Making the Sonogram ?!?

I thought I could maybe find a way to make a fake sonogram type looking image, and I searched and searched on the internet on how to achieve such results, but alas, no result. I guess it's just up to me to figure out a way to create this weird looking effect on CS4..somehow..

Also, I forgot to mension before, once the sonogram is finished, that will go towards the little handouts I will be making for people to pick up (as they will have a still from the sonogram as the background image and with a web link on there, where people could visit and download the font online), and also snaps from the animation will be blown up to make posters and those posters will be also submitted as better versions of the posters for the Splice.

End of year show? | Space

This is the space I have chosen to place my show, the corner of the feed studio! No special reason as to why, I just thought the sonogram will look good there, with the imac on a desk and the pregnant serif letter on there somewhere as well! I just wanna have as much as I can with this, as it's a really wonderful opportunity for me to show people and even myself of what I can do or am capable of I guess...

End of Year show | My Plans

Okay.. Now that the font is designed, it's time I get all the plans sorted for my end of year show! and the same question keeps popping up, HOW to show a hybrid font???? I could have some sort of a mural on the wall representing the stages of the hybrid, or I could have the posters printed and have a simple exhibition! But, looking at the exhibitions I researched, I want to do something more challenging and exciting, so that when people walk by my exhibit, there are atleast some heads nodding along with appreciation, as I want people to really enjoy my work.

After some really dry and dull moments of trying to come up with a solution for my show, and with some help from my group mate Alaa, the idea of sonograms emerged! Before, this is the time before I had even started making my font, I had wanted to make a poster for the hybrid font so that you could literally see the hybrid being conceived by the parent fonts. That idea certainly got some noses going up in disgust but to me it seemed like a cool concept. With the sonogram idea, it is more or less the same concept just more 'family friendly' I guess.

For those who don't know, a sonogram is a scanned image of a pregnant woman's unborn child in her tummy!

And the idea here is that instead of the unborn child, I want to place a hybrid letter in there, and I will make a little animation which hopefully replicates a sonogram imagery, with all the movements and other stuff!

When I pitched this idea to my tutor and some of my group mates, I got reactions that said 'hmmm. not sure if it's gonna work', but I'm still gonna charge on with this idea as it definitely seems the right thing to me..... and only time will tell how people will react to this!

With the sonogram animation, I will display that on a imac, and whether it needs to be hidden or not I still need to decide on that! Which will be set on a table along side the mum of the hybrid, the serif font letter, which will have wires going from it to the mac monitor (replicating a sonogram equipment).

At first I did want to try and make the sonogram equipment, but that is just too much and too unnecessary, all I want to show is the sonogram image and that bond between the mum and dad and the hybrid and to be honest, I don't think I will be hiding the imac screen, it won't effect the show in anyway plus it will just make things so much simpler for me...

I'm guessing all this writing is just making the idea seem like a mess, so I need to produce some visuals for the show, which I will get cracking at!

Font Poster Further Development??

The changes I made are as follows. I made the structure of the whole 3 different S's a bit smaller on the page and more central and I think it looks better, so definitely improvement from the previous posters!

hmmm, I wasn't intireally sure what I was doing with this. The whole idea of the poster was it to be black and white, just basic and to the point, but I guess the addition of colour makes it that tad bit more interesting and 'fun'.

Font Poster Development.

So these are my initial ideas for the final posters for the hybrid font! The posters are supposed to narrate the meaning of the font easily when people look at it, and by looking at this I think it's clear enough. The two parental fonts are spliced together on top of each other, and the hybrid is placed on top. Also, with the hybrid and the other fonts underneath, you can tell how the hybrid got it's 'traits' from!

Though, there was a problem with these couple of posters! The letters seem to placed in the middle but really big, so there is no sense of composition in there, which makes the posters less appealing graphically!

Poster development...

For my posters, I wanted to show a simple an straightforward concept in them! The two parental fonts combined to show the hybrid on top! I played around with the layers and adding and taking away strokes to see what different results I got and until I got something I was happy with.

I decided that there will be 6 posters, each one showing each letter of the word 'SPLICE'. All with the same concept.

Inspiration from other exhibitions?

I was interested to see how other designers have taken typographic approaches in their exhibitions and how they display their work. By doing this research, I'm hoping to get some idea for my plans for the show! the research is purely focused on typographic exhibitions, relating to my personal project.

The image above is from a beautiful typographic exhibition by Bruno Maag. The set up of the exhibition is pretty cool, with long streams of clear plastic cards hanging from the ceiling, swallowing the visitors in a typographic mist.

Picture ^ from Uk Communicate exhibition, Shanghai, China. The poster is covered with beautiful shapes and type. 'We will never pay attention to our daily objects, until you see this poster'

The picture above is from a science exhibition, but I wanted to include it here because of the beautiful display of light in there. The type on the wall 'light' is just amazing, as its being consistent with the lights hanging from the ceiling opposite, I think it works amazingly!

Above photos are from Terashima design exhibition. I love the type covered entrance! really gets your attention.

Design Cities/ Photo from Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. I like the type on the walls, I think it is cut out leaving a glow in the back. MAybe I could try something like that with my font? Having the mother or father letters cut out and projecting the hybrid from the back?

With my end of year show, as well as it being able to communicate my work well to the visitors, I want it to be fun and interactive, so people can come and just enjoy the work! I don't want to, in the end, resort to just huge posters displayed on the wall or just hanging there, I want to do something creative with my exhibit, so people will atleast remember it for a couple of hours or more after visiting the show!

Deliverables for End of year show?

Now our choice is to either make a double page spread, like a leaflet to give away to people who come visit the show, or do something in an alternate format (which seems to be a better option, as you get to explore more and have fun), though the final has to be in black and white!

For the end of year I want to obviously make my font downloadable for people to go and use for free! So, I will be making a little leaflet which will have a link for people to go and visit to download the font. Also, I want to make an animation using my font, and the imagery on the leaflet will be snapshots from the animation itself. I still haven't thought about some bigger decisions like if I want massive posters around or a installation like a model or illustrated walls?

End of year show! END of year Show?? *end of year show*

Mmmmm. Our tutor, Simon, told us that it is time to start thinking about our end of year show, and how we are going to present our hard work to the public! And he also added that they want to decorate the feed studio inspired by Damien Hirst's Pharmacy installation, since our FMP theme is DNA, it's very appropriate and kinda cool really, it'll be like walking through a science exhibition.... just well designed! I have to choose a space in the FEED studio, where it will be most beneficial for my work to be displayed! The shelves are supposed to be looking like a scene from a pharmacy (like rows of medication lined up on them) or something like that... there's just so much space, it's kinda confusing.

Above are snaps form Damien Hirst's Pharmacy installation. Below is work by Peter Saville for New order Fine Time. The Pills + the colour, create an interesting piece of work.

^ Packaging by Mark Farrow. This is interesting, as there could be something done with medicine packaging, by making our own customized labels to go on them, with information about our work?

Also, most of the people in my group have done so, so much more interesting stuff, that it would be great as an installation in the show. My work..... is a font. I'm not putting it down at all, just saying that I just need to do some planning and sketching and a lot of creative thinking for my work to be properly displayed in the show, that is if its going to be! What IS the best way to display a hybrid font??? drawing it? having lame 2d posters? or something else?

I really liked the cover, because of the customized periodic table. Maybe I could put letters of my font in a table like that? or it could be used as a means to insert all of groups work info in the table and displayed somewhere in the studio?

Moodboard! Moodboard! Moodboard!

I never realised that I hadn't posted my moodboard before!! this was one of the first things I did to get me started for this FMP! well here it is!

Early type development...

I mac'd up the fingerprint idea. The scan of my fingerprint wasn't that good, if I want a better scan I would need to use a better scanner. The font I used was 'apple casual', I chose it because the flow of the characters went very well with the fingerprint lines. The results are pretty cool, but there is definitely no question that I want to carry on experimenting further...

Better start designing my font! | Early Sketches

I do have a couple of ideas on some font designs. Now I will agree that they are not the most original and creative typeface ideas, but hey, gotta start somewhere right?

I was thinking of making a typefaces out of DNA related stuff, so where else to start than your own fingerprints? I will be scanning in my fingerprints and start making some cool characters out of that...... possibly........... hopefully! I was also thinking about(and this is the least original of the two ideas) making letters out of the DNA shape, if I can find any letterforms in there that is.

These ideas are just to kick start me into the whole design process, I will gradually pick up much more inspirational places to create letterforms from!! for now, LETS HAVE SOME FUN!