¡Hola a todos! (trying to put my Spanish to good use HAHA) For this 2D project – Que Sera Sera, we were assigned to use our names to create typographies in relation to four occupations that we chose for ourselves. Most of my stuffs are in my journal so I will briefly go through the inspirational process behind each design and the final outcomes!

This was the first job that came to my mind because I really did aspire to be a farmer 😀

When I think of farmers, it is a lot about being ‘hands-on’ and ‘natural’ state. Which is why for most of my typography designs for farmer, I decided to use real organic materials to create my name.

The colours used also needs to be bright and vibrant!

I bought vegetables with long roots, different shapes/sizes, to experiment. And to better recreate the ‘farm’ scene, I bought soil too to create the fields background  and it was really fun experimenting with the different vegetables and tweaking their shapes to fit the letters.

Here are some of design experimentation : for example for turnip’s leaves, I used the side of the leave as the background to write my name (Claud). I also tried to make it look as though the markings on different potatoes dd up to form my initials (CTLX).

But here’s the final outcome!

I chose this as it looks most organic. It is simple and shows my name in a natural state. It is appropriate as it shows how farmers work in the fields and this is a sight that they encounter in their daily chores.

I arranged the roots in a way to spell CLAUDIA. The original picture was a little messy as I could not totally control the shape of the roots, so I used photoshop to touch up on it by leaving out only the roots the spell out my name and emphasising the size and colours of it, and darkening the soil to make the roots more pop.

Initially I wanted to be a baker. But as I explored around with various sketch designs and inspirations, I felt that being a café owner gives me more space to experiment with various styles! I want to create the vintage warm feels of a café and I went to research more on the interior – food, interior design, layout, & exterior – ‘architecture’ aspects.

Interior

i drew different sketches involving around menu designs, display cases, using a variety of food/drinks to form my name

Exterior

I think it was clearer in conveying the message that I’m a café owner by focusing on the exterior design of cafés as the use of food and menu items can also be found in restaurants.

It really appealed to me when I saw how many café’s glass windows have writings on them. They  are either the shop name, menu items, or just illustrations for decoration purposes. I want to use the glass window part as I feel like most cafés in general have huge windows to create that inviting warm feeling as light pours in. It also creates an interaction for passers-by to be curious and walk inside the café (or at least that’s how I always end up being attracted to enter one hahaha)

I experimented with various backgrounds and fonts to write my name but I felt that it is too literal. I came across some simple illustrations styles on pinterest and I thought that it would work really well as designs on the glass.

I tried to imitate the interior of the café as my background by printing out an actual image of it (thus solving the reflective light issue) and use illustrations of things that you (hopefully) find in my café hee.

Creating typographies with the theme of ‘firefighter’ took me some time as there are so many things that can be linked to them e.g. the fire hydrant, outfit, fire

I played around with different narrative illustrations around objects that are linked to firemen, but when I came across this picture, I was really inspired because it uses the negative space that was created by the ‘fire’ – burnt part, leaving on the silhouette of the firefighter ‘unburnt’, conveying the message of the firefighter’s job.

I burnt a plank of wood and after drawing on the illustration of a fire hydrant with my name being the top part of it, I painted the surrounding areas black with paint.

After uploading on to my computer, I did some editing by putting the neon reflective band found at the freighter’s outfits over my name to highlight it. I also added some golden smokes and sparkles after being inspired by the picture below, and to create the image of fire but glorifying it in a way.

It ended up looking a little tacky, and unlike my finals for farmer and café owner, the background does not look realistic, making my works inconsistent. Therefore, I replaced the black background with an actual site of a fire hydrant that I found near my hall and here’s the final outcome!

Although the original one by just photoshopping the actual environment, the colours does not bring out the image of the wooden fire hydrant. Therefore I darken the surroundings and also added a red tint over the wooden plank to make it resemble the fire hydrant more.

I struggled to think of the last occupation the most. I thought of being a carpenter, veterinarian, detective, etc. But these are either to similar to the others jobs that i chose in terms of craftsmanship/industry, or areas that I’m too unfamiliar with. It occurred to me that I should use what I have experience in, to better translate the typography.

So… during the long break before we started uni, I signed up for various kickboxing and muay thai classes. (ARE YOU SURPRISED? HAHAHA) Which is why I decided to combine both and ended up choosing to be a MMA  fighter as my fourth occupation!

(obviously still no toned muscles like this lady)

To best portray the MMA idea, the first thing that I thought of was to use the octagon arena ring in UFC matches. There were also many other ideas – incorporating the different fighting styles to form my name in a narrative way, the different equipments used, exercises regimes, motivational quotes styles, etc etc.

In my final outcome, I still felt that the best idea is to use the octagon arena as the background base and further enhance the picture with other ‘fighting’ elements.

I put my initials (CTLX) as the arena name and use metal mesh fence as an overlay to further showcase the metal fence that is unique to UFC arena cages. It still looks quite plain so I also drew on crosses over the lines to look like the laces on boxing gloves.

Since the arena are also often filled with sponsors’ names, I wanted to include my name too as it also makes the arena look less plain. I did so by writing LX in a way that looks like it is formed by hand wraps.

Although I was tempted to create different versions of my name and paste it around the arena, I was scared that it will look too messy. It then occured to me that champion belts have the smaller gold-plates, one at each side of the main plate. Hence I just sticked with 2 of the other names.

I like how all my works have the realistic feel to them as they show the environment of my workplace. I hope you will appreciate them too, thanks! (◍•ᴗ•◍)