Alphabet Soup - Visual Thinking

Studio Brief 1 Alphabet Soup

For this brief I am required to produce a set or series of ten letterforms which explore and communicate my interpretation of the word given to me from the randomizer. This been the word symmetry so I will begin to generate ideas and visual responses through experimentation and developments.  

Through use of manipulation and my knowledge of typographic anatomy I will transform my given letterform from the Garamond typeface to create an outcome that emulates symmetry.

To prepare us for the manipulation of typeface we were put into groups to alter a serif font to a sans serif and vice versa. This is shown bellow in the form of the final outcome and rough little thumbnails. In the end to create the sans serif font to serif we added a bracket to the bottom of the stems and a tail at the bottom right stem and the top left stem. For the serif font we experimented with reducing stem height on the bottom section below the cross bar of the 'A' and added a medium line weight. 

Leading on from the group session of experimenting with manipulating type gave me a range of ideas to start playing about with using a selection of words as a basis. These words been; Splice, repeat, mirror and pivot been the ones i played about with the most. Below are examples of some rough ideas I have created. 

I find it easy to thumbnail rough sketches down it helps me to roll out ideas quickly and develop upon them roughly instead of creating finally polished outcomes. Now these quick examples are down you will now start to see things develop stage by stage combining different influences on the way and elements will roll in together to create better final outcomes taking sources from crits, type inspiration and outsources like art and architecture. 

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

Sheet 3

The 2 examples below are quick sketches of visual responses of advice i received from an interim crit. There is an adaptation of an idea i used splitting a letterform up into 4 points to create a squared image representing an X which can be seen on sheet 2 above. Theres also an idea given to me of splicing a letter and presenting one half of the letter in a legible abstract manner. The ideas was to find an axis point and use this as a cut off point to create a typographic response of the word splice derived from mindmaping words for symmetry.

This 'z' is something derived from the 'x' i created, it was agreed upon in the crit that some letters would need a support point to remain legible. So the idea of axis points came back into this to create a much better outcome that has a certain element of support through the use of a diagonal stroke along an axis to create a nice visual response which I will combine with the above concept to arrive at different outcomes. To add to this support i plan on altering serif weights and lengths to see if this provides a more structured letterform that doesn't feel so lost on the 10cm x 10cm piece as I felt this was a problem on some of the rough sketches, so pay attention too the way the negative space that is took up by the positive space as it all makes a difference within its compositions.