Alan Fletcher...

Alan Fletcher is a British graphic designer who has influenced thousands of other designers. HE presents simple typography on a plain background in a witty and thought-provoking manner, to show that good art didn't have to be over complicated but if it can be delivered simply and effectively without being bored, then it is a success.

Alex Trochut...

A graphic designer from barcelona, he is one of my typography/illustration idols, his work is just so mesmerizing, as his work doesn't really focus a on 1 style, its much more experimental, expressive and the exploration in each of his projects makes his work very unique and different. His lettering work is just amazing.

You can see more of Alex Trochuts work at http://www.alextrochut.com/

Mendel's Law of segregation | Gene Transmission

Genes are located in chromosomes and consist of DNA and so are passed from parents to their offspring through reproduction.

Mendel worked with pea plants and selected seven traits to study that each occurred in two different forms. One of those traits were pod colour, as some pea plants are green and others yellow and since pea plants can self fertilize, Mendel was able to produce true-breading(a yellow pod plant would only produce yellow pod offspring) plants. Mendel's experimentation lead him to discover what would happen if he were to crossed a true-breeding yellow pod plant with a true breeding green pod plant. He referred to the parental plants as the P generation, and the offspring were called the F1 generation.

After Mendel cross-pollinated the true breeding green and yellow pods, the offspring (F1 generation) were green. Then Mendel let the F1 plants self pollinate and these offspring were named the F2 generation. The results came out to be that about 3/4 of the offspring of the F2 generation were green and the 1/4 yellow. These experiments let Mendel come up with his law of segregation.

This law of segregation puts across that allele pairs separate during gamete formation and randomly unite at fertilization. This ides leaves different concepts like 1, there are alternative forms of genes which means that a gene can exist in more than one form. 2, when sex cells are produced allele pairs segregate, which leaves them with a single allele for each trait. Also, when two allele pairs are different one is dominant and the other is recessive, like shown in the illustrated picture above.

Font Idea | 'Mom + Dad = Me'

The basic idea of my font is to represent an offspring of 2 individual fonts, and that offspring has received traits from the 'Mum and Dad' font, like its observable traits, for example the way the serifs look and the height and weight of the font. I will be creating the parent fonts as well as the offspring font... hopefully what I'm trying to explain here doesn't confuse people so far. Earlier, I was also thinking this could give me a chance to look at how as well as body features, diseases are passed on by genes too and I could maybe incorporate that somehow in the font too, for example, I could have some sort of imagery on a letter representing something like heart disease or genetic abnormality.

Mendel's Laws of Heredity |

Written by Gregor Mendel in 1865, Mendel discovered that when you cross two different coloured plants, you don't get a blend of the two but instead the offspring is conceived with dominant factors like the colour, and recessive factors like its characteristics.

These 'factors' are our genes, though they occur in pairs in body cells, but segregate during the formation of sex cells and each member of the pair becomes part of the separate sex cell. The dominant gene hides the recessive gene. Mendel theorized that genes can be paired in three different ways for each trait: AA, aa and Aa( The capital 'A' represents the dominant gene and the lower case 'a' the recessive gene).

-'Mendel stated that each individual has two factors for each trait, one from each parent. The two factors may or may not contain the same information. If the two factors are identical, the individual is called homozygous for the trait. If the two factors have different information, the individual is called heterozygous. The alternative forms of a factor are called alleles. The genotype of an individual is made up of the many alleles it possesses. An individual's physical appearance, or phenotype, is determined by its alleles as well as by its environment. An individual possesses two alleles for each trait; one allele is given by the female parent and the other by the male parent. They are passed on when an individual matures and produces gametes: egg and sperm. When gametes form, the paired alleles separate randomly so that each gamete receives a copy of one of the two alleles. The presence of an allele doesn't promise that the trait will be expressed in the individual that possesses it. In heterozygous individuals the only allele that is expressed is the dominant. The recessive allele is present but its expression is hidden.'-

___________

This is sure to come in handy later for naming my font:

'In fertilization and breeding experiments (and especially when discussing Mendel's laws) the parents are referred to as the "P" generation and the offspring as the "F1" (first filial) generation. When the F1 offspring mate with each other, the offspring are called the "F2" (second filial) generation. One of the common diagrams used to predict the result of cross-breeding is the Punnett square.'

26 Types of Animals

I'm not sure if this is relevant to my project or not, but I found this great project done by one of my many admired typographic artists, Jeremy Pettis. The aim of this project was so that people will be more aware of typography, since a person's relationship with a word only lasts milliseconds or seconds depending on how complex or long the word is. Pettis chose the subject of animals, as we are comfortable and familiar with that since we were kids and have leanred all about animals, their name, shape, attitude and habitat.

You can view the rest of the alphabets here. What's also interesting is that Pettis shows his progress with each letter, so his thought process is very clear and each decision is explained in detail.

Typography Art by Oded Ezer...

Oded Ezer | Typosexual

This extraordinary typographer breaches the boundaries of typography through juxtaposing it with art and science. Ezer writes his own rules as an experimentalist with works of letters transformed into bizarre and mesmerizing shapes and designs from insects to cloned human sperm cells injected with typographic information into its DNA.

| Picture above showing Ezer's bizarre Typosperma |

Working from his studio in Israel, Ezer attempts to explore new fields as a pioneer for typography in a similar manner as graffiti and street artists are carving their way as a mainstream form of art and communication, with the world as an audience.

Ezer became obsessed with typoplastic surgeries and its possibilities, so he literally started attaching letters to his body and face. Another amazing concepts to hit typography is Ezer's Typosperma creation. Using biotechnological methods, Ezer creates a form of new transgenic living creatures which are half-human sperm and half-letter by implanting typographic information into the DNA of cloned sperm cells.

The Finger by Oded Ezer

Frank | The Font

I was researching the net for typographic artists, but instead I found this font, that sort of shows what I wanted to achieve for my FMP. It is the closest thing I have found that matches my thoughts for my FMP.

'What would you get if a blackletter font and a sans serif font made a little baby bastard font? Frank is what you'd get!'. Frank is a grotesque blackletter font from Gestalten. It's the weird kid in class but it has character.

Designer | Anton Studer and released in December 2008.

More about Frank

Research | Just the beginning

I had a look around and found a couple of useful books and articles on the human genetics.

Books |

- Human Heredity: Principles and Issues | Michael Cummings

This book tackled the topic of how biotechnology is changing the way we look at the world today. Through the creation of transgenic organisms and the way that we look at ourselves with new genetic testing procedures and human genomics. In chapter 13, the books goes on showcase the recent developments in the field of genetic technology completion of the human genome. What's interesting is that Cummings incorporates this newly found knowledge and the resulting modern methods and technology.

- Forensic DNA Typing: Biology, Technology and Genetics | John M.. Butler

DNA typing is the modern, widely known method through which scientists in a court can use DNA samples like a fingerprint to catch a criminal or find a child's father. The book has lots of information about DNA typing and the issues connected with the technology. After having a look at the few relevant chapters in the book, it helped me understand modern DNA testing and the ways in which it has transformed criminal justice systems around the world.

- Genomes | T. A. Brown

After reading a section from this book about sequencing genomes, it helped me to understand a lot about genomes. Like distinguishing between the two methods used to sequence DNA, Chain termination method and the chemical degradation method. Features of automated DNA sequencing and the whole genome shotgun approach to genome sequencing(the h. influenza genome was sequenced entirely by the shotgun approach and without resource to any genetic or physical map info.).

- Genetics for Dummies | Tara Rodden Robinson

This taught me a lot about the basics of DNA, explaining Phenotypes, Genotypes, Dominant and Recessive traits and the Punnett square, which is a way to determine your parents genotypes and phenotypes for a certain trait. Also SNPs(Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), which is the variation in our cells which makes us different form people around the world!

Articles |

Chromosome Mutation

An interesting article about Chromosome mutation, which is a change... resulting in rearranged chromosome parts, abnormal numbers of individual chromosomes, which may lead to abnormalities in cell and organismal function.

Genes and Disease

Another informative article about genes and the diseases that they cause.

Gemma Correll

Stumbled across this GREAT illustrator while researching, and I looked at this work and I was like, '..I can relate to this in so many levels'. I mean, sometimes I feel like when I look at other peoples work, may that be in my class or online at other artists work, and I'm just like... WTF? I'm no good compared to them..I have no stinkin' imagination...WTF am I doing, wasting my time?. Then I tell myself to just copy their work, but as soon as you agree to that and start drawing, you realise, I don't wanna do that, where the eff would I get by copying work? and so I just chuck that pencil and sketchbook in the corner and then there's the phase of anger, frustration and just feeling like total crap... but that has kinda helped me to figure out something about myself... my expectations from myself are so effin' high that it's ridiculous... realizing that I'm not such a good designer, lol, not at all! I mean thats why I'm in education, to learn and expand my skills, but your still in that phase of effin' frustration and anger...and still feeling like crap.... so all the self-reassuring and stuff just doesn't make sense to you.... bloody hell I need some coffee....

F.M.P Proposal | Decision time...

As our last year at college draws nearer, so does the inevitable final major project. The project is loosely based around the word DNA, and it is up to us to create something that's our personal representation of the theme.

Concept |

There are quite a few paths I could take, like tracing my ancestry, pursue my genetics (like how I came to be the way I am, stealing traits from my parents and their parents) or even touch subjects such as evolution and how it occurred. However, like I said in my earlier post about FMP ideas, I'm still sticking to the area of genetics and pursuing that as my spring board to launch into the project. My reason for choosing Genetics as a focus is because 1, I find it very interesting (inheriting traits from parents) 2, I don't want the project to be very personal to me but instead I want everyone to be able to relate to it somehow. I understand how people will look at DNA as something personal and a chance for them to explore one's background, but I wanted to take a step going some other way where my work actually projects some sort of connection with people. I want to look into inheritance of traits from our genes, as that is something everyone can relate to. The title for my project will come as I'm doing the project... too early to decide now.

Secondary Research |

I will be researching very deeply into this section, like the genome language, our genome sequencing, our phenotypes and genotype and more, making sure I have enough information to back up my work every step of the project. Since my research has to be thorough, I will have to check out some books about genetics, DNA and since I don't really remember much from my science class back in school, maybe I could have a look at 'Genetics for Dummies'. I will also be looking into articles about the topic online, that maybe expand my knowledge on the subject.

Primary Research |

I have already visited the Wellcome Exhibit in london , '8 rooms | 9 lives', as my primary source of research and I'm pleased that I have gathered a good amount of data from there, relevant to my project as there was a whole section on genome there(The Library of Human Genome in particular was my main interest there). I haven't a clue about any other places I can check out that inform people about DNA/Genetics, but I will have a look around Birmingham and see if such places are around.

Much Ado About Nothing | Final Deliverable

How I want to make my project come to be? It's quite simple actually, I just choose my strength or a field I am comfortable in and just pick that. I will be delivering this project through Typography. I am both comfortable with it and I have a great passion for it, so I will be doing my possible best to achieve the possible best out of this project. At the end, there will be a final A-Z(both upper and lowercases) completed with numbers and punctuation and possibly a whole completed font family. To present the font, there will definitely be 2 large posters to promote the font at the end of year show. I was also thinking about printed/digital booklets that were there in the show that included the font inside them(with info. about the font and how the idea for it came), so it could be something people could take away with them or have a look at home on their computers. One more thing! As I will be promoting the font, there is a possibility it will be up for free download, that is if it doesn't turn out to be a cryptic type font, so I will be providing or showing the link to where the font can be downloaded at the show. To create the font I could take a traditional approach, or I could create it digitally, which I already have sourced out sites like Fonstruct to help me out.

I will also be looking at a wide range of typographic artists to fuel my inspiration and ideas in this project. This will give me a chance to view different styles and experiments other artists hold in their work and maybe try that in my own.

Experimentation and Development |

As one of my opportunities, I have an unlimited range of materials to experiment with to make my project come to be. So I will be experimenting with everything and anything that I can use, that will include traditional materials like paint, card, plastic and digital techniques with software like photoshop and illustrator. I will be holding all of my development work in my sketchbook and some research will go in there too, but I will blog everything back to list my progress in the project.

The Deadlines! | The Money?

The only minor worry I have is the deadline for the project. The development is supposed to be finished by April 19, which restricts the amount of work I may produce at the end. But its not a big problem, I just need to work faster. Another worry is the budget, as I don't have a massive budget, the materials that I may want to experiment with might be hard to get a hold of, like software for computer and all the printing costs. I will find a way around that problem though, it's not something that holds anyone back to produce work.