P3 Exercises
Illustration
2019
Individual Project
Exercise 1
For this exercise I traced the same letters in different typefaces using a thin sharpie on tracing paper. I learned more about different weights, serif vs sans serif, and how different letters possess different elements of the typeface family.
Exercise 2
In this exercise, I chose typefaces to communicate the feelings associated with three different words. The words that I chose were:
- melancholy
- relaxation
- rebellion
Melancholy
I associate this word with unwarranted sadness. What was the cause of this sad feeling? Who knows. I also wanted to express apathy though this font. The first font family that I chose was PT Mono, and I felt that each letter by itself seemed a little sad. Because of the rather wide serifs on the bottoms of the letters, it felt like each letter was sitting down to have a deep thoughts session. I also increased the horizontal spacing between the letters, because if the letters are too close together, they can keep each other company and be friendly, but if the letters have some space, they feel more alone.
In my next iteration, I decided to change the typeface, because I felt that the first one did not convey enough sadness. I changed it to Khmer MN, as it is sans serif. Without the serifs, the individual letters no longer appeared to be reaching out to each other, looking for a friend.
Relaxation
I wanted the letters of this word to seem easygoing: serif seemed a little to serious, so I opted for a sans serif family, Avenir Next. I chose the Ultra Light weight to show letters that were less solid and hardworking. The letters could also have some more spacing between them, thus each letter had room to spread out and breathe.
It still seemed like the letters were taking things too seriously, so I made each letter flatter by scaling them down to around 80%. I increased the spacing even more, and made the font size slightly smaller so that the entire word could have some more space on the canvas.
Rebellion
I wanted to have some movement between the letters for rebellion. The letters don’t want to stay in a nice orderly baseline: one of them might rise up and defy the rules. The “N” that did this is actually a “Z”! (I later realized that changing the positions of the letters in this manners was not part of the exercise guidelines)
For my next iteration, I realized that I could still express rebellion through the typeface itself. The serifs on the font family Trajan Pro make the word seem very strong, and the thickness of the bold typeface (but narrower serifs) make it seem like the walls of each letter are pushing outward and being strong in that manner. I made the letters stick rather close to each other because there is strength when the letters come together to form a cohesive rebellion. The letters are capitalized because there is no smaller weakling in this band of rebels — they are all bold and stand sturdy on their stable serifs.
Exercise 3
