Alphabet Soup 2

For this project, we have to design a typeface for a full alphabet and glyphs that represents the character of our partner. Everyone was put into pairs by the "ramdomiser" and I was paired up with Sophie Herring. We were given a set of questions taken out of the Guardian's Q&A section and used them to intrvie wour partnet.

I also asked Sophie a few more questions that were more directly about her personality and character and along with the answers from the interview i started brain storming.
With some of the answers it was quite difficult to visualise them so I chose to concentrate on those aspects of Sophie's personality that I could visualise as an image.

The four words that I used to base this typeface on were playful, subtle, patterns and time. And the time that my new typeface will orginate from is Bell Gothic Std

I also looked at some playful typefaces that I may want the style of my newly developed typeface to be similar to.



After some research ont the already existing typefaces and imageries associated to Sophie's characteristics and likes (time travelling, patterns, etc.) I started drawing and experimenting wiht combining those imageries to a tpye.



I decided that I didnt want my type to be image based but more like an actual letter. So I started to work from the original type and modify it into my own rather than the other way round.


At this point I decided to go with the striped type which works around the typeface, Bell Gothic. The stripes on these letterforms represent quite a few characteristics of Sophie ( patterns, stripes, zebra prints and a time warp for time travel), but mostly the classic image of a time warp that you can see in old films about time travelling. I also really liked the rope-like texture that the type has, that can also relate to piracy and it makes the shape of the letterforms more interesting and playful.

Before finalising my idea I went back to the playful typefaces I first looked at and used them to helpo me create the serifs for my typeface. I think by adding the serifs it makes the letterforms less formal and more friendly.
I decided to go witht he serifs i drew down as they symbolise a ships sail for pirates. I also thought about adding a siluette like drawing onto the letterforms to symbolise the worn out flags you associate pirates with.


At this point the final design for my typeface is almost finished, there are only a few more alterations that I still have to consider.