typography II

I was very excited to get the chance to work on the bio box. My partner for the project was Amy Clackner; I had to design a box for her and she and she had to design a box for me. The challenge was to design a box using images and type that accurately depicted or told a story about my partner. Amy gave me a text and two images, one of a lake and one of a sailboat. The lake represented her hometown–she grew up by a lake, and the sailboat is the sign or symbol of her sorority–which was the main subject of her story/text. The text Amy wrote for me read:

Growing up I was always very quiet and shy. I would get letters home from teachers saying I was too quiet and needed to talk more. I was always afraid of getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing. Being shy eventually became a quality that I have always had. Coming to college I realized that being shy is not something that will make the time here enjoyable. I started to be more outgoing and make friends with the people I saw everyday.

One of my new friends came to us one night and told us she wanted to join a sorority. Having no knowledge or interest in sororities we all agreed to go with her to join one. This is when I truly realized being shy was not an option any more. During the week of trying to get into a sorority I had so many conversations with so many people I was really making the effort to be outgoing.

At the end of the week my friends and I found out we were all offered a membership to the same sorority. Everyone was very excited, including me, not know how much this would impact my life.

Every semester since then came new events, new people, and new challenges. Although the first few semesters I was still quiet and didn’t really want to be as involved with things as holding important positions as other girls were. I started with small positions like making and maintaining the website. As the semesters went on I took on more responsibilities just in pure interest of doing the job at hand, with no intentions of making any impact on the sorority or other girls.

I eventually because in charge of our philanthropy. This is the cause we choose to donate money to, ours is called the Robbie Page Memorial fund. It provides funds to hospitals to allow the integration of child play therapy which aids in the hospitalization of very sick children. I started out doing small fundraisers like bake sales and selling sunglasses in the summer. Little did I know this would turn into so much more.

Last November I teamed up with another girl and we decided to do a tricky tray to raise money for our philanthropy. We started working and planning in September, not giving us much time. With full days and no sleep we were able to pull an amazing event together. We had 106 items and baskets to raffle off, all with $100+ value, 500 people in attendance, and did it all with a $400 budget. I stood on stage and spoke about the event and why it was so important to us and how grateful we were for everyone to participate in our fundraising. I spoke with no problem, all the shy qualities I had had left and I knew that I was going to do so much more after this. At the end of the night we counted all the money raised and we had made $10,000 in one night. That is the most our sorority has every made for our philanthropy in the history of us being at Montclair. We were beyond proud to have pulled the event together.

Later that month we had officer elections. It was time for a new president, vice president, treasurer, etc. Never had I thought to even run for a position let alone get one. After the tricky tray I was encouraged by our president to apply for the positions and s

I liked how the text she gave me told a story. From the text I was reminded a lot of coming-of-age stories or movies about main characters who are able to discover or find themselves. Coming-of-age or discovery of self was the concept or theme I wanted to base my design off of. Early on in the design process I sketches different ways to use create hierarchy and groups with type.

I realized sketching was not the best way to see how the type interacted with the form, so I created a life-size mockup of my general idea/concept. I was not sure how to use the images in the overall design, but I thought it might be interesting to repeat the sailboat in various sizes to represent Amy’s confidence and accomplishments. By the end of the story Amy’s tone sounded as if she could fly away, so I thought perhaps I could use the boats to communicate the story.

After creating the sketch mockup I moved the design into inDesign and began designing compositions with the type and images on the first and second panels.

Finding the balance between type and imagery was probably the most difficult part of the project, finding ways for the type to flow from one panel to another, and making sure the composition didn’t get too busy–these were all problems I ran into during the design process.

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In the motion type specimen I wanted to show how the typeface was a digitized low-resolution typeface, but also at the same time calligraphic.

I had a few ideas for a motion video, one idea was to show the letters in the typeface by having each letter written out as if it were being handwritten. Another idea was to show some of the pixels or cubes flying through the video as if they were leaves; the idea connected to the typeface’s name ‘foli’ which is the latin route of the word foliage. I named the typeface after some of the organic shapes and forms in the letterforms that resembled leaves.

Another idea I had was to show the typeface being used in a poem or text to show that the typeface was practical and useful texts, readings, and excerpts. The idea was a little ambitious because the video had to be 8 seconds, and was still a beginner in after effects.

I wanted to show the typeface in context; how it can be used as a typeface for reading text. After moving the sketches into After effects I realized that 8 seconds is not that long and admittedly settled with a simplified version of the idea for my final submission.

For ADV GD II I wanted to push the video further with a new idea I had. I made the video 18 seconds and changed it so that it was a little more exciting. I wanted to communicate that the typeface was both calligraphic but also digital (pixelated), so I showed the typeface name ‘foli’ being written out as if it were calligraphy. After the word is written, the letter forms and shapes turn into pixels and blow off the screen. I thought that this short video showed how the typeface is both organic/digital, calligraphic/geometric; a delicate balance between two contrasting ideas or concepts.