Advanced Typography - Task 2A & 2B
27.09.2023 - 18.10.2023 / Week 05 - Week 08
Ilhan Rayan bin Khairul Anwar / 0361205
Advanced Typography / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Project 2A - Key Artwork | Project 2B - Collateral
LECTURES
INSTRUCTIONS
PRACTICAL
Task 2A: Key Artwork
Our projects for this task were split into two segments, Task 2A where we have to create a key artwork / word mark of our name or nickname, and Task 2B where we have to create collaterals using that key artwork. To start off, I started by making a mind map of what I like and created some sketches of what I could do.
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| Figure 1.1: Mind Map, Week 3 (13/09/23) |
After creating a mind map of the different things that I like, I started thinking about which ones I could actually utilise in my design and which ones wouldn't work as well. In the end I decided to draw inspiration from one of my favourite bands Testament, a thrash metal band from America who's logo became my main reference.
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| Figure 1.2: Testament Logo, Week 3 (13/09/23) |
Using this logo as a framework, I designed a word mark similar to it using my own name, some of the features that I wanted to keep from the logo were the crossbar that connected to the first, middle, and last letter as well as the angled serifs on some of the letters that point towards the middle.
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| Figure 1.3: First Sketch Ideas, Week 4 (18/09/23) |
After creating a rough idea of what I imagined my word mark to look like, I also created three additional test word marks based off of a previous student's design where they fit all of the letters in their name into one shape since it was stated that our word mark didn't have to be fully comprehensible. I presented these two design ideas to my lecturer Mr. Vinod and he explained that the first one could work if I design it differently, however the bottom ones don't work that well. After getting feedback form him I took my top design and began recreating it in Illustrator.
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| Figure 1.4: First Digitsed Attempt, Week 4 (20/09/23) |
I started off in Illustrator by creating a rough outline of the word mark using simple shapes, from there I moved onto adding in the additional shapes such as the sharpened serifs as well as angling the legs of the I and L and both the A and N letter towards the center.
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| Figure 1.5: Procreate Cursive Writing, Week 4 (21/09/23) |
While I was working on this, I decided to experiment and came up with another idea for my word mark since they had to represent us as a person so I wrote my name in cursive since that's the form of writing I was taught growing up and it's stuck with me, along with that I wanted to try and create a very curvy word mark since I'm the type of person to "go with the flow."
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| Figure 1.6: Illustrator Outline, Week 5 (25/09/23) |
After exporting it from Procreate and transferring the image to Illustrator, I began tracing out the whole thing by hand into one long shape rather than doing the individual letters. After that I started trimming the word mark and removed any excess points using the pen tool so that it would look smoother.
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| Figure 1.7: Updated Sketch Ideas, Week 5 (26/09/23) |
Once I finished updating my cursive word mark as well as my original word mark, I added both of them into one artboard and exported it for Mr. Vinod to critique, however he had other plans for the class which caused for me to get rid of one of them.
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| Figure 1.8: Printing Document Layout, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
What Mr. Vinod had in mind for the class was for us to take our design and apply it to the layout seen in Figure 1.8 where we had to show our word mark in normal size, in a much smaller size to see if it's still legible as well as on a t-shirt to show how it could be used. After looking going back and forth for a bit between my two designs I decided to stick with my Testament inspired design since I was more familiar with that one. I used a photo of a really buff guy for my model because I thought it'd be funny and I printed this out and presented it to Mr. Vinod for feedback.
His main feedback for me when he reviewed my work was that I needed to make all of the columns the same thickness so that the letters looks more cohesive, along with that he explained that I could trim the off the tips of the sharpened serifs so that they still look pointy but don't have that sharp tip.
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| Figure 1.9: Word Mark Updating Process, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
Another bit of advice he gave me was to create a thin V-shape and have the center of it align with the center of the design, in this case in the middle of the letter H. This would be so that when I angled the letters, they would all have the same angle rather than my eyeballing it and assuming that they're aligned. After making all of those changes, I submitted this as my finalised design for my word mark.
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| Figure 1.10: Word Mark Final Design (JPG), Week 5 (27/09/23) |
Figure 1.11: Word Mark Final Design (PDF), Week 5 (27/09/23)
Task 2B: Collateral
Our second task for Task 2 was to take our word mark and create three collaterals and an animation with the main focus being our word mark. Collaterals refer to things such as T-Shirts, Tote bags, book covers, posters, anything that can utilise our word mark well. We also needed to find a colour palette for our word mark.
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| Figure 2.1: Original Colour Palette, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
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| Figure 2.2: Original Colour Palette w/ Word Mark, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
This was the first colour palette that I decided to use for my word mark as I really liked how the colours looked together and it looked similar to one of Testament's album covers. However during class when Mr. Vinod was coming around to see what we've done he informed me that my colour palette was too monochromatic and wouldn't stand out, what I should look for is a colour palette that has a strong contrast with it. After that I went back and looked for another colour palette which I eventually found.
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| Figure 2.3: New Colour Palette, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
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| Figure 2.4: Colour Palette Test, Week 5 (27/09/23) |
After finding my new colour palette, I did a quick test using my word mark and changed the colours to see how it looked and I liked it. Once I had a colour palette down I moved onto creating my first collateral, at first I was unsure on what to do as I wanted to do designs that suited my logo and the example collateral tote bag wouldn't work with my word mark. After looking at previous student's work I decided to design a concert ticket since one of the previous students made an art exhibition ticket.
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| Figure 2.5: Concert Ticket Reference, Week 6 (3/10/23) |
I was originally going to use one of my own concert tickets as a reference but I realised that all of them have been digital so I didn't have any proper physical reference, because of that I had to google them and find a suitable design that I liked.
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| Figure 2.6: Concert Ticket Collateral, Week 6 (3/10/23) |
Using the ticket that I found as a reference, I designed my first collateral and changed up the words to my liking. I was originally going to use a barcode like the example the past few concert tickets that I've had used a qr code instead so I opted to go for that. Using a site that I found online, I was able to create my own custom qr code in the same colour as the rest of my collateral. Additionally, if you scan the qr code it'll take you to the main page of my portfolio. The photo on the left of the collateral is an image from one of Testament's live concerts that I found online.
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| Figure 2.7: Business Card Template, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
The second collateral that I decided to design was a business card since I felt that my logo would look cool on one and because I don't have my own business card so creating an idea of one made sense to me.
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| Figure 2.8: Business Card Start, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
I decided to first add my word mark onto a blank artboard that I made just so I knew how much space I could use for the design.
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| Figure 2.9: Background Added, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
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| Figure 2.10: Elements Added, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
From there I added in a background colour as seen in Figure 2.9 and then I eventually added in some elements to fill out the rest of the space as seen in Figure 2.10. One of my friends said that my logo reminded them of the Superman logo so I decided to use that as a bit of inspiration for the elements and made a heart-like design for my business card.
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| Figure 2.11: Business Card Back, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
As for the backside of the business card, I didn't really know what to do so I added in my name, email, and phone number in the red text and added in elements around them so that it would look nice and I do like how it eventually turned out.
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| Figure 2.12: T-Shirt Designs, Week 6 (4/10/23) |
After designing my first collateral I decided to return to the t-shirt from earlier and expand upon it to see which colour palette worked the best as a design. I created these four and presented them to my friends and asked for their opinions and most of them stated that the black t-shirt with red text was the best looking one. Once I had all of these done, I moved onto animating my word mark in After Effects, I was told that our animation had to be roughly three seconds long and could be very simple as long as a part of it was animated.
Figure 3.1: First Animation Attempt, Week 7 (10/10/23)
As seen in Figure 3.1, this was my first animation attempt at something simple which garnered laughs from my friends when I presented this to them. After hearing what they had to say, I went back and tried again.
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| Figure 3.2: After Effects Panel Screenshot, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
This time, I decided to have the word mark appear in parts rather than all at once. For the crossbar I created two rectangles and used the position tool to move them to the left and right so it opened up like an elevator. For the main text and sharp serifs, I used the same method where I covered them with a shape and used the position tool to move it down so they would be revealed.
Figure 3.3: Updated Animation, Week 7 (10/10/23)
Once we had our collaterals designed and the digital animation done, we then had to take them and arrange them nicely in an Instagram account we would create for the class. We also had to include a black-and-white photo of ourselves in our Instagram that we could decorate however we wanted.
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| Figure 4.1: Photo of my handsome face, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
I decided to use this photo of myself from 2022 as it is my best looking picture in recent memory.
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| Figure 4.2: Procreate Window, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
Once I had the image selected, I brought it into Procreate, cropped it and used the Gradient Map to turn it black-and-white since I still prefer using this application for my illustrative and editing work.
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| Figure 4.3: Cropped Photo of Me, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
Once I had the black and white portrait of me done, I moved onto creating the layout for my Instagram page. Since Instagram's accounts hold their photos in groups of three, I decided to create a 3x3 grid in a new file for my layout using squares since that's how Instagram's cropping works.
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| Figure 4.4: 3x3 Layout, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
When I was coming up with how to format my page, I realised that some other students created examples of their collaterals being used rather than just presenting the design which made me shift gears and start creating ways to showcase the designs. I went back to procreate and began editing my collaterals to showcase them.
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| Figure 4.5: Business Card Example, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
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| Figure 4.6: Procreate Window, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
Using Procreate's distort tool, I distorted the design and laid it over the stack of business cards and made sure that it fit cleanly. I then repeated the same method on the other business card but with the front side this time. As I'm writing this after finishing everything I'm only now realising that I accidentally mixed up the front and back designs of the business card as they're supposed to be swapped, but I'm a bit too far ahead to solve this issue and it shouldn't be a major problem.
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| Figure 4.7: Business Card Collaterals, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
The next collateral that I would showcase is the T-shirt since that once is pretty simple to do.
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| Figure 4.8: T-Shirt Model, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
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| Figure 4.9: T-Shirt Collateral w/ Word Mark, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
Using this model that I found online, I took the my red word mark and imported it onto the photo. Once I had that done I angled it and curved it slightly so it would look a bit more natural on the model. For the background I decided to use the magic wand to remove it and replace it with the same background colour as the business card so it would look more sleek.
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| Figure 4.10: Concert Ticket Example, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
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| Figure 4.11: Concert Ticket Collateral, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
Next I decided to do the ticket and this one was quite tricky as I had to figure out how to place the ticket underneath the hands so that it would look nice. What I decided to do was to use the pen tool and essentially trace around each of the hands before copying them into a new layer that's just the hand. From there I was able to edit in my ticket so that it would fit nicely.
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| Figure 4.12: Layout, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
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| Figure 4.13: Instagram Screenshot, Week 7 (10/10/23) |
When I presented the screenshot of my page to Mr. Vinod, he explained that the four names are a bit repetitive and that there wasn't much exploration, however the layout was good. Along with that I had to also include my animated word mark. After some thinking, I knew I had to remove two of the word marks so that there was less repetition as well as include my animated work mark which left one more open spot.
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| Figure 5.1: 3x3 Updated Layout, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
After looking at some of the collaterals from other students to see what they came up with I decided to use my word mark on an album cover since that fit with the theme I currently had with my collaterals.
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| Figure 5.2: Testament Records + Album Cover, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
I decided to use one of Testament's covers since I had already taken a lot of inspiration from the band, plus I knew I would have to use records instead of CDs due to the hole in the middle with CDs.
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| Figure 5.3: Word Mark Collateral Cover, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
I decided to use the same photo that I used for my ticket as the cover for my album collateral for simplicity and because it's a good photo of the band. I was originally going to have my word mark be at the top but it covered Chuck Billy's (singer) face so I decided to have it in the middle so that it would frame Alex Skolnick and Steve DiGiorgio nicely.
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| Figure 5.4: Word Mark Circle Design, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
For the circular designs on the records, I made a quick circular version of my word marks using the black and red colour versions since they would look nicer. Once I had them ready I exported them as PNGs and imported them onto Procreate where I would distort them and the album cover onto the original image from Figure 5.2.
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| Figure 5.5: Album Cover & Record Collateral, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
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| Figure 5.6: Updated 3x3 Layout, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
Once I had my new layout ready, I deleted all of the posts from my old layout and started uploading my new layout onto my account.
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| Figure 5.7: Updated Instagram Screenshot, Week 7 (11/10/23) |
Instagram Page Link (Click Here)
FINAL Task 2B: Collaterals
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| Figure 6.1: Collateral Colour Palette Final JPG, Week 8 (17/11/23) |
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| Figure 6.2: Business Card Collateral Final JPG, Week 8 (17/11/23) |
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| Figure 6.3: Concert Ticket Collateral Final JPG, Week 8 (17/11/23) |
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Figure 6.4: Album Cover & Records Collateral Final JPG, Week 8 (17/11/23)
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| Figure 6.6: Animated Word Mark Final GIF, Week 8 (17/11/23) |
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| Figure 6.7: Instagram Page Final Screenshot JPG, Week 8 (17/11/23) |
Figure 6.8: Collateral PDFs Compilation, Week 8 (17/11/23)
FEEDBACK
Week 5
General Feedback: No Feedback
Specific Feedback: The design is well done however there are small changes that can be done to make it better, the first being to increase the thickness of the letters and reduce the distance between them so that there isn’t too much white space. The second design that you could do is to snip off the pointed ends of the letters and make it a flat bit rather than a point while still keeping the sharp looking aesthetic. Another thing I can do to improve is to create a guideline for the bottom parts of my letters so that they are more aligned with each other rather than guessing their placement. The diagonal line in the A should be the same thickness as the other lines for consistency. The two pointed bits at the bottom of the H are uneven.
Week 6
General Feedback: Slapping on the word mark onto something is the bare minimum. The colour scheme shouldn’t be monochromatic, one of the colours should stand out from the others that also compliment the others.
Specific Feedback: The blue colour palette is too monochromatic.
Week 7
General Feedback: The way we present ourselves needs to be equally creative as well. We need to include our word mark animation. A tight identity allows for the view to feel the colour scheme and identity of the designer.
Specific Feedback: Well situated however the four names are a bit repetitive, because of that there’s too much emphasis on the word mark / key artwork and there’s no expansion of it.
Week 8
Independent Learning Week
REFLECTION
Experience
I had quite a bit of fun with this Task as it allowed for me to be more creative how I presented myself as I had never given much thought into how I could present myself in text. I enjoyed taking aspects of what represents me and being able to apply into my work, especially when it came to the collaterals as I tried to create pieces that made sense with my key artwork / word mark and suited the theme well since I based the design off of my favourite band.
Observation
I found coming up with a solid design for my key artwork / word mark to be the most difficult as I kept on coming up with different ways I could have presented myself through my name. While some ideas were better than others, I noticed that I always seemed to stick with my first creation which usually ends up as my best design.
Findings
During my creation process I realised that when it comes to my design I like to have a sense of simplicity with how it's shaped while still standing out if that makes sense. Overall I really enjoyed this task, while it was a lot of work to do we were given enough time to develop our ideas and refine them to a satisfiable point. I'm finding the amount of freedom we've been given for this module to be a key factor in making me enjoy it a lot more when compared to Typography as we're allowed to branch out and experiment more whereas with Typography I felt restricted on what I could and couldn't do.
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| Phil Cleaver's Lecture Poster |
During Week 6 of our semester, Mr. Vinod encouraged us to attend this lecture hosted by Professor Phil Cleaver where he explained to us his history with Typography and how we can improve our own work by following some pieces of advice he gave us. One of which was to always add a bit of yourself or a bit of humour to your work to make it feel more alive and relatable.
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