ELLE

Some fake band posters I made for a project Anna was working on

Still, I am relatively uninterested in creating film. I have really felt my lack of passion all the way through this project, and due to the steep learning curves and the sheer work involved, I think this was probably part of what lead me to be so miserable throughout. I love type, and I love imagery. I love working between the two, involving illustration, colour schemes and art direction to compose crafted, considered, meaningful messages that have personality, but all of the elements of film just don’t interest me. I feel like this discomfort, if anything, is a good thing to have learnt from this project, and I can now perhaps target my future projects more towards illustration, and art direction. 

To the left is the creative poster that I created for the typeface, using colours inspired by illustrative artists like Robin Eisenberg. On the right is my specimen poster, which contains each letter that I created within the typeface.

LOCATION 1: STILLS

 I used my reference images to create storyboards that will fit in with my chosen locations. After deciding on my speakers, it became a lot easier to style each shot based on their personalities. I now want to further explore the juxtaposition between tidy and messy spaces; clear vs cluttered etc. I want to pull apart each of the individuals and fit them into colour schemes and props: art direction.

I just had a crit with Peter and my group, and he liked my ideas and the direction I am going in. Now I just need to write the scripts and draw storyboards from them.  

As our final major project is a self-written brief, I want to look more into type; specifically in film. Although I’ve honestly never had all that much of an interest in film before, my YCN project kind of opened my eyes to the possibilities of film; with the different levels of moving image, animation and audio combined into one grand final composition. I watched two short films on Vimeo centred around personal stories and animation (x / x) and am really interested in going down a personal storytelling route.

In response to the images I looked at, alongside existing similar fonts, I created these lettering designs. I wanted to use a recognisable shape, appropriating existing styles of structure, but whilst keeping the original letter format. I spoke to Bhav today and he liked my idea. Now I just have to simplify it more; choosing a small number of shapes to create the whole thing from, creating more of a flow.

I started my research by looking into industrial, mechanical and robotic fonts. Initially, I found a lot of bold, blocky type. Perfect for communication; these typefaces were clearly legible and bold enough for universal display, but the visual metaphors of mechanisms were not there at all. On the other hand, I also found the opposite: almost comical novelty fonts with nuts and bolts and screws illustrated by hand in a quirky, childlike sketch. I want to go more down the route of the stylised ones; I want to combine this recognisable imagery with a more polished design to create something new. I have been finding the aesthetic of piping interesting because this is an easily recognisable structure, and yet is relatively simple in shape.

Today we had a talk from type designer Bhav Mistry, in which we were briefed with creating our own typeface. Drawing inspiration from anything and everything, we are to design and create a display font in absolutely any style. Bhav urged us not to simply tweak an existing font, nor to get bogged down looking meticulously at beautifully successful letter designs. Instead, I have considered my interests. I love the bold, careless aesthetic of metal and hard edges; pipes and wires and caging; I just find the systemic, unnatural starkness of this sort of non-design interesting in a lot of ways. I hope to further explore these shapes, designs and patterns enough to appropriate them into some form of lettering.

Swan Lake | Sleeping Beauty | Jewels

We filmed using the props and backgrounds that I bought. This is the second time I have filmed like this, and the first time I had filmed a strictly art directed shot. As I lacked a studio to shoot in, I had to film everything on my kitchen table (thank god it was at least as sunny as it was). This kind of created problems with shadows and lighting, but ultimately I am really happy with the shots that I achieved. Today, I had a crit with Dani and Peter and Peter seemed enthusiastic about my project so far. All good. Now to animate the text.

I have brightened the colours with these bright dioramas. I feel like now, the separate clips will fit together much more effectively as a collective.

When talking to Anna, we discussed the lettering choice that I was going to use to potentially overlay onto my shots. Already, I was leaning towards a handwritten, playful text that could buzz around and move. I loved this cover, with the single colour hand lettering; it feels really current and relevant and incorporates what I want to be doing.

Today, I showed Anna my ideas so far. In the morning, I had so much self doubt that I thought she was going to effectively laugh in my face. But she listened, and seemed genuinely enthused and excited about my ideas. We spoke about themes throughout, and how I need to create some kind of recognisable element that will string the whole thing together, but as of yet I am unsure of what that will be. We also discussed livening up the colour scheme to a more bright, bold illustration of each performance. 

After looking a lot into films, I have definitely become drawn to carefully art directed shots that say just the right amount. I chose these images because of their vibrant, engaging colour schemes and interesting angles; all looking like stylised, almost caricature versions of imaginable real world scenery. This is something I want to try and create. 

Whilst looking at posters, I was recommended the work of Daniel Norris; a designer that often uses clever visual metaphors and art direction to create often eery, original-looking blockbuster film posters. This is essentially what I have hoped to achieve, but with a vastly different tone, and perhaps different form. I want to create 3 or 4 short, videos that abstract perhaps the most interesting parts of each performance. For instance, if illustrating the Royal Ballet performance of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, perhaps a pillow and a pricked finger?