Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with input from Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is an extremely popular and iconic type face. We see it numerous times every day, from product logos, to websites, to packaging, and several other things. In this seminar our aim was to take such an iconic type face and cut it up to make something new, deconstructing the font that we see everyday and making it something completely new. We were given several weights and styles of the font to cut up and recreate.
For this task i was inspired by glitch typography. I researched several techniques and styles of this and used them to inspire my work. I used this because i think this style is a really asthetically interesting way of transforming a font into something completely different. These below are some of the things i was inspired by.
These next images are the physical outcomes of my cut up. I really enjoyed physically deconstructing the font. Although if i were to develop this id love to try a digitalise it into a vector image or possibly make it into an animation , i think that would be interesting and it would mean i could learn new and relevant after effects skills, as thats something i want to refine.
This is the style of glitch animation iwould love to make, making Helvetica , which is such a classic font into something very modern, giving it a totally new lease of life.
For this workshop we were asked to create a simple character made with vectors in illustrator. As it was my third workshop i kept the initial illustration quite simple so that i could then spend more time on adding more interesting transitions in After Effects, without the animation becoming too complicated.
I was trying to think of a character that i could possibly created a little story behind in the short ten seconds of the clip. I thought of the idea of creating a robot, i was unsure of a fun way to animate as = it would be quite boring if it just walked up and down and moved its limbs.
I came up with the idea that the could robot begin to break down and malfunction, meaning that i wanted the robots movements to be quite sharp and glitchy. To create this effect i separated the robot into as minimal parts as i could to be able to animate it.
Separated parts of my robot.
My next step was to create a background to go with the context of my story. I kept it quite simple with block colour as i wanted to add some glitch effects to the animation to give the effect that the robot was shutting down.
Initial composition.
Typography experimentations.
I added basic movement to my robot, but thought it was too simple. So i then found an appropriate font that would fit with my theme and created error messages. I liked the layout of this but it was still too simple with the glitch text just sliding on , so after the workshop i researched how get the text to type itself onto the screen, using a youtube tutorial. I was really pleased with the overall effect of such a simple and easy transition, it gave my work that finishing touch. In future projects i will definitely teach myself extra tutorials again, you never know what yu might be able to teach yourself to do to give your work that final touch.
This is the tutorial i used to create the typing effect for the typography.
As many of the physical studios have taught me as a Graphic Designer it is important to have the fundamental skills to help us grow as designers. This work shop is focused on drawing still life was really useful rather than drawing from a photograph. It helped you to notice tiny details of the objects ,focusing on the lines and the curvature of them. It was a good way for my to practise things like perspective drawing allowing me to spend time on getting the scale of the composition right. I experimented with lots of different materials and ways of using them for example , pastels , posca pens and pro markers in which i experimented with gradually building up layers of colour and monotone to create gradients and shade.
I found this workshop really useful and it has helped me to develop my own personal drawing. I have started and small sketchbook that i take with me everywhere in which i draw things in that i see that catch my eye whether its on the bus or whilst I'm on a train or walking on a Sunday afternoon. It has helped me to experiment more with different medias and get more accurate with my scale especially with typography which is what i have been mostly focusing on. I hope this will then build into my university work. These are some examples of my personal observations.
