The Typeface: Laser Gun Specimen Round I

Laser Gun is inspired by our fascination with western styles and futuristic sci-fi themes. I wanted to develop a typeface that would embody the youth culture of today, using these visual trends to modernize common street brand identities. Street culture is often represented with script, graffiti, and black letter typefaces and while these faces are still relevant to the culture, I believe they are limiting the spectrum of the actual demographic.

Inspiration: All We Ever Wanted

When I saw this video for the first time, it immediately reminded me of my Gertrude Stein project from Type III. The unveiling and layering of small amounts of details to transform meaning and perception. However, I mostly wanted to share this video because I felt it was an interesting blend of both digital and analog production methodology such as how they transition from one scene to another.

Tender Buttons Process - No. 001

After reading Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, I noticed how reading a single poem in its entirety derived an understanding and feeling of the poem. This phenomenon, I believe, is the same effect in observing a Cubist painting. While it is composed of multiple components, viewing it in it's totality rather than focusing on individual instances allows for a greater understanding of the subject matter.

While reading Stein's poems, I noticed a trend in her use of colors with almost human emotions. As I began to notice these colors and emotions, I arranged the poems in a way that told a narrative of the maturing process of ones soul beginning with naiivety. In developing my compositions I wanted to show the maturing process through the balance of type, while emphasizing important words for the story. I began with a balanced lock up to allude to a untainted soul. I then used a tighter lock up to represent the pressures one encounters, then a very loose composition to illustrate confusion of ones identity.

After critique, I now realize that my concept isn't coming through and that I need to figure out a more purposeful system for the typography to express the poem and the concept. I also realized that I might be doing Stein a dishonor to force her poems into a linear narrative, because that's not at all what her poems are about. While I feel my concept is workable it just needs some reworking. I believe it's possible to tell a narrative in a more fragmented, and simultaneous manner. The question I have for myself right now is how can I set up the poems in a way to capture the essence of the evolution of one's soul in a non-linear fashion.

Typographic Exercise: A City On a River

Our first exercise in type three involved creating three typographic compositions using the following body of text as well as setting our name:

born in amsterdam—a city that’s steeped in history, yet prides itself on being quite progressive. a place where open mindedness always trumps convention. a city that doesn’tknow the meaning of status quo. a unique spirit indeed.

After reading page 20 of Bringhurst and the given text, I realized that there was this push and pull in each phrase so I initially began to express each phrase as well as its counter. After a few iterations I decided to simplify my compositions by pulling out the words I felt were most important in summarizing the overall text, which was "born in Amsterdam" and "a unique spirit indeed." While in my simplifications I was focusing on subtlety, during critique it was brought up that it wasn't really expressing the concepts as much as they could. There is this difference in simply saying a phrase and expressing it, which I need to be more attentive to.

Others: