Letterform Collected

Today our typography tutor brought in a number of books and magazines for us to have a look at to get some inspiration for the type project we're working on. I especially like this one, 'Letterform Collected' which is a publication made by no-longer running Grafik magazine. It's a collection of letterforms featured in a monthly column that they used to run.

On every double spread there is a letterform & information about its designer. Johann Steingruber's Architectural Alphabet (1773) is my favourite that's featured in the book, none of the buildings were actually built but the letters provide a very detailed and accurate architectural plan.

I'd quite like to live here:

Another letterform I noticed in the book was this one, The 'Interrobang,' a mixture of a question mark and an exclamation mark which I didn't know actually existed. It was designed by Martin Speckter in 1962 to create neater lines in advertising copy.

The Swan Pub

Recently we were given a project that was simply titled, 'Projection.' In a group of four we found our site, an old derelict pub at the end of a suburban street near our uni and we spoke to the residents in the street about what the pub used to be like. We also spoke to the children who live in the house next door to the pub and they gave us a huge range of ideas of things they'd like the pub to become.

In our crit we projected onto the building our interviews and moving image that we collected that fitted the descriptions that people gave us. There was a great atmosphere, our graphics group and residents of the street came out to watch the projection and it was amazing to see our work projected huge on the walls of the derelict building.

Film to follow soon.

The Queen & a 'Word-a-Coaster..'

Today I went into london to see a couple of cool things. First I went to the V&A to see the exhibition of Cecil Beaton's portraits of the Queen. Before visiting the exhibition I had a wonder around in the V&A and discovered the Jewellery gallery and it was amazing I can't believe I haven't been there before! The design and layout of the gallery is really modern and shiny and the jewellery presented really well so it stands & sparkles. You're not allowed to take photos but I got this sneaky one that doesn't really show off the gallery but it really is good..

Again photos aren't allowed in the Cecil Beaton exhibition but these are some of the displays in the V&A shop which a good preview of the exhibition. The exhibition was great, the photographs gave an interesting insight into the royal family that you don't often get to see.

Next I went to see the last day of Selfridges latest pop up concept shop, Words Words Words in association with Its Nice That who designed these really cool windows..

The most impressive window was the Word-A-Coaster, which involved plastic balls containing fortunes that got picked up and carried around the wooden structure and then dropped out so you could take one home!

My fortune!

Sound and Image Workshop

Today I took part in a one day sound workshop run by Malcolm Goldie. In pairs we were given four one second sound clips and told to find/create images inspired by them to appear in sequence in a film. Heres the finished result of everyones clips..

MLK's I have a dream

For this project we had to create a visual typographic response to Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech. I worked with Finy, and we produced these double page magazine spreads. We wanted to move away from the most famous 'I have a dream' paragraph that everyone knows and put the emphasis on the beginning and end of the speech. It makes the speech not instantly recognisable, but then you spot the tiny 'I have a dream's in red as you continue reading.

MacGuffin

A concept based project that involved creating or identifying a MacGuffin (a plot element used in films to catch the viewers attention & keep the story rolling.) We identified a MacGuffin in everyday life; the discourse particles used in speech as verbal thought, for example 'Like,' 'Um,' and 'Erm.' Each of them are interchangeable, so we created this glyph that combines the three.

We also made three separate films of people saying 'Like,' 'Um,' and 'Erm.' When played together they appear to be having a conversation between each other, a conversation consisting entirely of MacGuffins.

Emotional Objects

Our latest project has been to give an everyday object an emotional response. I'm working with Lucy and we chose Pens as our object to work with.

We decided to play with adding scent to our pens, as scent is the most emotive of our senses. Firstly we made this prototype of a perfumed pen, where the perfume pump at the top gave out scent and also clicked the pen nib up and down,

This was quite messy and didn't always work so we took a new slant on the idea and have made a set of aromatherapy candle pens that each give off a different scent.

Layout in progress

In uni we're doing type workshops, learning the basics of layout in Indesign.. kerning, tracking etc. This is one of my layouts, not finished yet but just wanted to upload it in-progress..

EDIT: More layouts, finished..