Disaster Strikes!

Once I had completed the A, I then moved onto the B. I did the B the same way I did the A by cutting out a template and using that to create a guide to where the nails should go. The only problem with this is that halfway through wrapping the thread around they’vv nails, one of the nails got caught on my sleeve and as a result was accidentally ripped out. This pulled all of the thread out and it all unravelled. I had to start the B again from scratch witch was extremely annoying but in hindsight I should have been more careful.

 

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Getting to Work

With the tools at hand I started working on my letters. I printed out templates and stuck them to the plasterboard so I knew where to hit my nails in. I measured out lines every 2cm so I knew where to hammer the nails in. This was a very tricky task, because the nails were so small I often accidentally hit my thumb (as seen on the bottom right image). Once I hammered all the nails in it was just a case of wrapping the thread around each nail. This process was extremely time consuming as the thread often came un done or nails would sometimes fall out but after a few hours I could see that I was definitely on track.

 

 

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Next Adventure

Now I have finished my geometric typeface, I thought I would try something new out. As my typeface was purely digital and all created on both Photoshop and Illustrator, I wanted to go for a more hands-on approach, making something with different materials and experimenting with unusual approaches to the brief. During one of our earlier workshop sessions I remember seeing typefaces being made out of different foods, using shapes in the environment around us and something as simple as using body parts. When conducting research and finding inspiration, one thing that struck my eye was using nails and cotton to create letters. I found a lovely image on Pinterest (can be seen down below) of a word and letters that had been created by hammering nails into a surface and then wrapping different coloured thread around them.

 

For my next adventure I will try and recreate something similar. I found some old plasterboard that isn’t needed and have bought some nails, a hammer and some black cotton. I am extremely interested to see how this turns out as I think it can either look extremely effective or very tacky and untidy. I have decided to just use black instead of using a colour gradient like the photo I found as being colourblind I feel this could complicate things too much.

 

Inspiration

The Good and the Bad

Looking back at my typeface, I can definitely say that I am proud of it. I really like how all the lines slant at an even pace on both sides, making it symmetrical and visually pleasing. I am particularly pleased with both the A and the B as I love how they are big block letters, but unfortunately I was unable to achieve this with most of the other letters due to the way they are designed. When looking at my typeface as a whole, I find it pleasing to see how the width of the long line on the G is exactly the same size as the long line of the Z (for example) as this creates a professional house style.

One of the only things I am unhappy with is the letters D and U. I found these letters really hard to create as they are so similar to O and V but obviously I had to change them so you could differentiate between them. With the D I decided to trim the top right corner – very similar to how you would write the letter D. I also trimmed the bottom right corner so it would fully match but I felt like that didn’t look as good/unique as only erasing one corner so thats what I stuck with. With the U, I wanted to do it in a similar style as the V. I trimmed the corners to make it seem more curved but again I felt like this was a bit of an easy way out and it didn’t live up to higher quality of the other letters. If I had more time I would definitely experiment with those two letters a lot more to see if there was a different way I could have approached them – maybe without trimming them at all but instead using a different length of lines and making some parts bolder and bigger than others.

 

Final Geometric Typeface

As I said previously, for my final geometric typeface I wanted to get rid of all my vertical lines on my letters and replace them with repetitive horizontal lines to fill in, instead. After spending hours on Illustrator resizing all of the lines to make sure they all match, I was finally able to finish my typeface. I used the pen tool and drew each line individually, using a grid to make sure each line was perfectly sized. I can say I am extremely happy with this as I believe this is a professional looking typeface that a designer with years of experience would be proud to call their own.

 

Final Geometric Typeface