I have been looking at 2 different aspects of graphic design from the past, the 1^st image I have is The Uncle Sam Range (1876) by Schumacher & Ettlinger, and the 2^nd image is a poster by Savlie Lumley. The 1^st image is an aspect of advertising, which at a 1^st glance is quite hard to understand, as the oven is not the center of attention. The main focus is on Uncle Sam himself and his dinner party. The image is very in your face and is primarily promoting America. The image depicts 100 years of Independence and is gloating America’s triumph. On the over hand image 2 is a lot subtler, there is no use of big bold text and bright patriotic colours and symbols like in image 1. This image has been created to try and guilt trip men into joining the war. The poster was made in the time where the army was voluntary; it is a clever way of persuasion as it kind of emasculates men, the hand written style font makes the type read differently, it’s a bit more informal unlike image 1 where big bold gold western text has been used to grab your attention, the gold text represents wealth and power, they have made the U and the S capitals just for extra emphasis. Images 2’s text has underlined and capitalized the word YOU, which automatically links the viewer with the image. It directs the focus of the propaganda directly onto the reader. I feel Image 1 is fairly racist, the character on the right has a cartoon like face imitating Africans which is racist, they are trying to make it acceptable which would appeal to lower class as it is quite a low sense of humour. They have gone with the approach of making out America to be top dog, and insinuating America has better food and a better country. They mock the different countries with the list they have, for example saying the Irish just eat potatoes. Although both images exploit the audience the 2^nd image is a lot subtler. It kind of paints a picture of the scenarios that men in that time would want to avoid. Men will kind of feel they have to join the army to prove themselves and be a hero to their children. The little boy is playing with soldiers and the little girl is looking at a book on the war, the father looks like he’s trying to avoid the question, he looks kind of intimidating which I feel works well to pressure into the decision. Both Images glorify an aspect of their message. Image 1 just glorifies America completely; making you want to help out your country and image 2 refers to the war as The Great War, which is only a presumption that they were going to win as the war wasn’t even over. I feel that image 1 is aimed towards men, probably middle and lower class; it kind of depicts the American dream. Image 2 is aimed at Men obviously and probably mainly fathers that want to do their children proud.

5 Examples of Graphic Design (Love/Hate)

For the contextual studies module I have collected 5 examples of Graphic Design that I love or hate. 

1. Below is the work of Anna Grosh. I really like the hand crafted type she has created. Its extremely detailed but still completely legible. The black and white works really well for this font it has a distinctive contrast and has been crafted to the finest detail. The packaging looks really professional and eye catching. I can really aspire to work like this.

 

http://abduzeedo.com/beautiful-graphic-design-wok-anna-grosh

2. I have recently stumbled across the collaborative work of Francois Robert and Rick Valicenti who together combined their photography and graphic design skills to come up with this brilliant book. They have created an alphabet purely using photos of bones. This has worked really well, the letters have perfect form and are legible. It works really well on the dark back ground.

 

3. I have come across a great illustrator and graphic designer called David Mascha. I really like his use of simplistic curvy shapes. He also uses colour really well, they all go together well and work well on the pale back ground. He uses different textures and patterns in his work too which I believe works very well.

 

 

4.  I am not a big fan of Kitty Finegan's work I feel like she has used too much colour in this piece of work. I don't hate it but I don't think its anything spectacular.

 

5. Finally I found the work of Joe Fenton who's illustrations are amazing. His perfect attention for detail really pays off with his works of art. They are both intricate and eye catching and are beautifully handcrafted. I really like his unique style.

 

 

 http://abduzeedo.com/breathtaking-drawing-joe-fenton

ALPHABET SOUP//VISUAL THINKING//OUGD403

Brief // Alphabet Soup

One of the briefs I am working on at the moment is called Alphabet Soup. I have to produce a set, series or sequence of ten visual variations of a letterform (ten A’s for example) that explore and communicate my interpretation of the word that I selected from the randomiser. Which in my case is the word 'Pop' All designs will be based on existing letterforms and designed to a 15cm x 15cm format. There is a limited colour palette of black and white. 

I researched the word pop and found various meanings: 

• to make a short, quick, explosive sound: The cork popped.
• to burst open with such a sound, as chestnuts or corn in roasting.
• to come or go quickly, suddenly, or unexpectedly: She popped into the kitchen to check the stove.
• to shoot with a firearm: to pop at a mark.
• to protrude from the sockets: The news made her eyes pop.
• pop art
  
• popular music: It's the first time she's sung pop
  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pop 

From these definitions I'm sure I can come up with something quite creative. There's quite a few different avenues I can go down with 'pop' and I look forward to experimenting with it.

  

Typography Inspiration

Through research on the internet I have found a selection of typography that I feel relates to my brief and my random word POP!

Submitted by Gwerilla

This example of type was found on www.abduzeedo.com from paul0v2's blog from Typography Mania, it is well crafted and easy to read. I think the word 'pop' could be used to describe this font, as it kind of looks like the lettering has been popped and has flown around the air like a burst balloon.

 I came across this Pop art style piece of design on deviantart on the following link:

http://nitrogliserin.deviantart.com/art/Pop-Art-80183039

I think this is a great style of approach to 'pop' I like its old school theme and use of colours. This Pop Art style of work is very eye catching and interesting, I will look into giving my letter forms a pop art feel. There are many different approaches I can with in this style of drawing. I will have consider colour though as I will be working a black and white format. I will have to get the pop art style across without using these bold outrages colours. 

Submitted by Nitrogliserin

Here is another example I have found by Roy Litchtenstein. I like the style, the combination of dots and blocked colour work really well together.

http://cutcutpaste.wordpress.com/category/typography/

By Roy Lichtenstein

I came across the image below on www.dafont.com, (http://www.dafont.com/60s-pop.font)the font is called 60's Pop by Galdino Otten, I thought this was quite an appropriate font to use with my subject matter. This definitely screams 60's pop. I also came across a similar typeface in Top Gear Magazine which you can see in my hand collected research below.

By Galdino Otten

Letter Research

I collected various different letters from different magazines in order to get inspiration for my summer brief, here is a selection:

I collected loads of different letters in all different types of fonts from a few different magazines, such as Top Gear Magazine and a Red Bull Magazine. I have messed about with the letters a bit to see which work well. I found a typeface that is similar to Galdino Otten's 60's pop font.

I collected some more fonts on Microsoft Word

to give me a broader range of research.

Healthy Student Research

How To : Group Project

We created a questionaire to find out the drinking habits of first year students. We will then use this information to help us design the drink aware beer mats. We have questioned 20 of our classmates and other first year students at college and these are the results we collected:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Which of these alcoholic drinks gives you the worst hangovers?
Tequila Slammers	x						x		x
Sambuca			x	x	x			x		x
Red Wine										x
White Wine		x				x
Beer
What would you consider to be the best hangover cure?	Toast & tea	apple juice	cup of tea	coffee and cigarettes	tea and food	sprite, cigarette, tea	smoothies	greasy food and a long lie in	sleep	food & milkshake
On an average night out during freshers, how much alcohol do you consume?	5 beers	small bottle of vodka, small bottle of southern comfort, 2 pitchers, 4 shots	2 shots sambuca, 2 shots apple sourz, 2 vodka cokes, 1 litre puff pop	half a bottle of wine and about 6 jack daniels and coke	3 double vodkas	half a litre of vodka, 3 jagerbombs, vodka coke	30ml vodka, 6 shots, 10 beers	3 strongbows, jagerbombs, shots, vodka & mixers	1 bottle of wine, 2 shots, 4 jagerbombs	lots of whatevers cheap
On average, how many nights a week would you go out during freshers?	3	3	4	5	2	2	2	3	4	5
When drinking, do you honestly know where your own limit is and when to stop?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes	yes	no
How many calories do you think you consume from alcohol on a night out?	a lot	too many	1000	1000	no idea	over 1000	50,000	1500	2000	1000+
Have you ever suffered from memory loss the morning after a night out of heavy drinking?	yes	no	yes	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Which of these alcoholic drinks gives you the worst hangovers?
Tequila Slammers				x			x
Sambuca	x				x
Red Wine			x	x	x	x		x		x
White Wine	x
Beer		x				x			x
What would you consider to be the best hangover cure?	cheese and lots of water	orange juice and full english breakfast	sleep and water	fry up	BLT	water, alkazeltzer, bacon	sleep	half cooked/ half raw egg	fanta fruit twist	full english breakfast
On an average night out during freshers, how much alcohol do you consume?	10-15 pints of beer	16 pints	4 G&Ts, jagerbombs, shots	4 - 5 pints, vodka mixers	4 or 5 cans of beer, 2 vodkas, a few jagerbombs	6 or 7 bottles beer, 5 or 6 vodka mixers	7 vk’s	5 or 6 malibu and cokes	several beers	10 drinks and shots varied
On average, how many nights a week would you go out during freshers?	2 or 3	3	4	3 - 4	6	4	2	2 - 3	1	3
When drinking, do you honestly know where your own limit is and when to stop?	most of the time	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	sort of
How many calories do you think you consume from alcohol on a night out?	2000	over daily allowance	havent a clue	1000’s	not sure	approx. 3000	200	don’t know	3000	no idea
Have you ever suffered from memory loss the morning after a night out of heavy drinking?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes	yes

From these results, we have worked out the most common answers which will be used to create some of the beer mats. 

Here are the most common things people said in response to the questions:

Worst hangover drink	Sambuca
Best hangover cure	cup of tea & cigarette
Alcohol consumption	(to be calculated later)
Nights out a week in freshers	3
Knowing your limit	yes
Calories consumed	1000
Memory loss?	yes

This Information will help to form the wording used on the mats.

 

 How to : Calorie Research

The last bit of research for the beer mat design wording comes from calculating the average calorie intake from alcohol for students. As part of the questionnaire, we asked students to list roughly what they would drink on an average night out during freshers week. We then used the Alcohol calorie counter to calculate how many calories each student would approximately consume, then took the average from all 20 of the results. 
(http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/tips-and-tools/drink-diary/)


Here are the results with the average:

Questionnaire number	Number of calories
1	1221
2	1970
3	589
4	944
5	312
6	1336
7	1962
8	1612
9	1222
10	2442
11	3907
12	1278
13	1651
14	1305
15	1309
16	723
17	2442
18	2412
19	1245
20	674
Average:	1527.8

The average comes out as being 1527.8 (which we will round up to 1528). Although this is not entirely accurate for students everywhere, the questionnaires were answered by students at the college that we are presenting to, so the statement is targeting them specifically. This is handy as the students feedback from crits has helped to sway our idea along this path.