Project One Direction

I’ve been thinking a bit about our project one discussion last Wed. and want to make sure to underscore the purpose of the project. Project one should be something that you can complete on a weekly schedule without great pains. Remember that I mentioned that these weekly exercises should be influenced by healthy typographic discourse and what you bring to review should be new to you—the work should feel uneasy, queasy, possibly as though you are about to loose your breakfast.

The intent is that you can explore a broad range of approaches, content, and processes. Although this course is titled ‘digital / screen-based type,’ I’m guessing that many of you would like to do a healthy bit of exploration in print. I hope/d that project one can be used for this purpose. It is also a great opportunity to set up a series of motion works. Several of you were exploring typeface design directly or indirectly. This is fine as long as you can have a discrete, final artifact each time the project one folder is due. Project two will run the duration of the semester and will focus on typeface design. We will focus on bitmap for the first half of the semester and then open things up to a looser modular approach in the second half. Those of you choosing typeface design as your initial direction for project one may want to reconsider if you want a broader experience. If not, no problem. Just make sure that you can deliver a discrete typo-artifact each week.

Our talk on Wed. was great in opening up content areas and personal interests, but it began to be a little unwieldy and sound like a thesis—instead of talking content areas we will be spending the majority of our time reviewing artifacts. Our discussion was fine for day one but this will not be how we conduct these meetings in the future. I just want to make sure you approach the process and schedule as it was intended—smart, fast, queasy. Let me know if this is as clear as mud.

posted by Tony Brock on January 16, 2005 | comments: 2 | post a comment

I would like to change my Project One focus...

Originally, I was looking at handwriting from the perspective of lineage. I'd collected letters from my maternal great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother, my mother, and handwriting samples from myself. We have distinctively different styles, but come from the same bloodline, and I wanted to take a closer look and see if there were any similarities that I'd missed over the decades... would this develop into a hybrid typeface? Would it reveal our individual personalities to an audience that does not have the benefit of knowing many of these women? Where the heck is this going? I dunno.

Suggestions from Tony and the rest of the class were to explore a broader range: why stay with one bloodline instead of looking at the public at large? why not look at both genders? What about a historical perspective—how does handwriting develop from one person over time?? look at books on handwriting analysis, etc. etc. etc.

Yikes. This is no longer a weekly exploration that can be conducted "without great pains." Or, at least not without a heavy investment of time—just for research alone. Nah, I'd rather just plunge right in.

So... I want to do a series of explorations that I am currently calling "good pixel | bad pixel." This is partly inspired by the bitmap typefaces we are currently working on, but not limited to such. Rather, it is a full exploration of the limitations and possiblities of the square. My modernist undergraduate training has had me gushing odes to the square for a looooong time. Last semester, I painstakingly tried to break from the grid—with varying degrees of success, only to find my very first assignment this semester putting me into pixel world, surrounded by my favorite(?) shape.

This will probably have me crossing both motion and print. Which I find quite intriguing... And maybe (just maybe!) those handwriting samples will find their way back into this wacky mix.



Posted by Tracy on January 20, 2005 10:34 AM

I'm with Tracy - I want to revamp my project one focus as well, loosen it up, lighten it up and do something fun - darnit!!! No thesis thinking on this one!

So, actually, I'm really curious about type and texture. I found myself leafing through some fashion magazines, marveling at how "some" designer paired tweed with sheer, with leather and grommits. It's weird! What if I started making some "weird" pairings of typefaces and mixing them together on a page - in some sort of "hommage composition" to fashion...that's where my head is at these days...

So with that in mind, each week - I want to loosen and tweak. Maybe start off with the fashion translations to whet the appetite - but then, no frou frou art director leading the way, no! I'm hoping that my type composites will take on a texture and bizarre sculptedness all their own...

Over and out.
J to the G



Posted by Alien Jess G. on January 21, 2005 10:57 PM