Que Sara
Reflections
Upon receiving the project brief, i felt that this was a project that i would have fun in as i was looking forward to typography for some time. However, i thought that the project required us to use all sorts of elements to create the text which included the background, but it was in fact, we were supposed to create the font itself and to dress it up.
First Ideas & Visual References
These were some of the first few ideas that i came up with .
Chocolate Factory Worker
All of these ideas were inspired from the movie Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.
Ideation
#1 Making use of the iconic chocolate river to twist it to form the name.
#2 Placing the name on the main gates of the factory
#3 Using the smoke from the factory as the font.
Architect
Ideation
#1 It was largely based on the city outline of Barcelona, Spain.
As the buildings were very systematic and linear, i felt that if i could alter the symmetry, i believe i could make a name pop up using the buildings.
#3 There were two ways to go about designing this. It was either photo manipulation or flat design. I was leaning towards the latter.
#4 Architects design roads too! Maybe using roads as fonts might be something cool.
Urban Photographer
English photographer Peter Defty has recently produced a fantastic print for lovers of unusual typography. Using just his camera, his talented eye and a lot of looking up, he’s created an entire alphabet using just the shapes of gigantic architecture.
His print, titled Geordie Alphabet, features buildings shot in abstract. The space between the often modern, city-based structures is what creates the highlighted lettering we see so prominently when viewing the print at a distance.
As this was another unusual point of view, i had an idea to use my school to create fonts using the negative spaces.
Train Conductor
These ideas were mostly inspired by Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express
Ideation
#1 For the first design, i planned on using the train ticket for the Hogwarts 9 3/4 to write my name on it.
#2 The second design was to imprint my name on the front of the train’s bumper.
Playboy Model/Gigolo
Gotta admit, this was kinda weird and hilarious at the same time. I thought i could kinda imprint the words into his pecs and chest. Maybe using the nipple ring to symbolize the “O” in my name. This was just for FUN.
First Designs
These were some of the designs i came up with based on the first few ideas.
Architect
This was done using photo manipulation. When piecing it together, i was skeptical as to how it would turn out. Well the final result was quite satisfying after tinkering with the color correction and curves.
Photographer
Just a rough design, making use of negative space to depict my name. Didn’t like it one bit.
Chocolate Factory Worker
I really liked working on this project maybe because it has a sort of whimsical feeling of that ticket in which it draws you in. Gave this piece a little texturing and beveling to make it slightly more realistic. I was satisfied with the outcome.
Playboy Model
Quick and slipshod design combing the iconic Playboy logo with the letter “C”. Message sent across?
After consultation, i realized that i was moving on the wrong track. Instead of putting words and letting the background describe the occupation, you were supposed to “dress up” the font and the font itself should describe the occupation. With this, the architect design was the only one that was approved. As such, i decided to go ahead with creating more designs and not worrying about what job to choose.
Mechanical Engineer
Just a rough ideation design from images found from http://typelimited.tumblr.com/
Interior Designer
Remembered i did an interior design course back in poly. Thought i could give SketchUp another shot. After building the first letter, i thought this could turn out pretty well!
There were many renders and it was hard to choose which angle looked the most aesthetically pleasing. I finally settled with this.
Photographer
This was an improved version of the old design. I went around adm and shot some pictures. I realized some of the letters were really impossible to form with the current layout of the school (or maybe i don’t have the eye for it) so i decided to manipulate the photos.
Writer
Pretty much the same idea. Played around with Photoshop 3D layers to achieve the look. Crashed multiple times in the process and it was really unproductive.
Game Designer
I always wanted to try out pixel art when i was younger. I always thought it was really hard to master especially when you are working on a flat 2D layer and you have to manipulate the pixels to give depth and space to make the design look realistic. I used an online pixel maker tool – http://pixelartmaker.com/
As such, this was quite a challenge for me. Nonetheless, i was happy it turned out well.
Final Consultation
After the final consultation, three designs were finalized (Architect, Interior Designer & Game Designer) and i was left with one more. I had an idea for the last one. It was going to be hand drawn since i had not done before and i wanted every design to be of a different creative medium. Shirley challenged me to design something like this.
This was quite interesting in my opinion as the bones were studied before hand and they form the skeleton of the font instead of warping to fit the font which i believe was really incredible.
At first , i wanted to be a musician. I made use of the tuba pipes to form the letter.
However, i thought that the idea of wrapping the pipes around the font was not my kind of design. As such, i decided to go for something mechanical.
I drew inspiration and references from steampunk equipment mechanics.
This was the final outcome. I made it 3D to allow it to stand out more. I was quite happy with how it turned out as i’m not too good in drawing.
Final Designs
My name is
And I’m an Architect
My name is
And I’m a Game Designer
My name is
And I’m an Interior Designer
My name is
And I’m an Engineer
Final Reflections
Overall, i felt that this project was a lot of fun and enjoyable. I was always looking forward to typography and i just had a lot of ideas for it. Even though there were many mental blocks and design issues, i was able to overcome them. For example, i thought that the hand drawn design wouldn’t turn out well. It was alright in the end. With that, i look forward to the next project and hopefully i will still have a cloud of ideas in my head.