ALPHABET SOUP - VISUAL THINKING

Alphabet soup development 

After collecting a body of research I started developing my letterforms. I narrowed down my reference images and started generating concepts that I did some basic sketches of. I had two main ideas that I wanted to explore further, so started producing some examples. The brief stated that we where to produce a sequence of ten letterforms that explore and communicate the word that I selected. One restriction we were give was that the letterforms had to be hand produced and in black and white.

Firstly, I explored using the font called ‘Mission script’ that was mentioned in my research, I printed off the alphabet in capitals as they are easier to work with than lower case letters. Next, I traced the letterforms ready for adapting them to communicate my word.

I decided that I wanted to experiment with creating letters like the exploding ones by skyrill.com. I first filled in the traced outline of the letter with Indian ink, before the ink dried I blew it forcing the ink to run sporadically everywhere. This was supposed to imitate an explosion associated with a ‘BOOM’ despite achieving this the ink obscured the letter shape hence making it illegible. Therefore, to overcome this problem I re-illustrated the letterform in white.

Above are four example letters that I produced in the exploding style. I believe that the outcome communicates an explosion well, and I am happy with the achieved result. However, I don’t think that these letterforms portray my selected word accurately enough. The immediate meaning of the word ‘BOOM’ is a ‘A loud, deep, resonant sound.’ Therefore I want to further my development and produce a new set of letters.

Firstly, I decided to experiment with using a different typeface, as I believe that ‘Mission script’ did not suit the definition of the word boom very well. Moreover, as I am now experimenting with using sound waves to portray my letterforms I need to use a simpler bold font. Therefore I decided to use ‘Gabo Drive’ as mentioned in my research. I had already sketched some basic concepts of how I would produce the letters so started producing the letters immediately.

Another restriction that was stated in the brief was that the delivered letters had to be in ten by ten centimetre squares, much a like in our summer brief. Before I started producing the type I measured the squares out in my sketchbook and worked straight onto these. I worked in black pen, which enabled me to produce the letters ready for presentation; this technique also enabled me to work at a quick pace. Below is the alphabet I created.  

A - D

E - H

I - L

M - P

Q - T

U - X

Y - Z