Studio Brief: 'Alphabet Soup-Typeface' Crits Feedback and Self Evaluation

Halfway Brief 'Power' Crit:

The 'Alphabet Soup- Typeface' brief was our first 2 week long brief therefore it was seen fitting to have a 'power' brief halfway through the project. Within the group, we were discussing what we were doing, seeing what feedback we could get and where we should go from there.

I discussed the research I had done on the 'Adobe Caslon Pro' typeface, the initial ideas I had produced from initial research I had collected about my partner and the development of these ideas to choose 1 final outcome to focus on.

Within the Crit, I was told that my amount of work conducted was impressive and that I had been thorough with my approach to producing the typeface. I had mentioned that I was stuck on what  outcome to focus on between 3 of them and it was decided amongst us that I was to choose the 'Intricacy/Detail' theme as that was most reminiscent of my partner, therefore it answers the brief more successfully.

From this 'Power' Crit, I am going to do these 3 things;

1. Produce an alphabet for the theme of 'Intricacy/Detail' in order to see how successful it will be
2. Produce an array of different letterforms to explore different thicknesses and appearances for how   I could produce this alphabet.
3. Produce some research into the way other designers have gone about producing Intricacy/Detail within thier own typefaces

End Brief Group Crit:

At the end of the brief, we had to present our posters alongside our partner to a group of 14 other members of our year, discussing why we had made the design decisions we did and how they refelct our partner. From this, we were to get feedback on how we could improve our typeface and what other people thought of our work.

Within my Crit, I explained my personality and prefered style choices of Danielle's that I based my type on, the choice of capital letters with slightly faint lines and the reasons behind the aesthetic appearance of the overall type.

In regards to Feedback, I was told that it was quite ornate and decorative and that it was different that I had focused more on making the typeface to suit the person rather than making a typeface that suits my own working style. it was liked that the letterforms were quite subtle and that my reasons had justification on the communication aspect of the work.

Based on the Crit, if I was to improve on my type, from my own personal point of view, I would probably make a large version of the typeface so that I could have larger letters and thicker lines as it looks great close up but when I was sat far away, the detail was alot less noticable. It was still obvious it had been manipulated but it was difficult to see the intricacies themselves.


Self-Evaluation:

How did you approach the brief? -I was very excited about the idea of producing a new typeface so I was quite enthusiastic about it. I approached the brief with the outlook that I was going to make this an idea- led brief and that I wanted to do alot of drawing. Also, I took the approaach that the communication was the most key- regardless of what I like to produce, the most important thing was what my partner liked.

What was your thought-process behind the brief? - The main thing I did was research into the typeface and then took my time drawing out ideas (initial ideas, development of ideas, typeface development) as that would be the most integral process as to whether my typeface would work. If I didn't have it thoroughly tested then it might not have worked.

What worked?/What was Good? - The overall alphabet was very successful and worked as individual letterforms as well as when put together to form the Name Tag. Not just that but in terms of translation of legibility on different scales and the investigation into different aesthetics of the typeface as I think I did alot of development on that aspect of my project.

What didn't work?/ What was Bad? -. Alot of the intial ideas, even though they could be justified, were quite weak and 'throw away' and the same could be said for the development of the intail ideas, however, if I didn't try out different ideas then I don't think it will have been as successful.

What would you change?- To improve on this brief, I think I would try and make the letterforms more ornate and detailed. I think I would put more research into some more traditional typography styles as well as then I could have seen some other approaches to producing an ornate, detailled alphabet.