Drawing 5 - Constructing Alphabets

This session involved looking further into typography by producing three different rough sketches of typefaces. we would then choose to finalise one of these ideas and produced a refined version of the typography for our final typography session. i enjoyed this task as it allowed me to produce some quick fire typography ideas. this session allowed my mind to work fast and draw freely as the sketches only had to be rough. I made sure the designs i produced were very different styles so i had lots of variation to work with.

 My first rough typeface was very circular based. i wanted to keep all lettering within a 3x3 gridded circle to retain the style. I enjoyed creating this font as it was very different to conventional typefaces. one thing that i struggled with was creating this type quickly producing each letter , this proved to be fairly difficult and took quite long to create. i particularly struggled with getting each part of the circle equally spaced to retain the shapes consistency therefore i will most likely not be continuing with this font style.

 This typeface is a more simplistic Sans serif style , my aim was to not connect any of the parts of the type and use only straight lines and curves to create a sleek looking layout. This type reminds me of something that is stencil based and could be spray painted onto a wall. this font was a lot easier to produce than previous typefaces and i feel that it could be adapted into becoming quite a consistent lettering style.

This is my final typeface that i produced for the quick sketches , i wanted to try a more cartoon style typeface. this font gives off a muddy/slime feel to it , i added lines that made the text look as if it was melting in places. i feel like i will take this font into the final stages as i get the feeling that it could be adapted to different pieces and made into a more refined typeface. when creating it in final form i do need to retain letter sizing and a more consistent build in order to give it its best effect.

this task allowed me to work freely , under no pressure and really get a feel for type design. this was key as been new to type i needed time to get inspiration and explore possibilities. one thing i would like to do is take my type digital and start to play around with it as a vector image.

After Effects 5 - 3D Type

This session was a further development from the last session that looked at a specific typeface. The session began with a video to give us inspiration for our pieces that we were to create. The video 'BBC Today - Stephen Hawing' shows how the camera can be used in after effects to give a sense of motion and atmosphere to the animation. In the Stephen Hawking sequence the camera travels through different words and phrases while also taking us on a journey through , what it looks like , a blackboard full of work.

 

For my own piece i decided to use lyrics from The Smiths song : Still Ill. I didn't try create a specific atmosphere for my own piece as i wanted to focus my attention on learning the new skills with the 3D camera. Before finalising my design it had a very messy feel , i couldn't get my text to align in the final frame due to the camera pacing through the text too quickly. I solved this problem by working backwards and arranging the text before adding the 3D effect.

I felt that the alternative above view came in very handy when creating the animation as you could see the exact motion path of the text as it moved throughout the text. The camera tool came with a series of transformations just like shapes and vectors do. These included options such as Depth of Field , Positioning and zoom.

My own animation consists of the camera moving backwards through the text , i used a depth of field to create an atmosphere when the text passed close over the camera. I used different weights of text to draw attention to specific words. I added the flip transformation to the word 'Mine' to draw attention to it. My favourite part about the animation is how it all sets in to one neatly arranged grid.

If i was to improve this animation i would add a background with a texture as it would add add more of a feel to the animation due to it been basic colours such as black and white. I feel that a photographic or textured background would work effectively , preferably one that would relate to the song.