alphabet soup: task 2- initial ideas.

I have started looking at exisiting typographic fonts as a starting tool to develop my own typeface.

As I have previously mentioned, this task 2 within the alphabet soup project requires us to create the typeface inspired by the personality or personal features of a selected partner, mine being Chloe Wilkinson. 

From both talking to Chloe, and working through the written questionnaire, I learnt a little more about her personality,as well as her graphic and typographic preferences. She mentioned a few particular factors and favourites in regards to typography, including:

-use of uppercase

-classic, unfussy styles

-neutral colours or pastels

Therefore, I already had natural restrictions, but felt comfortable with what I had to work with.

As you can see from the picture above, I chose a few existing fonts and wrote them out in a 72 point size (in both lower and uppercase- please ignore my shoddy late-night tracing ability- or lack of it!). Both of these fonts are widely known and used- strong, concise, and classic- all of which reflect my view of Chloe.

I then went onto present the font in other ways- primarily, on brown parcel paper backing (one of my favourite tools!)- a neutral shade, which always, I believe, provides a pleasant variation in comparison to the typical monochrome shades, whilst still looking professional.

The black text looks really regimented and neat, though I really love the effect of the white font on the brown as it really "pops" out.

I used both a negative and filled colour technique, both of which I like, and though still using the same font, show how versatile the use of different tones and presentation formats can really be!

A close-up of the 'times new roman' and 'century schoolbook' fonts drawn with a black posca paint pen (my personal favourites- thick, bold coverage and very fluid to use). Though both very similar fonts, I think I prefer century schoolbook- slightly lighter in weight, more curvature- elegance and feminity that I saw reflected in Chloe's personality.

Here I experimented using light pastel- light green and blue tone posca pens on brown paper, as Chloe stated a liking for colour on neutral tones. Personally, I don't think that this looks as bold and strong as the monchome fonts- the green looks a little garish, not working too well with the brown. I think the icey blue tone is a lot more effective, but still not as striking as the white.

After this simple sketch-up on fonts, I have decided, after initially scouring through many, that I would like to work upon and manipulate 'century schoolbook', for previously mentioned reasons. I will now go on to generate ideas as to how to go about this, with any particular theme or style generation.