Monthly Archives: September 2017

Project 2B – Organic Type

Firstly, I started out wanting to do some origami typography. But it seems like many already exist and Shirley wanted me to do something more than that.

So I went online to look for inspirations. I realised many people have done typography that is similar to the transparency designs I made but none of them have done it with traditional methods.

I decided to pick basic shapes and the primary colours, red, blue and yellow to work on. The quote I came up with was “Work Less Play More”. (I think all of us need that in our current fast paced life) How I came up with the quote was that with shapes and the primary colours, it gives off a vibe that is fun and quirky, nothing serious. So I wanted to incorporate the play factor into my quote.

I cut the basic shapes like: circle, semicircle, rectangle and different sizes of triangles.

Then I had to plan the colours before I put them up so that the letters side by side wouldn’t have the same colour combination. Also, I stuck them up with tape incase I need to change something or rearrange them. When I consulted Shirley, she liked how organic the tape looked on the letters since we cannot create the “bubbles” under the tape digitally.

Also, previously my R looked weird since it was taller than the other letters(left) so Shirley gave some suggestions to switch up how the R looks and here’s how the final one looks like (right)

 

                 BEFORE                                          AFTER

Moving on, here’s what I came up with after scanning it digitally:

 

I had to scan the 2 separately since I laid them out on A3 and my printer could only scan in A4.

Then, I played with the composition on Photoshop. I first tried to emphasize the work LESS, play MORE by playing with the sizes of the text:

Then moving on to another composition which people feel that is easy to read

But I settled on this, which is very uniformed and pleasing when you look at it from afar.

For my application, I printed the format on the box on an A4 paper before I printed on A3. Here are some of the drafts:

(I have no idea why the colour turned out like that but here’s the layout for my box)

The final game box:

(the box is filled up with geometric shapes for one to use their creativity to form things and slowdown to work less and play more in our fast paced world)

 

That’s all folks! 

Thanks for reading 🙂

Project 2A – Vernacular Type

First off, I started out with the place I wanted to go. It was the CBD (Central Business District). Since Singaporeans are the fastest walkers, with a walking speed of 10.55 seconds/60ft, I wanted to go with a quote like “Not Now, I’m Busy”. But soon after, I decided to go with the phrase “concrete jungle/man made jungle”. (In the end I settled for Man Made Jungle)

All in all, I made 3 trips down to the CBD and 2 out of 3 times, IT RAINED ;-;

During my first trip, I went down to recce the area and took photos like the MBS. But only at the end of the first trip, I realised I wanted to play with the negative spaces. Also, I felt that the negative space typography was clear and straight to the point.

Here are some of the inspirations that i found online which sparked my interest to do so:

Image result for negative space typography photographyRelated image

And then I made a second and third trip down to CBD to find my letters 😀 (I walked around aimlessly tho)

Here are the letters i found:

LETTER D

LETTER E

LETTER G (this was the hardest letter, I only found it at the end of my 3rd trip down to CBD T_T)

LETTER J (the one that made me realised that I could play with negative and positive space)

LETTER L

LETTER M (where my whole project 2a all started out)

LETTER N

LETTER U

LETTER A

I know that some of the letters are black (positive space) and I had to just pick the best of the white letters (negative space) to make it consistent throughout. It was difficult to spot the letters but I guess that is just part of the journey. I realised that if we look closely at a different perspective, typography is everywhere.

Here’s my final piece:

AND I’M VERY HAPPY W HOW IT TURNED OUT (yay)

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

GROUP PRESENTATION: TIMES NEW ROMAN

FRESH OFF THE PRESS

Have you received a copy of our Limited Edition Times New Roman issue 001?

Well wait no further.

 

TIMES NEW ROMAN

Our final presentation pieces!

  1. Newspapers 
  2. Portraits of Stanley Morrison
  3. Portrait of Stanley Morrison made out of TNR characters

FINAL

Cover Page: A brief introduction of Times New Roman.

Introducing the creators Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent who collaborated and commissioned Times New Romans for The Times in 1929.

Typeface layout- Showcasing Times New Romans.

Spread 1: The beginnings of a classic typeface & how it evolved through time.

A typeface inspired by efficiency and readability, its origins began from Baskerville, Plantin, Imprint, and others.

Significant changes from older types:

Higher X-height

Reduced tracking

Thicker portions of each letter widened

Thinner intersections of the thicker portions

Rounder and condensed look for maximum readibilty

Spread 2: Modern changes to the original typeface and applications of Times New Roman

Keeping Up With The Times

The advent of new technology and newer typefaces meant that Times New Romans needed an upgrade. Hence, the birth of alternatives such as Times Roman, Times Europa, Times Classic, and Times Millenium… just to name a few.

Applications through the years

Originally meant for print, TNR is a great body text and has been widely used in the formal publishing industry- newspapers, books, and legal documents. However, it has slowly been replaced by updated typefaces and though ubiquitous, it is seldom used as a major typeface.

Instead, people use it out of habit or because of its long-standing legacy.

TNR connotes an apathetic, non-choice typeface.

Spread 3: Opinions on the classic typeface and activities

To be honest, we can all agree that Times New Roman is increasingly labelled as “outdated” and “old”, and rarely used today. Even so, it has found its way into the design industry, with some designers intentionally using Times New Roman to produce some amazing works. We also included some fun activities for our classmates to try as we realised that Times New Roman looked similar to many other fonts. The activity helps them to see the difference between these fonts and Times New Roman and identify what makes Times New Roman unique, that stands out from these fonts.


PROCESS & RESEARCH

Reference books that we borrowed from the library.

These books really helped us a lot in our research and finding images for the uses of Times New Roman. The books also had information on the newer typefaces such as Times Classic and Times Millennium, which was hard to dig out from the internet, where a lot of information was unreliable.

Working on the layout of our version of The Times newspaper.

We wanted to keep it as authentic as possible, hence referring to the original layout of The Times. We started with a blank canvas and added in each element one by one. As we needed to fill up the pages but also keep it concise and readable, we had to pick and choose the information we wanted to add in, rephrasing certain parts to fit the page better. It was very time consuming but worth it when we saw the final product!

The planning of the pages of our newspaper! (it took us so long to come up with the layout)

Before and after photos of how we made Stanley Morison’s Typographic portrait

A typographic portrait of our lecturer Shirley 😀

We changed the original layout a little, reducing the thickness of the box, making it more appealing

 

A3 size for peers on the left and A1 size for presentation on the right.

MESS AT THE PRINTING SHOP (it cost us like $23 to print because none of the printing shop could print in A1 except one) But we were happy with how it turned out so it all worked out in the end.


PRESENTATION DAY


Shirley recording us present :’) while our peers are listening attentively!

  DONE AND OVER WITH PRESENTATION YAY.

 

Done by team TNR : Vanessa, Zoelyn, Brenda and Zoe (left to right)

 

Project 1: Final Design

FINAL DESIGNS

Incorporated brush and palette into my design.

My main concept was to have fun and be happy. So i added bright colours to make the design pop. When one is happy, they would be enjoying themselves and not think too much about their condition. So, it would be a positive distraction. Also I added shapes

Heart: Love

Square: Think out of the box

Triangle: Stability

Circle: Harmony

For this next design, which was one of the final designs, I changed the palette to the brush dropping out shapes. It shows movement and flow as well as is visually balanced which I think is much more pleasing to the eyes compared to the first one.

Design that didn’t make the cut:

Project 1 Task 3: Colour Exploration

 

For colours, Michael said that I should make the colours brighter instead of it being so dull. Thus I tried to change from the original nude skin colours and went ahead to explore the triadic colour scheme. The triadic colour scheme causes the colours to pop and made it more vibrant which fits my theme even more.

Here are some of the colour explorations from the previous design:

 

Project 1 Task 2: Translating and exploring Design

In class, we did some sketches. These are some of the sketches done in a class activity:

Visual Ideation:

Visual Metaphor Matrix:


After I brainstormed about what I wanted to portray for my 3 concepts again, I came to a conclusion to focus on:

  1. Spread Love and Care
  2. Fun and Happy
  3. Sense of protection/homely/safety

So this is the first concept, Spreading love and care:

Second concept, Fun and happy:

Third, Sense of protection and homely:

After gaining feedback from the class and Michael, I decided to drop the third concept (sense of protection) and just focus on the first two concepts.


Moving on, I translated my designs digitally online .

These are the few designs I came up with.

These were the final designs that I chose to present to the class:

With various feedbacks from my peers, I am inclined to create a better and final piece with the use of colours as well! I decided to focus on the paintbrush design. I decided to change the composition of my paintbrush. And meanwhile I came up with a new design (though it didn’t make the final cut)