Our first brief was to develop a new character for a pre-existing typeface of our choice. The character should represent a pre-identified problem, for example a common saying or phrase. To begin exploring our brief my initial ideas turned to my phone, I began to write out some of the most common phrases which I use personally when messaging, I also looked into the most used phrases in the English language using online resources.From this selection our choices were narrowed down to ‘What are you doing?’, ‘I’m late’ and ‘I don’t know’.
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| Initial Ideas Mindmap |
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| Initial Sketches and Initial Digital Development |
Our
first digital experiments saw us further experiment with different variations
of the letters structures involved, this further re-affirmed that we should be
using uppercase to exemplify the need for clarity in a ligature. Our developments
of the ligature consisted of the design below, we began with the idea of using
serif fonts, this adds an element of sophistication to the ligature in terms of
usability if it was used in literature but we decided that a sans-serif would
be more appropriate for the context in which the ligature would be used i.e.
text talk. In our further digital experiments we experimented with placement of the letterforms, and the use of a differentiating factor to represent the ligature in italic; this is something the ampersand takes on, yet the whole design changes rather than just one small element.
The third design is the design we choose to present to
our group, as it realises the brief in the most concise way. It successfully
represents a existing phrase that is used on a daily basis. The typeface
we had chosen offers clarity and simplicity, meaning the focus is not taken
away from the meaning of the ligature to the design; this also means it would
be most widely understood. The basic structure of our ligature features the
strong stem of the ‘I’ complimented by the smooth curve of the ‘D’ which was
made smaller for visibility reason, meaning people could differentiate between
the ‘I’ and the ‘D’ if the letterforms were the same size the letter would
simply show a ‘D’. The ‘K’ has been made the same height as the ‘I’ stem this
gives the look of the ligature a sense of symmetry for design reasons, it also
means the uppercase ‘K’ is resembled in the ligature; once more depicting its
meaning to the audience. We decided on typeface we should use to develop the ligature should be Calibri due to its basic nature and the fact that it is the default for Microsoft Word, which is the worlds most popular word processing program, meaning if it was developed it would most likely appear in this typeface. The use of Calibri also consolidates the simplicity factor shown throughout which features the design decisions previously mentioned, this could also be interpreted into any sans-serif humanistic typeface, such as Helvetica.
After our crit's we found that our choice of design was successful as people enjoyed the simplicity element due to the fact that it keeps the focus on the meaning of the ligature itself. It was also discussed that the use of the letterform in its most basic form was useful in an visual manner as it was evident there were three separate letterforms used but its ties in as one; something which we were keen on portraying, as it is the requirement of any ligature. The crit group mentioned how they would like to see the ligature used in context as it would be an easier way of seeing how it could be incorporated into everyday life situations. It was also mentioned that they would like to see a mix of lower and uppercase letter forms with in the one ligature to reaffirm the difference in letters used.
Overall, I believe our ligature was successful in terms of meeting the brief; yet saying such I would have also liked to experiment more with line and consideration of how the ligature could be used as a hand drawn character.
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