OUGD403 Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking.

For our first individual brief we were instructed to 'Produce a set, series or sequence of ten letterforms that explore and communicate your interpretation of the word that you have selected from the randomisers. using your new found appreciated 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.' (See Brief sheet).

The word which I selected from the Randomiser was;

EXTRACT.

As my first port of call to gather information, or to start the thinking process was to create a brainstorm writing anything I could think of that had a relationship with the word Extract or essentially the verb to extract. 

I first visited www.thesaurus.com where I was given other terms such as, Abstract, selection, concentrate and infusion. With not enough inspiration coming from this sequence of words I visited www.dictionary.com and searched for the definition of extract, These are the definitions I was given in return of my search;

1. To get, pull, or draw out, usually with special effort, skill or force.

2. To deduce. ( A doctrine, principle, interpretation) He extracted a completely personal meaning from what was said.

3. To derive or obtain. (Pleasure, comfort) etc. from a particular source. (He extracted satisfaction from the success of his sons)

4. To take or copy out (matter), as from a book.

5. To make excerpts from (a book, pamphlet, etc).

 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extract?s=t

Insert picture of brainstorm here.

I then began to try and derive different Ideas from the information that I had found, I knew when I started the project that I wanted to work in a range of different media to generate a uniqueness for each of my 10 letters, however formulation frequency between each by using the same font. After researching different typefaces to use as a stencil, both serif and sans serif, I decided on 'Bambi bold' (http://www.dafont.com/bambi.font) A serif font with heavy stems and crossbars, that will be easy for manipulation. 

My initial 10 ideas were;
1. A partial of a letter. (Extracting one section of a letter)
2.Totally extracting a letter from its surroundings.
3. Extracting the outer skin of a letter to leave just the bones. 
4. A tooth inspired letter. ( extracting a tooth)
5. extracting the inside of a letter to leave solely the outline.
6. Taken from the dictionary definition, 'to draw out' A letter with escaping vines, appearing to be drawn outwards.
7. extracting the colour from a letter. Black to white.
8. Extracting the counters from a letter.
9. extracting the crossbar from a letter.
10. Taking an extract from another graphic designers work.

The following is each letters final design and the development that took place to get to these outcomes.

1. The Partial.

 

Here I have taken the serif font I have chosen (Bambi Bold) at 3 different sizes 400pt, 450pt and 500pt. I then put these behind the 10x10 boxes I had drawn to create a partial. I positioned the letter in the box to show the part i thought was most legible. I have then decided to construct the letter using a bold black marker. i didn't want to disrupt the design too much and so I have left out any idea to incorporate different pattern or texture. i then considered whether to increase the boldness so that the left leg was bolder. However I found that increasing the weight took too much of the personality of the letter away. After i had drawn out my final design, I started to experiment with using the negative effect and reversing the colours. I have used this effect in the final design. 

2. Extracted from Its surroundings.

 

This is another quite subtle piece where I had thought of using water colour and simple paper cut. The idea stemmed from the concept of extracting the whole letter. When I consider the word extract it provokes the picture of something being taken away, deleted. I have used water colour to create a relation with my other pieces and I am also trying to improve my practice with this media.

Gradient from black to light grey and cut out using a scalpel.

3. Extracting the skin to leave the bones of the letter.

 

 

I had found this project (Dead to the bones http://www.behance.net/gallery/Dead-To-The-Bones/5122355) on behance when exploring graphic design in general. I had known before hand from brainstorming that I wanted to use the idea of extracting skin, taking away the skin to only reveal the bones. I have chosen papercut as my media as this project in particular shows great effect when layering is used. When considering which part of the skeleton to reproduce I instantly chose the ribcage as visually it contained the highest volume of bone in one location. When wondering which letter to chose, i first looked at the image of the ribcage. I wanted the letter and image to link contextually to a chose a letterform with a centre spine. I layered both the T letterform I had chosen and the ribcage on layout paper and created my final desgin, which I then cut out of white paper and stuck onto black card.

4. Extracting a tooth Letter.

When trying to find more design ideas for the term extraction I typed the word into Google. Having already taken definitions and synonyms to improve my approach, I turned to the images tab. One of the first pictures to come up was that of a tooth, lending itself to the theory of getting a tooth extracted. 

I took the 'R' character from the 'Bambi Bold' set of characters. I altered the front leg to be straight as having it curved, as in the original font, would have resulted in me having to minimize the weight and size of the letter by quite a lot. I wanted to keep each of the letters in my series roughly the same size to enhance logicality.

To achieve the tooth shape I traced a picture of a tooth (http://bestclipartblog.com/33-tooth-clip-art.html/tooth-clip-art-1) on top of the letter form I had drawn on layout paper. I then took a black pen and drew around the outlines of the tooth which I thought were most considerate to my original letter, keeping some of the initial features as well. I have finished the piece using acrylic on white card.

5. Extracting the inside of a letter to leave solely the outline.

 

My initial thought for this letter was 'Extracting' the centre of the letter to leave only the outline. This is also a paper cutting piece (the outline of the M is cut out) which was originally meant to be mounted on black card, however was changed to white after analysing the design. In this particular design I have layered 2 different fonts together, Bambi (bold set) and Maxxi serif both from dafont.com. As pictured above, it can be found in many of the characters of 'Bambi' that there are some contrasting weights in line. I wanted the M to be continuously heavy weighted without a change in contrast in its mirrored lines. I then changed/ added details of 'Bambi' such as the signature serifs and brackets.

Once I had cut the M out I placed it on the table on top of a white piece of paper. When I saw it I preferred the subtle effect of the white on white and so I stuck the paper cutting down onto white card Instead almost reenacting the process of embossing, my current favourite media.

6. To Draw out.

 

When I had researched into the verb 'to extract' in the dictionary I came across an interesting definition. 'To get, pull or draw out, usually with special effort skill or force' ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extract?s=t) To attempt to gain or begin to gain extensibve knowledge on the process and journey and the outcome of those in reference to type I constantly visit www.behance.net for new insight, motive and motivation etc. 

When inspecting the definition 'To draw out' I had an instant vision using the letter O. The letter consisted of the O character from 'Bambi bold' with a fluid pattern developing in the centre and working its way to the edge of the letter. I will began to design the letter on layout paper creating similar organic travelling patterns to these seen in EC+ Illuminated type (the type project I found on behance.net pictured above) but with less angles and a soft curvier contour, My aim were to make this pattern appear like snakes being drawn out by musical notes as in the old stories. The media I chose to work in was simple pen, 0.5mm and 0.3mm to emphasize the use of line.

7. Extracting out colour.

 

This is a simple Idea I had thought of with an emphasis of sticking to the original 'U' shape of Bambi bold. I have however made the right hairline heavier to cohere with my letter M. The idea behind this piece is extracting colour. As the vertical lines follow to the right, the lines become lighter travelling through Ivory black watercolour to paynes grey, to replicate that the colour is being extracted out. Whilst working through this project I kept trying to think of more subtle ways to represent extraction and I think that this truly echoes this concept.

8. Extracting counters.

When brainstorming ideas, I came up with the design for this B and the letter A below together. The first idea I had when dissecting Extraction had a direct relationship with type. It involved the deletion/ Extraction of elements of each letter. I had instantly thought of the deletions of the crossbar from the uppercase A in Bambi bold and the absence of both counters in the uppercase B. I designed these digitally, previewing them first then making some slight alterations to serifs and brackets so that they fit the 10x10 guidelines. I think that these are my least subtle pieces, here I found that in the most simple change enables you tom communicate something totally new.  

9. Extracting the crossbar.

10. An extract from another designers work.

 

I wanted to build on the idea from my brainstorm 'An extract from an artist'. The general term is to take an extract from a writer, Shakespeare for example. However I wanted to work specifically in the field of graphic design in the visual quarter, this is one of my favourite pieces of graphic design of current. I prefer pieces with a more organic nature that mirror natural forms and contours, motifs such as fish scales and vines can be seen throughout these pieces. I also admire how the watercolour is escaping from the bold crisp lines that would normally trap it. I created my own letter S using these pieces guidelines, following the line style and use of watercolour, within the restriction of black and white.