An explo

rati

on of

shapes and le

tters

Martine Strøm

Playing with shapes

The first task was to play with the given shapes to the left, and make them form letters and words. I had a lot of fun exploring and playing with it, and came up with a lot of things I would say is very different from my typical style and taste. I believe this was healthy for me, to get out of my comfort zone, and it helped me decide how I did and did not want my final font to look. I really enjoyed this project and its room for playfulness.

On this first task I completely let the shapes and look of the individual letters decide the word, maybe I would have gotten dif-ferent results if I decided on the word first? I looked through the fonts I like best, and found some similarities. I like sans-serif fonts, blackletter/gothic, Art Noveau and scripts. I really liked the combination of soft/round and sharp/straight shapes.

Making my own shapes

The second task was to make our own shapes, and then create a new font that included the alphabet in lowercase and uppercase letters. I used only three shapes.

I had fun working with this, and It does not look too bad, but it is so far from what I pictured in my mind. I also had some trouble with the rythm of the letters (as illustrated below), it is

too irregular, which makes it less readable. I called the font HexNut because the shape reminded me of hexnuts, and I think the typeface has a mechanic, sci-fi feel to it.

“Good drawing is the only basis for good lettering” Gerard Huerta. But not always. A designer might consider every dot they commit to paper, which might make their lettering more adept, even if they can’t sketch for beans.” I think this describes my issues well, I’m maybe more of an artist than a typical designer.

HexNut Font

New shapes

rettemage

midt

stroke-end

Schwung-ender

Breddemål

Because I wasn’t very happy with the outcome of the previous font, I decided to keep working and make a new one, more to my liking and personal taste.Something much more organic, but I still wanted to combine that with sharp straight elements. This font took a lot more time and effort, and I had to “cheat” a bitwith the shapes sometimes

to make it work for me. I tried to make each letter look twisted in a way, in some letters more than others.I mixed outlined and filled shapes, to make it more interesting to look at, and to make it stand out from other fonts. I’m really content with the result of this. I will definately work more with this, and perfect it later on.

When it comes to intended use of the font, it is most of all a decorative font.I would not use it as bodycopy text font, as it would lose a lot of detail, and probably would be a bit hard to read. I feel that my font works well for differ-ent expressions. It could be used as a rock/metal band font on CD-covers, post-ers and T-shirts. this is because it has a

Applicationsslightly calligraphic and blackletter feel to it that is often seen in theese environments.

On the other hand It is very feminine, and could work in fashion and life-style magazines, as a fairytale book, or maybe even on wedding invitations.I will keep experimenting witht this font.