in My Work, Research

2D: Typographic Portrait (FINAL)

Hello!

This will be my final post for Project 1.

To be completely honest, I got really lost in the midst of doing the project. What exactly is typography? Is it the type itself, or is it how it interacts with background and context to present a set of information/ideas to its audience? Different people interpret typography differently, and I definitely struggled with finding out what typography meant to me.

After much thought, I pushed through with the project.

I’ll bring you through my 4 artworks and other ideas that i discarded along the way.

 

TRAIT #1: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

This might not apply to be as strongly as it did when I was younger, but I identify with being shy/introverted. The irony here is that people closer to me know that I am very outgoing and loud! In short, I wanted to portray myself as someone who might appear normal and forgettable but is actually very vibrant and colourful on the inside.

Before I show the picture of my final artwork, let me show you some of the works I did in the process! One of my initial ideas was to play with the size of the font:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-10 All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-11

I made the font as small as I could, and used an additional element (the magnifying glass and “look here”) to hint at the audience to take a closer look. I decided this didn’t convey the idea of more than meets the eye very effectively, and scraped the idea.

I also wanted the audience to take the approach in discovering the inner me, and I thus wanted to design the type in a way where it would invite the audience to interact with it. After some brainstorming, I settled on the idea of using die-cuts.

I purposely chose to use the Helvetica font. It’s an excellent font that’s good, but it’s also very common. I wanted to make use of its common usage to represent the idea of being normal and blending in (and almost becoming forgettable). To play up the idea of the font being almost invisible, I used illustrator to create a ‘shadow’ of the font and cut out the shadows. All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-09The eyes are said to be the windows to our soul, and I thus turned the O in JO into a window that could be opened by the audience. The next step was to then decide what colour/patterns to use. I decided against using solid colours because I felt it would be too flat and 1 dimensional.

output_OdIvxP

I thus explore the idea of using marbling:

File_001 File_003 File_005

output_waQCZP

I still wasn’t satisfied with the results, and finally decided to use watercolour instead. I also decided to have some watercolour leak out/escape from the window so as to hint to the audience that there were more things underneath! This was done through stamping some diluted paint on the paper with my paint cap, and using a straw to blow the paint outwards.

Final Artwork:

output_s5J68u

 

TRAIT #2: FEMININE AND TOMBOYISH

Like mentioned in my previous post, I grew up rather tomboyish. My initial idea was to simply have letters and flowers embroidered on a mesh surface.

My attempt at plotting my letters and flowers on illustrator before starting on the actual artwork:Embroidary 1-01-01

The two below were the results of my initial tries.

File_001(looking a bit… grandma-ish?)

 

After some consideration, I realised the mesh and thread still seemed very separate, and I thought of ways to make the thread interact with the mesh even more. That is how I arrived at the idea of playing with negative spaces:

File_002(2)

Final Artwork:

Girlish & Tomboyish

 

I liked this much better than my first 2 tries.

I created a negative space using the flowers, and this negative space spelt out the words JO. I thought method displayed more interactivity between the two mediums, and this represents how I wouldn’t be JO without both elements present. Without the flowers there would be no letters forming the word JO, and without the mesh the negative space created by the flowers would be boring and nothing interesting.

TRAIT #3: SMALL BUT LOUD

I’m often told that I’m very loud for my size, and I thought that was an interesting trait to represent myself with.

Because of how small I am, people sometimes hear me before they see me (that’s because i laugh REALLY loudly sometimes HAHAHAHA). If you hear random explosive laughter echoing within ADM, the possibility of it being me is pretty high!

I thus tried to come up with a design that would place an emphasis on the fact that people usually hear me before seeing me.

I thought the most straightforward way to show loudness was to have straight lines being bent out of shape by sound waves created by a loudspeaker.

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-13

I wanted to create a hierarchy where the audience’s eyes would go to the warped lines. This would then be followed by the loudspeaker and my name. I thus decided to go with the last loudspeaker design where the font is much less obvious.

Final Artwork:
All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-14

The bright orange colour draws attention to the form of the loudspeaker rather than the typography itself. I did this so that my name would be the least noticeable thing in the image.

 

TRAIT #4: I LOVE FOOD

This was the most straight forward concept of the 3. As mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to make use of an exiting slogan/catchphrase and modify it to fit my trait so that people would be able to relate to it more easily.

This was what I settled on:

Pokemon Reference

I briefly contemplated using the fighting scene but later decided against it and I felt using the slogan would be a stronger and more relatable way to convey my message.

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-05

Font: I downloaded a font off the internet and further tweaked it so that it would look as close to the original pokemon font as possible.

Draft 1:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-03

I decided to use Lickintung for my 2nd attempt because i felt its long tongue would fit into my concept more seamlessly versus other pokemon. The way it stretches its long tongue out of its mouth also made it look more greedy.

Evolution of my lickintungs:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-06

 

Final Artwork:All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-04I thought this was a very straight forward design that made use of the audience’s contextual knowledge of Pokemon and its slogan. The ramen was chosen because it’s japanese (like pokemon) and I loooove ramen!

So those were my final 4 artworks!

Here is a another idea i toyed around with:

Hi I am JO INNG and I am multi-layered:

output_FZR3tMThis was inspired by the Kueh Lapis. I wanted to bring across the idea that I was multi-layered and that there are many different layers to my personality. I decided to use Kuek Lapis because I thought it was more local and relatable. I thought this was pretty similar to my ‘More than meets the eye’ trait, and thus decided not to use this.

 

 

So to end of this loooong post, here are my 4 final works once again!

output_XZ6IoT

 

Untitled-4-02-02 Small but Loud-03 Love to Eat-04

 

 

That’s all! Thank you! 🙂

 

P.S. I’m not sure why but I can’t really get my pictures and text to align properly. When it is aligned, the GIF files don’t work. I’ll check back on this space tomorrow and see how to fix it, so I’m sorry if the presentation’s a bit messy for now!

    • It’s actually pretty easy to do! You just need a wide tub/pail, nail polish, and any long stick! You need to fill the pail with water, then throw in a few drops of whatever nail polish you’re using. After that you can just use the stick to swirl it around so that it spreads out and creates the marbled effect! Then just piak the paper down over it and you’re done! It gets pretty messy though!

  1. Hi Jo!

    I felt pretty lost while doing this project too, typography is indeed a broad study! That being said, I felt that you did a super good job in both your concepts and execution.

    I like how you played with medium for the embroidery one as its stark contrast with the metal really brings out your message. However, I felt that it was a little too plain. Maybe you could have threaded some loose threads (messily) all over the perimeter of your embroidery to further enhance the idea that although you can be feminine and meticulous, you can also be tomboyish and messy at the same time?

    I also love the ‘more than meets the eye’ one for its simplicity and pop of watercolour underneath, the loudspeaker one for its clever design and the pokemon one! That’s a really cute Lickintung, haha. One look at your designs and I could tell what you wanted to convey. Good job! 🙂

    • Hi Siqi! That’s a good idea for the embroidery one! But aiya it’s over already hahaha. I’ll keep that in mind in case I do anything similar in the future!

      Thanks for the feedback! 🙂