#149dva

I feel like this word of the week has come at a fairly good time for me.  I've recently had a fresh burst of motivation towards my work. I feel like I am more prepared to go the extra mile to get my work done to a good quality, as well as being more motivated to achieve. 

After being assessed on the 5 week projects we were given our feedback to us, the following is the percentages I achieved in each category:

Research to lectures, seminars and tutorials - 81%

Range of digital software and hardware - 71%

Demonstrate design skills in controlling text - 71%

Giving me an overall average of 74% for my second module I am proud of this project working hard to create a piece of artwork I am proud of and represents myself through a font.

My lectures notes are surely taken onboard

"This is a hard working typeface that you've worked hard to get right. There are occasional lines that haven't responded well to reproduction, such as the upper third of the E, but the design overall is consolidated and expertly drawn and it's been fun to see it develop in the studio. There are some lovely touches in the typesetting, such as how the Y fills the space left by the broken M to solve the kerning problem, you've successfully distressed the letters without making them feel thin or insubstantial. A great piece of work.

The three columns suffer from very narrow gutters (the space between them) which means one ends up reading across two in the lower third or second. Notice 'matching font' 'and only project'. It's an easy fix, and apart from that you have produced text which is easy to read. Consider how bolds, italics, titles and so on might add more meaningful decoration to it and prevent it feeling quite so grey.

This has been a rewarding project. Well done."

So as the last few hours i have to spend on the 149 dva project comes to a close i thought i add some contents in to my pdp on my reflections throughout this 5 week project.

At the first glance to this project i thought to myself i'm not going to be able to do this it seems well out of my depth i'm not going to cope but i knuckled down got some feedback from initial ideas from my peers and tutor and found that i can do this and in fact i was rather enjoying doing this, i was able to create valid connections from my work to theories on shape recognition, and to the life drawing which was my starting point. 

This typography project has only just begun, yet I have been so enticed in it I could not put my pen down. Spending hours rewriting out letter after letter deciding which part should be cut which shouldn’t was difficult because i wanted it to be right but when I was designing it there was no doubt in my mind i had each character perfect.

Your task: To devise a typeface!

The brief:

In the first session you created a series of life drawings. 

Look at the range of drawings you’ve made. Some are big, some are small, some are light, some are dark. There is a broad range of styles and approaches that has made for a collection of interesting, diverse illustrations.

So what happens next? Choose one of those drawings. Analyse it. How is it constructed? Big strokes? Small strokes? Heavy black areas? Lots of white space? Does the drawing feel thin? Fat? What kind of contours does it consist of? Does it take up a lot of space? Blurr your eyes. How does it look now? Where are the light, dark, medium, heavy, empty, full bits? See it as a composition rather than a description of a human form.

You will now translate this drawing into a new typeface. You’re not being asked to redraw the human figure as a collection of letters: your task is to recreate its essence (shape, weight, colour, mass, etc) in a set of 26 characters, either upper or lower-case and then typeset the alphabet into a pangram of your choice from the list overleaf. Your illustration is your brief—keep it in mind, keep it beside you, refer to it. Are you accurately simulating its visual qualities? 

You must not use any computer software for the design of your typeface or for typesetting the pangram, both must be managed entirely by hand. You may use photocopiers, Spraymount, rulers and other practical (non-digital) equipment as necessary, and you will consider leading and kerning as integral elements of the layout.

A template will be provided on Moodle which has space for your finished piece of typesetting, the original illustration that inspired it and for 100 words of typeset explanatory text that describes your key design decisions and reflects on the process and on the learning you have acquired. Your explanation will be arranged in a font of your choice using InDesign and will use good typographic practice as learned in the module and on the course as a whole.

In order to create a convincing design, you need to research. Look at fonts. Look at their shapes, sizes, weights. Look at how letters sit together as words. How do they interface? How do they balance? What is it that makes them legible (or even illegible!)? Remember the work you produced for your Enrichment project—use it to help inform you. Document all of this in your sketchbook alongside the development of your own design work. Let the research inform you as much as your image does. Mostly though, have fun.

Submission:

• One A3 sheet mounted onto A2 foamboard and trimmed to A3, with your name and course name clearly written on the top right of the reverse

• One sketchbook of research, ideas development and finishing

so this week i have been concerned about the direction of both my projects, i mean that i know that i am producing work and trying to meet all the criteria needed for the brief to be met, but i'm finding that i am not building my sketchbook up enough, I feel like at this stage i should have not a massive amount of sketchbook work but at least enough to make it feel slightly full. The designs that i'm coming up with are in my eyes good designs but i feel that i have few of them, but the few i have do work well. So to resolve all these issues i feel that the way it will be solved easiest will be to revisit some research and reflect on initial ideas.

Id state how and what i would make different to my initial ideas and reflect on key aspects of that research finding key elements like the bowl of a G etc etc and say how i would change this or interpret into my designs.