Week 3 — Assignment “Offsets”
Discuss + Studio due Sunday (end-of-day). Reply to other people’s posts by Tuesday.
Project 1: Experiments in Typographics—a series of tutorials in Adobe software. The design exercises explore digital drawing and typographic design, and are assigned weekly over the course of five weeks. (We will apply these experiments in Project 2.)
1/
Discuss:
- (similar to Week 1 but different archive) Browse and study the Letterform Archive. Explore the different categories, collections, and read more about the design objects presented. Select one work to highlight and share with the class. It can be a work you are inspired by or perhaps hope to emulate. In the comment space below and in 200 words, describe the design object, tell us who designed it, and when, and how was it made (if you can find out), what intrigues you about it, and how does it relate to the work you are doing. Post the link to the page in the archive so that we can see your selection.
Reply to at least two other people’s posts (below). Due Tuesday.
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Studio:
- In Illustrator, create a new file with a 10 in x 10 in artboard. You will make several artboards at this size in the same file (like last week).
- Watch the “Week 3” class video.
- I will show 1. an approach to creating “path offsets” with a. letters and b. images, and 2. then ways to a. warp these graphics with “envelope distort” and b. create perspective with “effect–3d and materials.” On (4) four artboards, make the steps (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b), using letters, words, images that you wish to explore and learn the skills. Then —> create (6) six additional artboards / design variations (or more) building upon the preliminary ideas and steps of the demonstration, and making the visuals your own. Open direction. Again, you can imagine a context for the work if you like (it could be an album cover or a card, for example). Explore and expand. Try making different decisions from one variation to the next to see what happens. You should have at least 10 artboards/10 pages in your PDF submission, or more.
—> Explore: color, layering, text/typography, photographic images, asymmetry/symmetry, modularity, grids, other structures, additional shapes, etc. - Save and package your Illustrator file and upload the packaged folder to onedrive. Also export your Illustrator artboards as a PDF. (See video for steps on how to do this). It is very important that you package your Illustrator files.
Links:
Offset Path
Offset Path + Mesh
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_skillscollections_0004
“Skills 4” is a 24 page zine that was created in 1993 by Greg Lamarche and James Todd. It was made in black, white, and color, with saddle-stitched binding. OImmediately, I noticed the overall graffiti style to this piece, as it presents numerous photographed examples of words, phrases, and imagery of street art. The text is interesting to me, as the works use bold, dynamic letterforms that are squished and pulled, emphasized with 3D shadow effects. The 3D visual reminded me of what we are working with this week, with the various transformation tools that were tested out. The graffiti seen here could definitely be recreated with the extrude and bevel tool. I feel the graffiti style text would be interesting to make with illustrator, as you can shape, warp, and render letters. I personally found “Skills 4” appealing due to the bright colors, cartoon sketches, and bold black line work around many of the letterforms, which give off a hand-drawn, sketchbook effect. I enjoy experimenting with rudimentary, sketchy textures and illustration, which line up with the style seen in these works. The busy nature of this zine appeals to the concept of visual interest perfectly, as it combines multiple different elements into one cohesive image.
Hi Kayla! I thought the piece you shared was really unique especially since it is in a graffiti style. I love the colors on the front cover and found the rest of the book very interesting to scroll through and see how chaotic each page felt (in a good way).
Also I apologize for my replies being late, I had no wifi at my apartment yesterday so I couldn’t use any of my devices.
from Clint Bradshaw:
Hi Kayla, I really like how you pointed out the graffiti style. The bright colors and dynamic lettering really stand out, as I love vibrant colors. I agree that the bold letters from the work are interesting to me too.
I picked the EMIRGE #24 NEO-MANIA. The designer of this work was Rudy VanderLans; the work is located in San Francisco, CA. When I first saw it the background got my attention the most. I also appreciated the pink in the back with a somewhat red trash bag. The font was a good choice; it captures the audience. The letters have a somewhat beige color and also black. The font is not thick which that allows the image to show even more. The Neomania Magazine explores the art of fashion, architecture, and trends of creative people. Knowing this made me connect more with the image; essentially because fashion plays a big role in my life. I love creating more things and embracing my creativity. The way that the words/letters play a huge impact when it comes to this. This magazine covers cultural and social issues; such as sensitivity to the different expressions of beauty and creation. With a new perspective based on a dynamic graphic and editorial approach, our pages capture the intensity and vigor of modern design in all its forms embracing every single part of Typography and the image itself. One last thing I want to mention is how Neomania’s is a part of philosophy. Is like poetry and emotion in the way that it approaches issues/in the way of communicating and connecting with the audience’s point of view.
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_emigre_0024&targPic=lfa_emigre_0024_001.jpg
This example is amazing! I love the design choices, which remind me of a scrapbook/sketchbook as elements create a collage styled look. The pink paper adds a layer of vividness and visual interest, emphasizing the creative nature of this design. I appreciate the explanation of your personal interests in fashion!
from Clint Bradsahw:
Hey Cindy, I love the colors in Neomania’s design. The use of pink and clean typography does make the message pop, and it’s great how you relate it to your interest in fashion! I like to think I have solid fashion sense, but I don’t ever think I could pursue it seriously.
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_vanhalem_0061
This design object is a poster created by Hansje Van Halem in 2014. I can’t find how it was made, but it does say that it is orange and green ink and they used black glitter paper to print on. The piece caught my eye because it was the opposite of the work I know how to make. We are learning how to make letters take different forms on the artboard but we haven’t experimented with just having content around a shape to make a letter like Van Halem did.
It doesn’t exactly relate to the artworks I have been making in Illustrator, but I have been experimenting with limited color palettes in order to not overwhelm the page. I am a fan of using one or two colors and making things more simplistic which Van Halem did in his piece. Effectively using just two colors and a black background so that the subject matter is easy to see is impressive because he doesn’t need to do a whole lot to make a piece stand out. I especially like how the edges of the letters are not perfectly straight due to the lines that make up the horizontals, but you can still tell what the letters are.
The work I want to experiment with this week is relating to photography and possibly repetition. I have started on a few ideas and think they are turning out fairly well so far.
You seem to be considering Hansje Van Halem’s use of color and typography, especially the way he shapes letters using form and negative space instead of conventional type design. Even though your own work has taken a different path, the focus you place on simplicity and limited color palettes fits in nicely with his style. It’s interesting that you brought up photography and repetition as topics to research this week.Seeing how your graphic design experience affects your picture compositions could be fascinating!
While browsing and studying the LetterRoom Archive, there was one piece of work that truly stood out to me that I wanted to highlight and talk about. The work I found that I want to highlight is called “The Developing Univers” which was made in the 1960s and designed by Bruno Pfäffli and John de Cesare. This piece involves six rows of U’s vertically stacked on each other while also having some of them be in different fonts. Most notably, the ones near the bottom of the stack are straighter and bolder, while the ones near the top of the stack are thinner and italicized. I think it is intriguing that this piece is so simple, but yet there is a good level of detail and creativity involved when creating it. Putting the U’s in rows and having some of the stacks lean on each other in different directions while they are in different fonts is a nice touch and gives it a sense of trying to experiment with typography and design choices. It relates to what I am doing because I want to experiment with how and in what ways can I creatively take letters and arrange them in a way that makes them stand out.
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_type_0120
Hey Anthony, this is one of the other projects that caught my attention as well. I am also someone who likes to go around the internet finding fonts that fall under the criteria of the project I am working on. Its great to know that aspects you may not have thought of before making a huge impact into the work you’re creating just by making it a little more personal.
Hey Anthony, It seems that you picked “The Developing Universe” because of its careful yet creative use of the font. The composition’s simplicity, the visual rhythm produced by Pfäffli and de Cesare’s manipulation of the U’s changing their weight, style, and alignment, which is interesting. Your personal encouragement to creatively arrange letters in a way that makes them stand out is in line with this type of exploration. Experimenting with stacking, layering, or distorting letters might improve your interest in typography and design choices. It can be a fun way to combine a structured typographic experiment with your minimalist style.
I chose an Earth Day Poster designed by Jennifer Morla in 1995 which is 89 x 60 cm large. The description says it is a “poster featuring collaged black and white photos of nature and a human’s eyes, with brightly colored shapes and lettering over laid” and at the bottom of the poster, the text says celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of Earth Day by making every day Earth Day. I was drawn in by this poster because of the collage elements and colors used. It has a mixed media feel to the poster with the gray scale photo images being rectangular and square but overlapping each other with there being text and drawings in bright colors on the top of the photos. I like that the font looks hand drawn I think it adds to the subject of saving our earth it makes it feel personal with the handwriting. I think it would be fun to emulate since I like collages and the messy overlaying style. I don’t think this poster relates to the work that I worked on this studio assignment this week but I would be open to creating something similar to this poster in the future.
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_morla_0016
Here is my studio link https://uncg-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/r_riley_uncg_edu/EkaxvRktVoNMtU7jEQ-besMBiNQx4TxFxZlVHt3ABMMGug?e=9SL2zk
I love this pick! There a bold, dynamic style to this poster that creates many different layers. I love how the photographic elements are in black and white and the graphics are bright, flat colors. The juxtaposition of the two very different visuals make this design super interesting!
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_visuallanguage_0002&targPic=lfa_visuallanguage_0002_015.jpg
I looked at Antic-Ham’s “Diario Veneziano”. It’s a visual travel journal from a trip the Artist took to Venice and was made in the 2010’s. I really loved the vibrant colors and overall style of the works inside this book. Each page has a different feel to it while still being recognizable as being from the same location. I also feel like it fits perfectly with what we’re currently working on in class this week with a lot of pages being a combination of images and words brought together with unique designs. I found it helpful looking at this along with other pieces on the letterform archive to get inspiration for my own work.
Hey Ryan, I like the visual journal you picked. The threshold effects allow for an interesting direction for these collages as they help combine together as the details aren’t as noticeable letting it feel like its all apart of the same composition.
Hi Ryan, I really enjoyed the travel journal that you posted, it was interesting to see all of the places the artist visited in Venice and the styling of each image was very interesting. I thought the color-block like feel to each image was unique and created a body of works that felt different on each page.
Hi Ryan,
I thought the piece you chose was so appealing to look at. The use of color throughout this is very strategic and the artist knew what they were doing with the placement of the color.
One piece that brought me satisfaction in aesthetics and design was a graphic sneaktip zine cover and pages that interested me, with Jens-Peter Brask being the publisher. The work interested me because I go to zine fairs often and enjoy making them myself. Specifically, this one drew me in because of its colorful cover and the age of the zine being from the 1990s, which is the start of zine culture, which means this piece is priceless, creative, inventive, and poetic. Poetic, being zines, typically tell a story or information that can be mass-produced to sustainably get information across the world. The use of bold text, the movement of the text, and the way the words cohesively connect with the imagery are pleasing to me. The only description about how these pages were put together was that they are stitched together, which takes a delicate hand and someone who is thoughtful and has good craftsmanship. This zine piece was located in Demark. I love one page with the significant, bold text emphasis saying “black-white unity” with the words being the color of the actual word. Great emphasis. This book recognizes the art form of graffiti, which is illegal most of the time. Still, it’s a beautiful culture and connection to society—a lovely piece of literature, typography, and imagery.
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One drive link: https://uncg-my.sharepoint.com/personal/r_riley_uncg_edu/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fr%5Friley%5Funcg%5Fedu%2FDocuments%2F%5FRachele%20Riley%2Fteaching%2FS25%2FART%20448%2FHannah%20Belk%2FWeek%5F3
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Archive link: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_skillscollections_0344
The design object that caught my eye is called ‘Joker sticker’ by a creator who goes by the alias ‘Joker’ in 1993. What is interesting about this design is that I find it relatable to what I do sometimes when I’m bored. I randomly take sticky notes and start writing random words that are stylized in different ways to get ideas flowing. The style I normally go for is graffiti types in my writing. This design is written on a white sticker that sort of resembles those that are used to write your name on it with the colored border this one being blue. Whether this is what they were going for or not I think the way the creator wrote his alias name ‘Joker’ on this sticker expresses the uniqueness in how everyone writes their names to show to people who they are, what is their name. Joker is written really big and tall, the letters are bunched up and stylized to look like it was written fast with the sharpie in one line as they overlap to get to the next letter. This is something I like to do a lot as practice because I like to doodle as well and I like it a lot.
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_skillscollections_0375
https://uncg-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/r/personal/r_riley_uncg_edu/Documents/_Rachele%20Riley/teaching/S25/ART%20448/Gerardo%20Gomez-San%20Juan/Week%203?csf=1&web=1&e=LcG9aL
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_skillscollections_0321
The piece I chose is the cover for Skills Magazine #5, designed by Greg LaMarche in 1993. For this work, LaMarche created a collage using different labels, papers, and random elements, putting them together in a deconstructed way. After doing some quick research, I discovered that Skills Magazine #5 features a collection of graffiti photos from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, showing street art from both the US and Europe. I also found out that the magazine is offset-printed and staple-bound, giving it a raw, DIY feel. What really drew me to this design is the mix of different typefaces and the overall grunge, edgy look of the cover. I love collages like this, and it actually inspired me to start making my own digital collages in a similar style. I always try to make my digital collages have the illusion of being handmade and actually cut out by using different paper overlays and drop shadow effects. The combination of layers and textures, along with the bold, experimental typography, I feel like it displays a sense of freedom and creativity that I really admire.
https://uncg-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/r_riley_uncg_edu/Documents/_Rachele%20Riley/teaching/S25/ART%20448/Danielle%20Scott/WeekThreeOffsets_ScottD_Folder/WeekThreeOffsets_ScottD.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=OOeLV4
For this week’s studio assignment, I mainly wanted to play with perspectives and color. I also used a font that I created last year for a typography assignment. My favorite composition that I did was the last one containing the word “art”. Something about the repetition of patterns with a dark contrast in the background of the 3D word really stuck out to me. I also attempted to make a letter appear as if it’s “melting” off of a surface, I think with a little more time, I could’ve perfected it. Overall, this assignment was really fun, and I look forward to using these skills more in the future!
Hi Danielle!
I am the same way how you feel about collage work. Collage work can be very diverse and it always leads to some type of inspiration for me. I also really like the 7th slide for your week 3 assignment! I would have never thought to create a shape on top of a shape like that! Very cool design.
“One Day”
This piece by Thomas Ingmire, immediately caught my eye. There is a lot of motion going on throughout this piece(book). There are 21 pages in total, but I am mainly focusing on 5-7. It was made in 2017 and the size of the book is 40×30 cm. The book itself was handmade and the main focus of the book is “Colorful Calligraphy”. When I first saw it originally, I thought it was some type of line work, (technically it is), but when I zoomed in, I noticed it was spelling out words. I just have not seen specific calligraphy artwork like this before. It is combining geometric shapes/lines with calligraphy which I thought was really cool. Not only that, but it is showing color as well! The way the colors bounce off each other as well as complement each other, is so pretty to me. I will say some of the pages are difficult to understand, but I understood the overall message. I think my favorite one is the one where it says “I’m gonna give up tying(?) and…”. The reason why I think this one stood out to me is because the line work is very intriguing and it is very cool. The movement throughout the sentence was very fluid but precise.
The Archive Website:
https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_calligraphy_0058&targPic=lfa_calligraphy_0058_008.jpg
My assignment for this week:
https://uncg-my.sharepoint.com/personal/r_riley_uncg_edu/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?FolderCTID=0x0120005F6136034E7C2C4EB4818F10597156FA&id=%2Fpersonal%2Fr_riley_uncg_edu%2FDocuments%2F_Rachele%20Riley%2Fteaching%2FS25%2FART%20448%2FJayla%20Miles%2FWeek%203%2Fweek
from Clint Bradshaw:
(STUDIO SUBMITTED IN THE DRIVE)
This is a promotional poster for Lowlands Festival 2019, held in The Netherlands. It advertises a vibrant event with over 200 acts. The design was created by van Halem, Hansje (Designer).
The poster’s design is very “striking” I would say, with swirling but vibrant patterns and bold black and white text sort of going through the image. These curved lines and bright colors give it a hypnotic, almost futuristic feel. The text blends into the abstract background, which makes you stop and look closer to read the message.
I noticed the layers of patterns give it depth and make it feel alive. The color palette mixes pretty primary colors with modern accents. There are so many colors, like red, yellow, green and blue. The black text really stands out among all of these. I didn’t really incorporate this work into my illustrator designs, but I really love how colorful it is, and the sense of direction of the piece.
I would say the balance between chaos and order in this piece is something I admire and want to apply in my own work. It’s just such a pretty work to me, as I am gravitated to abstract, colorful pieces like this. It feels very hypnotizing to me. It makes me want to become a little human and enter inside the organized mess.
Link: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_vanhalem_0094