From all the jobs I thought of, I narrowed down my jobs to the 4 jobs that I wanted to concentrate on and started to build on them with different versions – mainly V1.0 and V2.0.

 

PHOTOGRAPHER V 1.0

 

INITIAL PHASE

I wanted to mimic this Dark Room effect that gave the atmosphere of a Dark Room so that my viewers would be able to relate to what my job was.

This was my first digital draft in which I tried to create the dark room effect in the background. I also added the lamp to further enhance the effect because through research, I realised that the lamp is crucial to help photographers view their photographs in the dark room as it’s their only source of light because their photos cannot be exposed to sunlight.

 

TYPEFACE

The letters are made to look like polaroids to show that they are photographs hanging in the dark room. These letters are done by adding the layer of white border around the text using Illustrator.

 

FINAL PHASE V 1.0

Upon consultation, I was told that the lightbulb would be too distracting so I took it away to have my draft 2! I was contemplating on whether my  ‘T’ should have the polaroid border or not. But i decided to use it which brought me to draft 3!

Ultimately I did not use this design as I felt like I should use another way to convey a photographer’s job because upon asking my friends on what’s my job when seeing this photo, they all said it looked like a private detective/ CSI investigator. Therefore i decided it’s not the best way to portray my job as a photographer.

 

 

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER V 2.0

 

INITIAL PHASE

Instead, I decided to use another aspect of being a photographer : The light box.

Photographers use the light box to view negative photographs. I found out that this perspective was actually quite interesting to use as I did not know that the light box would be crucial in viewing their negatives at first. I wanted to portray a nature photographer as I really like how nature photos are like in negative.

 

TYPEFACE

 

 

 

As I felt that the initial consistent texture of the letters were too bland and plain (Shown in digital draft 2 below), I decided to experiment to use a different texture for each individual letters to make them more outstanding. I decided to try out using different type of textures such as twigs for the V, raindrops on leaves for the C, stacked books for the W and leaves for the T. Then i realised that the books for the W was out of place so i replaced them with daisies.

 

FINAL PHASE V 2.0

This is the first draft of trying out the light box effect as shown above. It was really hard to get the effect out digitally as I could not get the negative feel of the photograph to blend with the background. The background of the letters were of a consistent texture, initially to show terrain but it is not obvious in the photo.

 

In my final work, I replaced the stacked books with daisies which matches the rest of the textures better. I then edited the colour as I realised that the black on orange was too contrasting and makes the whole photo look fake. Thus I decided to go for a more orange-grey tone for my letters to make them blend with the background even more. To create more emphasis on the letters, Shirley told me to zoom in to the letters even more to make them stand out. After zooming in, I liked it even more because I feel that the letters pop up even more than it used to.

 

BOTANIST V 1.0

 

INITIAL PHASE

 

TYPEFACE

My initial idea was to make the fonts out of the respective leaves from different plants/flowers.

 

But after consultation I realised that I lacked the scientific aspect of a botanist. Shirley suggested that i used a half test tube and half flowers but I decided to research more on it as I felt like the test-tube flowers were two entities just combined together to make a font and it feels more separated than it would be like if it was incorporated together naturally.

 

BOTANIST V 2.0

 

INITIAL PHASE

I went to research on what a botanist really do as a job and I found out that its not much of the chemistry side but rather on the biology of plants. The thing that popped right in my head was DNA. DNA is not only consisting of biology but chemistry too! Botanist deals with the DNA of plants just like how biologists deal with the DNA of animals and humans.

My initial idea was to warp the twigs of the plants to form a DNA structure. When finding for suitable twigs to use, I realised that it was quite hard to tell I was a botanist from the twigs and the DNA structure alone. So i decided to scrap the twig idea and chose to do a different version instead.

 

TYPEFACE

The fonts are created from combining DNA and plants together to show a botanist. It would have to consist the DNA structure along with little hints of plants and flowers to further enhance the job to the viewers. I decided to use different coloured and types of flowers to show the contrast between each letters and to show that botanists does research on a huge variation of flowers and plants.

 

FINAL PHASE V 2.0

I started by forming my initials with the DNA to have the visual form of the letters. I then added the flowers to the different letters to form the font of a botanist.

 

After doing the respective fonts, I had to find a suitable background to further enhance my job as a botanist.

I tried a subtle light coloured wood background but the colour did not match the font, making the letters less attractive and stand out less.

I tried this dark wooden backing with some leaves at the side and I felt like it was suitable for my letters. It seems as if the letters are imprinted onto the wooden backing and that the flowers are standing out.

Settling the background, I had to decide if I should do a staggered layout or a flat straight layout.

Ultimately, I decided to do a flat style as it was more direct and easy to read as compared to the staggered-style.

 

FARMER V 1.0

In the initial stages, I wanted to use the respective vegetables and carve my initials on them. However after consultation, Shirley told me that it was more of making the vegetables in the shape of the font and using the texture to bring out the vegetable characteristics.

 

FINAL PHASE V 1.0

So, I decided to try it out and see if it was better and that was when I came up with another model.

 

FARMER V 2.0

 

TYPEFACE

 

 

The fonts made are of the different vegetables, carrots, beets and parsnip respectively. I used the colour combination of the respective vegetables and illustrated it onto the letters, adding the vegetable textures on them as vegetables tends to have plenty of cuts and lines on them. I also added the roots to make it more obvious that they are rooted vegetables.

 

FINAL PHASE V 2.0

Lastly, I had to yet again choose the background for the settings. This time I decided on a cross-section of the soil to show that the vegetables are rooted underground as it is a farmer’s job to unroot the vegetable from the ground when they are fully grown. I had troubles finding the suitable soil colours to portray a suitable soil texture.

At last, I decided to make 3 different tonal of soil colour that goes from light on top to dark below. This is also factually true because of the water that travels along the soil therefore, the deeper the soil goes, the wetter it is and the darker the colours will be.

 

ATHLETE V 1.0

 

INITIAL PHASE

This design was one of the first few to be developed, resulting in the initial phase to be totally not what the project required.

I was inspired to make this design based on the running track and replacing the numbers with my name. The different length of the track basically shows the lanes taken by the athletes and the different pace of athletes.

 

FINAL PHASE V 1.0

Upon consultation, I realised that this was not what the project required and decided to start fresh with a totally new design for the same job but this time working more towards the project specifications.

 

ATHLETE V 2.0 

This time I wanted to portray the proudest moments of an athlete : The winning moment. At this time is when an athlete feels the greatest sense of accomplishment which is also why an athlete wants to be an athlete. Therefore I wanted my letters to be on the podium to show that moment.

 

TYPEFACE

Initially the fonts are created with the different aspects of an athlete : The medal, the finishing line and the specific spiked shoes.

 

FINAL PHASE V 2.0

Upon consultation, Shirley mentioned that I should use one element only in which we decided on the medal. I also had to make the podium a colour that should slightly blend in with the surroundings so that it does not overwhelm the letters.

 

ATHLETE V 3.0

After modification, I did a V3.0 considering all the comments given by Shirley. I modified the letters and the podium, removing the track and making the letters more centralised.

 

TYPEFACE

The fonts are made by different angles to the original resulting in the fonts to be more consistent.

 

FINAL PHASE V 3.0

I changed the podium colour to a slightly darker blue hue and removed the track as it was a distraction to the letters. It was really quite hard to illustrate the medals into the letters and make it continuously constant in terms of the ribbon.

 

R E F L E C T I O N

I felt like this project was rather tough as compared to those in Sem 1. It was really challenging to create a personalised typeface that is connected to the job.

One problem that I keep facing is the choices that I have to make to shortlist the jobs I wanted and to further work on the selected few. Also initially, I kept deviating from the project specs which means time wasted to design the first few designs but I learnt more from designing the first few drafts as I knew the boundaries I had to keep to and improve from V1.0 for me to work on the other versions. I also realised that the background is very important in situations like this as I had problems choosing the correct background for my work that complements my letters.

Among all those that I submitted, I feel that the Athlete one was the weakest among the rest because it is rather simple and the little flaws in the illustration which I would have improved on if i had more time. But I really love the rest of the designs that I did. I did not have much confidence in my work initially however the more I look at it the more I feel like they look like fonts that I might even use myself which I’m quite happy about.

Lastly, I learnt so much more from doing all these illustrations and I really had fun creating my own fonts! Although the process was tough because of getting used to both illustration and photoshop, I felt like through this project I became more familiar to photoshop and illustration. I also learnt that sketching is really important. For most of my works, it all started out as a small sketch on my sketchbook for me to visualise the concept better so that I am able to better illustrate/edit it digitally. 

 

 

 

END.