ALPHABET SOUP - TYPEFACE

After I had finished collecting my body of collage imagery I started designing my letterforms. I first made a list of all the letters in the alphabet and possible ways that I could produce them, which were accompanied by small thumbnail sketches to see if the idea works. Below are my design sheets.

Once I had an idea of each letters design I started producing the alphabet. I outlined collage only letterforms to help define them, as when showed next to an illustrated letterform they didn't look as defined.

First letters produced.

Moreover, I did face some problems in when producing my letterforms. Some of my initial designs did not work as well as initially planned, to overcame this I simply changed the design slightly and reproduced the letter. Below are some of the letterforms that I believe did not work as well, I found it was usually the illustration that I was not happy with. 

I continued this technique throughout the design process as I found it was the best way to produce letters. Moreover, I ended up using variations of Helvetica in bold and italic for the base of my letters. However, you often can not tell as much characteristics of the font is lost due to the production method of my typeface.  Moreover, there are only three letters in the alphabet where the characteristics of the base font can still be seen and that’s in F, T and X. Two of the letters F and X had patterns cut out of them to represent Melissa’s interest in artist Rob Ryan, and T was made from type. 

Letters F, T & X

Additionally, after I finished my alphabet I also designed two glyphs, an exclamation mark and question mark. I wanted to design more however, because time for the projects studio deadline was fast approaching I decided against producing more. Unfortunately, as my alphabet was very illustrative it took a long time to produce, and also reproduce. Most of my time was spent designing and creating the alphabet, in future I need to consider the time different production methods take, and how this could effect my ability to full complete the overall project.

It was stated on the brief that we needed an A1 sheet displaying the alphabet and also a name badge for our partners whom the alphabet represents. Additionally, It was a requirement that the A1 sheet was produced by hand on tracing paper. Once again this was a lengthy process for me, I had to not only redraw my whole alphabet but also illustrate the collaged aspects of each letter. Moreover, I also had to consider the layout, as I had twenty-six letters and two glyphs I decided to try and balance my sheet, placing two designs at the top of the sheet. Next, I had rows of four designs running until near the bottom, when eventually being balanced out by the final two glyphs. Finally, I am really happy with how my traced alphabet turned out, I believe that the collaged aspects of my alphabet transferred really well into traced letterforms.

Moreover, due to time restrictions I produced the name badge digitally. I scanned in my individual letterforms and used Photoshop to cut them out and place them onto a name badge. The only restriction was that the badge had to fit certain dimensions. The use of colour was allowed, however I decided not to include any in my badge design that was all black and white until this point. I believe including colour would have been out of theme with the rest of my project.