Black Letter Experiments as Signs

We were so brief to experiment in creating blackletter inspired symbols which should be taken as subjective, made from the blackletter experiments we had previously done. It should have five visual characteristics being sharp straight angular lines, high contrast between stroke widths, compression of letterforms, sharpen and ornamental terminals, and sharing adjoining strokes between letterforms.

Emergency Exit

 The first designers decided to create was for an emergency exit. I believe this communicates emergency exit of the arrows pointing towards the route that should be taken towards the exit. Although not traditionally black letter the gaps within the curve and depth of the sense of panic and miscommunication serving the purpose of emergency subjective manner. Believe this is reiterated to the use of red, the colour of change in panic, it is eye-catching and will alert the audience quickly and concisely which direction they should go.

Parking

To represent parking, I have chosen this part of my black letter experiments to represent parking it is representative of black letter due to the contrast between the thin and thick lines. I believe this shows parking due to the shape resembling a ‘P’, the thick and thin lines also resemble a birds eye view of the path a car would take when putting a car into a space. Although when asking people they had different thoughts on what letter the shape looked like, this is where an element of subjectivity comes into play.

Keep to One Side Stairway

My symbol is representative of keep to one side on a stairway as it shows the direction the audience should be taking depending on their desired location, this is shown through the use of arrows as well as a thin line coming off the main thicker base. It is easily interpretable, and recognisable once put into context. Due to the use of symmetry it creates pictogram like image if I further developed the image I would vectorise it and work on creating different variations.

Arrows Variations

These arrows are variations of different elements that I created in my book using the ink, I cut them up and rearranged them multiple times, these are evident to what they mean due to their style being what people are used to seeing. Although depending on the material they are printed in they could be seen as subjective as its not obvious because of the amount of arms there are coming off the main stem of the pictogram.