Looking for inspiration

Since I have to get a move on with making the blackletter font, as that is the priority in my FMP right now, I thought I'd start to look at some blackletter fonts for inspiration to design my own font. I understand I looked at a few blackletter fonts before but this time I wanted to gather some fonts through primary research.

Trip to the Ikon Gallery

We had a....... long walk... to the Ikon gallery, to view a couple of exhibitions installed there. The first one we saw was on the first floor, by Susan Collis 'Since I fell for you'. The rooms were painted white with ordinary looking objects placed within. Now at first people would think the room is undergoing construction work, but really that was the exhibition.

There were things like a sheet that was embroidered and a shopping bag that was all hand rendered with detail. The screws on the walls were the most simple and pure part of the exhibition. At first when you looked at them, they were just tiny screws in the wall, but at a closer glance, there were diamonds inside.

What I made out of Collis's exhibition and what I really liked about it was how she was playing with the idea of having meaningless objects(to some people) and making them... noticed through value with the diamonds and gems. Also there is that thing where people will question her work and make statements like, 'THIS is not art!', but what is art really? What I took her exhibition to be, is that art is supposed to make you think, reach out to new boundaries, really make you curious, like toying with the child inside and thats the impact her exhibition hadon me.

The second exhibition we saw on the second floor gallery, by Ron Terada named 'Who I think I am'.

The text on the walls was brilliant, like a story that carried on and on. In his interview Terada said, 'Text is all around us. It's very graphic. And using it can be direct and practical. I like that text can go unnoticed and be seen as completely opaque.'

The 'entering city of Vancouver' was really bold, and the way it is made to look like a real road sign is just amazing. -The idea behind the sign was, the art worlds idea or perception of what Vancouver art is or isn't.-

First Generation hybrids

These are the rest of my experimental hybrids from the fonts Proclamate light light and Helvetica regular.

They are small case letters and I did these experimental hybrids just to get me used to how dominant and recessive traits will play a part in type genetics (my favourite crossbreed was the 'b'). I tried out breeding capitals too, and the pictures following show all of my results.

The uppercase 'P' and 'E' I'm not happy with them at all. I think I was trying too hard with them and they just got ruined in that process but thats my area to improve in for next time.

My next step will be to create my own fonts. That will include;

1 serif blackletter font

1 san-serif font

1 offspring of the above two (a hybrid font)

Fonstruct....I thought it was going to be so simple...

After some sketches, I thought illustrator isn't helping me much, and plus I would like to start creating the hybrid digitally but also so it is a useable font in the end, so I have started designing the mock up sketches of the experimental hybrid letters in Fonstruct, which is an awesome site where you can create your own fonts with the help of pixels, for free!!

Since it is very difficult to figure how to make a smooth serif on this using just pixels, my beginning attempts have been lame, but I think with some planning and graph paper, I could maybe figure it out, I guess it just takes patience!

And a hybrid is born....

After choosing a few letters to start breeding, I've started to note down the key traits of each font character and started to rationalise what will make it to the hybrid and what will be cast as a recessive trait.

Ok, so I did a very quick sketch on the hybrid, and then scanned it so that I could make a digital copy of it on illustrator. The curves aren't the way I would like them to be, so that needs to improve, but the overall shape of the hybrid is good.

Proclamate (light light)

From the blackletter fonts, I have decided to pick Proclamate (light light) for further experimentation and development. The reason being of its amazing killer curves and dramatic serifs.

Blackletter Fonts

I found a few blackletter fonts online for free and also using the existing Lucida Blackletter which is pre-installed with the CS4 suite. So here they are...

Cloister Black by Dieter Steffmann_www.steffmann.de_

Bertholdr Mainzer Franktur by Peter Wiegel_www.peter-wiegel.de

There seems to be a problem with the lowercase 's' in this type, as it looks exactly like the lowercase 'f'.

Proclamate (light) by Paul Lloyd_moorstation.org/typeoasis/designers/lloyd/

This font looks very much like Bertholdr, but there is a small case 's' here unlike Bertholdr.

Lucida Blackletter by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes

Goeschen Fraktur by Peter Wiegel

Each blackletter font has its own beauty with the slender curves and gorgeous serifs.... it's just the matter of experimenting with them now...

The mummies and the daddies | Basketica and George are born...

(When crossing the two fonts, I noted down the characteristics of each font, like with Helvetica and Baskerville, Helvetica had the structured figure with an equal thickness all around, while Baskerville had the beautiful serif and the thin weight at the top and bottom. So using the structured figure of Helvetica and the serifs from Baskerville, I mixed those traits together. I don't know whether some features should have been shown or not, but this is my first attempt and I will gradually pick up.)

After starting to actually experiment with 2 separate typefaces and creating a typeface on the bases of traits derived from both parent fonts, here is an example of what I have mocked up. I presented this to my group for some feedback, which turned out to be very helpful. I was, and still am, using 'Frank the font' as my spring board for inspiration with the hybrid typeface, and looking at frank, it was made from one beautiful black letter font and a standard san-serif font. The problem with what I'm experimenting with is that the serif fonts I'm using, don't have bold and exaggerated features like a black letter, with the decorative bowls, ears and serifs, and maybe thats where I'm going wrong. So I want to start experimenting with black letter fonts immediately!

Also the gender issue with the hybrid came up again and the only way I could rationalise that was, if the hybrid is a serif then it is a girl and if it is a san-serif then its a boy! but I want to give this another major thinking at later point.

How will I be presenting my final font?

I was thinking of maybe having a few posters with my favourite hybrid letters and actually showing them being delivered, like how a baby is delivered. But It's still a blur to me about how I really wanna show the hybrid typeface.. maybe I could just keep it simple and display it how frank the font was displayed, with both parents on either side and the hybrid in the middle.

Early development

I have started to think about how I would approach this type breeding process. Like I have explained in my notes in the images below, which are from my sketchbook, I will be crossing a serif and san-serif font for variety. Their is a stereotype when choosing which would me the male and female parent, like the straight and structured san-serifs will be the male and the slender and elegant serifs will be the females.

I have started a list of gathering all the well known serif and san-serif fonts, like Baskerville and Helvetica, it's just the matter of breeding them now.

Whats a hybrid?

' A hybrid is the combination of two or more different things, aimed at achieving a particular objective or goal.... Inbiology the offspring resulting from cross-breeding of different plants or animals ' | Extracted from Wikipedia |

1. In general usage, hybrid is synonymous with heterozygous: any offspring resulting from the mating of two distinctly homozygousindividuals
2. a genetic hybrid carries two different alleles of the same gene
3. a structural hybrid results from the fusion of gametes that have differing structure in at least one chromosome, as a result ofstructural abnormalities
4. a numerical hybrid results from the fusion of gametes having different haploid numbers of chromosomes
5. a permanent hybrid is a situation where only the heterozygous genotype occurs, because all homozygous combinations are lethal.

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I wanted to look at how hybrids adopt features from their parents, like which dominant traits they pick up and which get left out, and for that I have found some hybrid animals to analyze.

1. Liger/Tigon | Most popular among the hybrids, the Ligers are crossbreeds between a male lion while Tigons are crossbreeds between a male tiger and a female lion. Ligers are the worlds largest cats, while the Tigons are prone towards dwarfism and are usually smaller than either of their parents.

2. Wolf Dog | This dog wolf hybrid is not known when it will display a wolf behaviour or dog behaviour or something in between. The wolf is a shy animal depending on nuances in body language, facial expression and on hunting skills to survive. Their jaws are much stronger than those of a dog and are often used to exert dominance.

3. Zebroid | A zorse is a crossbred horse and a zebra. A zonkey is the offspring of a donkey and a zebra and a zony is the result of crossbreeding a pony to a zebra. All these three are called zebroids - defined as a cross between a zebra and any equid. Zebroids are preferred over zebra for practical uses such as riding because of its body shape.

Zorse

Zonkey

Zony

4. Cama | A hybrid between a camel and a llama. They are born via artificial insemination due to the huge difference in sizes of the animals which disallow natural breeding. A cama usually has the short ears and long tails of a camel but the cloven hooves of a llama. Also most noticeably is the absence of the hump.

Rama the cama at 3 yrs (young adult)

5. Leopon | The result of breeding a male leopard and a female lion. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the bodies carries similarities to leopards. Leopons are larger than leopards and likes to climb and enjoy water.

6. Hybrid Pheasant | The golden pheasant has commonly been crossed with the similar Lady Amherst's Pheasant. The result is a hybrid with distinguished colours from its parents.

Golden Pheasant

A Lady Amherst Pheasant

Hybrid Pheasant

7. Wolphin | A crossbreed of a false killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin. A wolphin's size, colour and share are intermediate between the parent species. The first captive wolphin was Kekaimalu, which shows mixed heritage even in its teeth: bottlenose dolphins have 88, false killer whales have 44 and Kekaimalu has 66.

8. Ti-Liger, Ti-Tigon, Li-Tigon, Li-Liger | it is a hybrif among the hybrids. It is a cross breed between a male tiger and a female liger/tigon or a male lion with a female tigon/liger. They are extremely rare. In the case of t-iligers, they have unusual striping where it breaks up and display a blotchy appearance. Since they are 3/4 tiger, their characteristics inhibit more of those of a tiger than a lion.

From this intensive look at hybrid animals, I have gained much more knowledge on traits and characteristics that are passed on to the offspring, and what you think is a dominant feature in an animal like the camels hump, is not necessarily a dominant trait between the hybrid.