One of the directions I thought I could go in with my research was looking at what defines a city and the textures and surfaces that make them up. This was because, after talking to Mo, I really got the sense that growing up in a big city like London shaped him as a person.
Something that really stood out to me as I started to examine the aesthetics of a city was the way everything is ordered and logical, or at least thought about in some way. everything you see in the city has been filtered through numerous peoples minds before it gets to you. For example, the planners, designers and and builders of all the architecture. This ordered thought process comes through to the look of things, like in the pavement shown above in the interlocking pattern created by the stones to make maximum use of the stone and the area that needs to be covered. I could take this on to a typographic concept buy looking at taking on the idea of something constructed or fitted together with thought as to the space around it.
Something else is the functionality of many of the aspects of the city, the way that everything is there for a reason. I could apply this to a my font by looking at the parts of the letter that allow it to be read and remove all other parts.
Another thing is the way that interlocking shapes make up the majority of all surfaces, everything is always made up of smaller parts not only in the way that is shown in the image above, but also in the way that as time passes new things are added to old as buildings are expanded and roads are resurfaced. This could be taken on to type by creating letters from smaller elements or even finding a way to create an impression of the letters interlocking with one another. this concept also ties in perfectly with the very social aspects of Mo.
The use and wear and tear of the surroundings in the city is also possibly something I could draw on, damaging or degrading the letters like some of the materials of the city. like the stained stone above, rusted metal or even worn away road markings which are shown in the two pictures below. However, I would have to be careful with this concept because it is quite far removed from my intended subject matter and when looked at by someone else could fail completely to fulfill the brief which is to communicate something about Mo. Instead people may assume that he is damaged and dirty in some way and this is not what I wanted to communicate.
The textures of the materials used to make a city could also be a wealth of inspiration. I could look into weathering and folding paper to create an impression of this fractures brick work. This may seem a bit obvious however, so I could look instead into the idea of the brick wall representing Mo, in the way that everyone in his life has formed a small part of him. I think this could work really well because it would communicate the way he feels friends and family are the most important thing and that they made him who he is. I could apply this to typography by fitting each letter into a block like shape and adjust the kerning and line spacing so that when the font was used for a large body text it would resemble a brick wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment