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.