Final Process Work

Project 7 Reflection

After getting feedback from last project’s critique, it was clear that I was starting getting somewhere with my modular explorations. I was learning that grids keep the letters consistent and the more abstract the grid, the more unique results I was getting.

For the chair lettering, I was seeing if there was anything interesting I could get out of it, but I only developed expected results and decided that I needed to go in a different direction. There was nothing interesting forming.

I then began to explore non traditional grids and warped grids. In order to keep consistency from grid to grid, I treated each letter with the same style of characteristics. I also used the restrictions of 3 units wide and 5 units tall. I began with a traditional grid to create letters to use as a comparison.

For the first grid with curved lines, I produced letters that appeared tilted or italic. They were consistent in structure and even played with dimensionality. 

The crumpled grid made interesting letters. They were all jagged in their own way, but still stayed consistent. It is not very readable or practical, but you can see the relationship between the grids.

The final grid with different sized units also was not very practical. However, the thing that makes these letters consistent is the stroke. This grid provides good opportunity for contrast with the difference in module size.

Project 7 Process

Project 6 Reflection

It was originally quite difficult to get started with figuring out where to go from the last project. But after asking questions and figuring out interesting opportunities for creative influence on geometric type, I realized many good things came out of it.

For the grid that I edited from last project, I learned that changing the circles to a smaller size made the letterform much wider but also provided for nontraditional letter forms.

For the 3-11 line experiment, I found that certain letters took more/less lines to create than all 11 lines. Towards the end (for the way I was making them) I learned that the more forced lines there were, the more they looked like calligraphy in a way.

For the spherical grid, they turned out nice, and they were readable but they were somewhat expected. They did however add dimension and a little bit of a 3D effect.

For the parabolic grids, I learned that it really added dimension to it. A lot of unity, but again, it is expected as for establishing the actual letter. It was more about how i could give the forms their own characteristics in the following stage.

Project 6 Questions

Project 6 Work

Project Reflection

For initial exploration I started taking shapes and seeing if I could create readable figures digitally. Now, geometric type is typically modular and is created with a grid. But I entertained the thought of a metaphorical grid. Meaning that I kept every shape’s size within the same ratio. So if a square were 1x1 inches I would manipulate it by shrinking it in half then do that again. And I would do that for circles squares and rectangles.

After that I asked myself if I was answering my original question and the answer was no. I hadn’t been using a rectilinear grid and hardly any circles. So for the next phase of development I made several different grids that provided opportunity to satisfy the question. What I took from all of those experiments was that there was a bit of inconsistency from letter to letter and what needed to happen next was more restriction.

These grids were larger scale and a bit more elaborate. I found that the more restriction and rules that I had to follow, the more consistent the shape be.

Out of all the experimenting I found that the most functional letterform was not created from circles, but were formed from a grid that had circles in it. And this provided a very reasonable response to the question through a legible thin typeface.

To answer the question, I would say that there is a large potential for experimentation with rectilinear grid and circles. I learned that there is plenty to experiment when responding to the question, but it does not always produce beautiful results. All of my experiments revolved around restriction and that did not always produce something beautiful. I believe once those rules have been established however, and that all the experimenting has commenced, one can then break those rules, or tweak them, to make their letterform more visually appealing. Where I go next will most likely be trying to experiment with the potential of the stroke and weight of this letterform and seeing how well it adapts to a heavier weight.