Partner Typeface development & Finals

Partner Typeface development & Finals

Presented below will be the process's in which I went through in creating my partners typeface. The typeface I used as a base was a combination of 2. Bauhaus and Caslon pro. These two typefaces in combination simulate 2 visual attributes of Helen, Bauhaus simulates her curved handwriting style through its circular geometrical anatomical elements and the serifs within Caslon present her love for traditional drawing techniques, combining the both will create a nice contrast. The style will be inspired upon braille. A communication method I came up with to visually communicate her knowledge in sign language, although sign language is for people who lack hearing I felt the link still worked to create a visual response in terms of how language is communicated with people who have problems distinguishing language through medical conditions. 

Styling: Based on braille from her knowledge of sign language which inspired me to look into other means of communication for people with medical issues.

Bold: Due to her love of black clothing and black having color connotations of boldness. 

Layout: Grid based for her organized personality and follows the 3:2 of Braille writing system.

Deconstructed for her unusual love of engine mechanics, wanted it to feel slightly mechanical as well as coded and it was hand drawn to simulate her analogue hands on style of design processes. 

To begin the production process I played around with deconstructing the letterform as much as I could and still retain legibility in a way in which presented Code in a visual outcome. After playing about with straight linear shapes with a single dot element I began adding curves to the stems to distinguish the glyph into a more recognizable form.

I played about with this method a little more for an uppercase B and felt the boldness hindered the legibility of the letterform so I reverted back to the styling of Caslon and this is were I decided to base the lines the letterform follow around Bauhaus and the styling would be influenced by Caslons serifs with elements of deconstruction and a dot element to present braille and code.

As you can see I went through a few variations of each letterform in terms of element layout and how the letterform would be deconstructed to maintain legibility. I then experimented with letterform weight, as she liked the color black I looked into this and saw it as a Bold kind of color so it was convenient when the ascetics of the letterform suited better in a bold weight. Each glyph was placed in a 3:2 ratio to emulate the grid set up within the braille writing system.

I began to mock these letterforms up in larger scale ready for manipulation on photoshop and illustrator. They really began to take shape at this scale and more detail was added to the serif points adding a curve were the serif meets the stem.

Once all these letterforms were mocked up in an analogue format I digitally manipulated the in photoshop, they were scanned in and the background erased and placed in a grid ready for print.