Alphabet Soup – Self Evaluation

Alphabet Soup – Self Evaluation

Design Thoughts

The first ideas that I had when presented with the word ‘compact’ were of a short and dense type form with little detail.

How I approached the task

I approached the task by looking deeper into the meaning of the word. Looking up the word in the dictionary presented me with a variety of different possible outcomes. The key words/elements that I identified were; small, dense, solid, firm, thickened, shortened and reduced in volume, area, length or scale. From that point I explored each of the key elements, again looking into the meaning and dictionary definition for a wider range of ideas. Once I had looked into the definition and meaning of these word I tried to research some existing ‘compact’ typefaces and styles. From here I proceeded to produce my typeface.

Process

Once all the research and investigation had been done I printed some existing fonts, Arial and Helvetica, in various different letters. I used these letter forms as the basis for my own designs. First of all I traced over the existing letters and from there I modified, changed and manipulated the forms and shapes to create my own. I used the letter ‘A’ to try my ideas out on. I came up with seven different possibilities, each a slight variation of the fundamental form of the letter ‘A’. As I worked through the seven different possibilities the design ideas became more compressed, more compact. The reason there I only came up with seven ideas was because I thought the seventh design I came up with displayed ‘compact’ well. I then produced all 10 letters in a similar form, redrawing them on graph paper and filling in the space to create a denser letter.

What worked?

The ideas that I believe worked well were the ideas that were simple, short, thick and with limited detail. The right amount of detail meant the letter looked very compact yet it was still distinguishable as the letter it was supposed to be.

What did not work?

The ideas that did not work were the ones that were too tall, too thin or had too much detail. The full letter form simplified down was too tall to look compact, ideas that were too thin similarly did not look compact and if the letter had a large amount of detail it just looked like a smaller version of the original typeface. Another element that did not work very well was the curved letters as they could not be as structural or as accurate as the straight edged letters.