Friday 10 October 2014

Studio Brief 01 - Interim Crit

Today I received lots of good critique for my work and it has given me lots of ideas on how I can progress further. I scanned my letters and enlarged them for the sake of the presentation and went through the reasons behind the design with each letterform.

I started with the O and F which are both very different concepts. There was a general agreement that my letter O wouldn't work on a whole as a font as not every letter is round. However, Rhys suggested that I could have the other letters as the different stages so that they run in sequence. The feedback for my F was mostly good. I was told the weight of the thin lines was veery effective building up individually to create the overall letterform. They also said that it would work really well as an overall typeface as it can be applied to every letter. However, it was suggested that I could even add transistors as the theme was circuits to add a bit more interest.


The next set I showed was my ? and the g. Personally, I don't think that the ? mark works, I think it looks naive and childish to add hands inside of a letter. However I was complemented on at least giving it a go and testing the idea before I dismissed it. With the g I was told that it was very unique as serif fonts often have a g with an inverted tail, where as I kept the form of the Futura g. It was even suggested that I could use the idea of the progress through typography by creating the alphabet through the transition of modernist ideals to post modernist ideals within graphic design.



For my k the feedback I received was also good even though I don't like the letterform myself. They said that it was effective as a title font because it is so wide and bold. However, I was interested with the feedback that I received for my lowercase j as I really dislike this concept as I thought it was too obvious, with progress related to growth. Yet this was one of my groups favourites as they agreed that it was easily adaptable for all letterforms and was effective at portraying the word progress.


Next was my letterform that was inspired by my research into Shepard Fairley. The group liked where the research came from and particularly liked the B as they said that I completely transformed the letterform so it looks nothing like Futura anymore. Also someone said that they liked how I made the counters really small compared to in Futura where they are really large and open. For my Z it was said that it reminded everyone of the font from the opening of Star Wars when the history is told and it disappears into the background. After looking at it again I can definitely see this but they also said they liked the overall concept of the perspective. 


For my lowercase o I was told that it could be hard to read within a sentence or within a word and could only really be used as a large display font to become readable. The same applies to the J as it is created in the same style. However they said that they were drawn to my r as they said it really stands out from the rest and would make an excellent display font. They liked my idea of progress through movement.


Most people liked my uppercase H, saying that it was effective and readable. But I believe that it is too obvious concept from the word progress (being growth by growing upwards) so I don't think that this will be one of my final designs. With my Q it was mentioned that it was perhaps a little simple, but they liked that I was passionate about space and astronomy. Izzie suggested that I use actual textures of the galaxy and incorporate colours into it to make it pop. I might also reduce the counter size so that more of the new textures will be shown.

For my i that was made up of wires I was complemented on a unique concept that they have never seen the wires used around the letters, usually they are used to form the structure of the letterform. Someone also said that it reminded them of Chavis Tsevis' work with wires (below). I really like his pieces and I think that they are also quite relevant to my word of progress so I am pleased that my work lives up to these standards. My M was also commented on being simple yet effective and reminded people of a line graph. 





When I asked for feedback about my n they said that they enjoyed the idea of using a map pattern within the type but I should try using real maps to create my letters. Also the tail of the letter that I created would be better if it was shortened to increase legibility. The x was complemented on how it retains it's routes to Futura  with the sharp geometric edges. However when used within curved letterforms it may not work as well as with this letter x.


Most of my group liked my L and liked my idea of removing the outer line to just leave the horizontal lines to create the look that the font is half loaded. Even though I personally don't like the letterform as it is now, with the improvements suggested I think it would work well as one of my final letters. The a on the other hand is definitely my favourite. It works on e concept of non linear progression and someone mentioned that it looks like a glitches letter which is quite a good description. It was also said that it would make a good display font. 


Finally it was the W. I didn't actually receive much feedback for this letter a part from that I could experiment with cutting off some of the letter to further emphasise the work in progress. This is another of my personal favourites so I will definitely experiment with this idea a little more and use it in my final fonts as I believe it would transfer well to all letters. 



Overall, I found this critique really helpful and it has given me a fresh view on how I can interpret my word progress. It also helped me to decide my final 10 letterform styles that I will use based on others feedback as well as some from my own personal favourites. My final 10 will be based on my  F, j, B, n, r, L, a, x, Q and W. 




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