OUGD404 - Studio Brief 1 Visual Communication

For our session today we were asked to prepare 3 distinctly different typefaces in A B C X Y Z, a b c x y z and have them printed out. I chose Futura, Georgia and Lucida Blackletter.

We were asked to swap our letters with someone else in the group and make comments on their typefaces, then swap them back again. Some of my comments read "gothic", "contrasting" and "basic". 

Then we had to chose one typeface out of our 3, and make sure no one else on the table had it. I chose Lucida Blackletter, as it is quite a unique typeface. 

The other typefaces from my group included:

- Willow

                            

- Futura Bold

                           

Ribbon -

                                 

Amarta - 

                          

Century Gothic -

                          

Cyclone - 

                          

Stencil -

                        

Once everyone had chosen a typeface, we had to pick out distinctive parts of each one and note them down:

After that, we had to put all the influential parts of our typefaces together, to create a new type. Our table was split into two groups, and my side had to design the lowercase.

We wanted to incorporate the main aspects of each type, long stem (Ribbon), double crossbar (Willow), script (Lucida blackletter), gaps (stencil), bold (cyclone, stencil and futura bold) and symmetrical (century gothic).

We experimented with a few different letters, including f, t and g, but we settled on a.

The uppercase group also did something similar:

                                   

We finalised our letters and then enlarged them onto some yellow paper to stick up on the wall:

                           

                           

We named our typeface Gothura because of all the Gothic elements that have been incorporated in it, and also the "ura" comes form Futura, because a lot of the elements from that typeface was incorporated into ours. I feel that our designs worked well as a set and they were successful in combining the majority of the most important elements of the typefaces. 

Next, we had to think of 5 adjectives that describe our typeface. We chose:

- Gothic, due to the underlying style and the name of our typeface.

- Playful, as the letters are quite a fun mix of different elements.

- Disconnected, as there is a double crossbar and an extra outline on our letters.

- Misunderstood, because there are a lot of things happening at once.

- Elegant, due to the serifs and thin strokes.

Then we were asked to chose one word from these 5 and express this word through making paper accessories for someone in our group. We chose the word playful, as I think it describes the typeface the best, there are a lot of elements that have been combined in it and it looks quite happy due to the serifs and mixed weighting. We gave Cameron lots of different playful accessories!

                                          

Overall I enjoyed this session, it got me thinking about different typefaces and their qualities, and also how visual communication is more than just type.