Alphabet Soup - Typeface for a peer

Which personality traits did you choose to respond to and apply the typeface? Ben is a very outgoing and striking person. My adjectives were fashion, image, loud, comical and a character. o chose to work with image and fashion.

What are the reasons behind the design decisions you have made for the typeface? i started to look at brands ben liked and wore. I noticed he was always head to toe in 'Jack Wills', so i started to reasearch into the catalogues and websites and found some interesting typefaces in them, i then used these typefaces and manipulated them to make them into 'bens own'.

I wanted to look into image also, so i started working with mirrors, i came up with the concept of putting cut-outs of my typeface next to a mirror and taking photographs of the reflection, i was more than pleased with the outcome.

To meet the breif i then had to use the photographs of my reflected alphabet to illustrate from, example above^

In what ways are the results effective? i was really pleased with the outcome of my final typeface, even though it was quite detailed and complicate, you could still make out what i was trying to communicate 'image'.

The letters individually also looked effective, and as a set, but when i started to scale it down for my name badge some of the letters started to become unreadable and lost their meaning. This is something that i will improve on this week, i need to think about the scale, detail and simplicity of each individual letter.

Ben's Name badge..

Because of the problems i had with the scale, i chose to use the letterforms without the reflection for Ben's name badge.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES, Problem Analysis - rational

BREIF: Producing an alphabet/entire typeface that represents my chosen partener (Ben Harwood) e.g personaliy, character, appearance, likes, memories etc.

WHO NEEDS TO KNOW: Peers, tutors and most importantly my parener.

WHAT DO THEY NEED TO KNOW: My representation of the personality and image of my partener.

WHY DO THEY NEED TO KNOW: Its good for my audience to see how i respond to the breif and my interpritation of my partener.

WHAT WILL THEY RESPOND TO: My typeface, how ive developed towards my final outcome, how it is useable and how it meets the breif.

WHAT REASEARCH IS REQUIRED: A full understanding and knowledge of my partener.PRIMARY-i will interview, study and analyse my partener, also work from the questionair he completed to create the perfect typeface. I will also use previous typefaces and manipulate exsisting fonts. SECONDARY- Work from the things he likes and does, places he has been, typafaces he likes, magazines/books he reads and people he idolises. I wil also collect evidence for this from websites and his facebook/blogs.

Alphabet soup - FINAL

What is being communicated and how? The word glow was quite hard to express using letterforms.

At first i jotted down everything that can into my head when i thought of 'glow'.

I had a range of ideas e.g Pregnancy, health , genes, microscopic images, light, happiness and my bright pink lipstick.

I wanted to create a meaning behind my idea, so i choose to focus on using the microscopic images and the idea of pregnancy/'life'.

My initial idea was to use the images in collage to create my letterforms but i was not happy with how it was starting to look so i started to use my fluorescent lipstick.

How well has the idea been visually explored/ answers the brief? In terms of visuals it answers the brief well as it does 'glow' but i was personally unhappy with the overall look.

My thought process was good, i had a large range of ideas down on paper but my downfall was actually exploring these ideas to meet the brief.

What are the strengths of the resolution?  One of the strengths is how the typeface looks as a set, i like how it looks above ^.

But when the letterforms are singled out to make a word or on their own they look visually less attractive.

Alphabet soup - TEN LETTERFORMS 'CRIT'