Background image

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Jess Claxton

After importing my type into Photoshop and cutting out the spaces in the letters that I wanted to get rid of, I had to choose an image to go behind the font. I wanted to do this to make the type stand out more and I felt that it looked a little plain with just the standalone letters, although this could have worked by itself.

I deleted the blank spaces by opening the image up in Photoshop.

Then created a rectangular marquee and filled it with white paint and moved it so it was underneath the font.

I then cut out the parts that I didn’t want by selecting them with the magic wand tool and then deleting them from the white layer.

I could then put any image behind these layers and it would show through and be the background of the lettering.

Originally, I had my lowercase letters with the diamonds still in the letters so I played around with a few background images for these, which to start with I thought would be my final version.

This definitely suits the idea of a circus theme with the stripes and the diamonds. However, I am not sure whether it is too much and if the diamonds are distracting. I think that the diamonds look good on the ‘s’ as it fills up the space between and makes it unique. However, I am not a big fan of it on the other letters.

I also looked at the same sort of idea for my uppercase letters. Although the uppercase version looks okay, I definitely preferred it on the lowercase version.

I liked having the stripes all go to a point in the middle of the letters and I found as I was moving the background image into position it created an interesting effect on the letters. I took a video of this to show this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUEtZybd5V8&feature=youtu.be

Although I found this interesting, I didn’t know how or if would be able to incorporate this into my final designs.

I also wasn’t sure on the diamonds in the lowercase letters so I took them out and tried again without them.

As I originally looked at circus themed images as the circus was my first inspiration for this typography. I tried to find images of circus related things to put behind such as elephants, diamonds and big tops. Below are a few images.

I felt that it was very difficult to find a circus related image that would sit well behind the white background and still make sense. After looking at images of the circus for a while, I found that red and white stripes are a common trait in the circus and thought that it would look good behind the lettering and work well.

This is my favourite so far that I have done as I think that the stripes work well behind the white. However, I am not sure whether they completely relate to the circus, but I still have no decided what my type would be used for so this may not matter.

As I was unsure what I wanted my font to be used for I went back to looking at playing cards and the pattern used on the back of them. I thought that this may look good behind the white.

Unfortunately this did not look as good as I thought it might, as I still think that it is a little difficult to understand what it is behind.

I then went back to my original circus idea but tried to look for a more modern angle on the circus. I found an image of some diamonds, which relates to the circus, that I found interesting and had a modern twist to them.

I also tried out just having a plain background colour.

I did like this but I think that it would be best used for just body text and not necessarily as header lettering.

My favourite was the more modern diamond image background and I think that this will be the one that I use in my final designs.

Playing cards typeface?

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Jess Claxton

My first thought when I did the initial design of my typeface was that it reminded me greatly of playing cards, and the suits – hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds. I, therefore, decided to look into playing cards, the designs they use, as well as the suits and the shapes used.

Most English-language deck of cards use either the same serif font or, less commonly, the same sans serif font.

I was particularly interested in, somehow, incorporating the symbols of the suits into my typeface. Originally, I had used the diamonds as a cut out in the thick stroke of each letter. I decided to play around with the positioning of the symbol more, as I felt that, although the diamond works in that place the other symbols are more complicated and so might require more space, otherwise they may look squashed.

Below is an image of a couple of designs that I came up with to figure out where I could place the suit symbols:

I feel that the first and the last ‘C’, where the suit symbol is inside the thick stroke are too squashed and you cannot clearly see what is inside it. For example, the clubs and the spades symbol is fairly similar and when it is written in a small size they look very similar. I also think that as spades and clubs are a black suit there is less colour to the type and so it would look less like a cut out and just like part of the letter which I do not want.

The other three, in my opinion, work better as they have more space and you can clearly see which suit is which, however I am still not happy with a) the colour of the clubs and the spades as I think that it would be too much black and I would like to add a little bit of colour to my typeface, and b) I don’t feel that it would look good in a font as a whole as I am not sure where I would place the suit symbol in letter that are not rounded and don’t have a centre bit.

I decided to focus mainly on trying to design the letter ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘K’ and ‘Q’, for ‘ace’, ‘jack’/’joker’, ‘king’ and ‘queen’. I thought that if I use these designs I would scan these main letters into the computer and use vectors to create my font in Adobe Illustrator and then place it on to a playing card so my product would be a deck of cards. These are my main four letters:

I think that they need some work done to them as I am still not sure on the serifs on the letters and the overall shape of the ‘K’ but I think that they are in a good place to start.

I would still like to test out the idea of using the diamond shape in the letters, and maybe inside the curved letters as I think that this idea looked quite good in my first attempt and I would like to see where this could go.

Cut Out

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Jess Claxton

I was beginning to get stuck for ideas again when I found a piece of typography on a poster I have in my room.

I liked the differences between the stroke weights of the letters and so I tried to copy this into my sketchbook, which did not go so well. I then moved on and researched fonts by Tumblr searching it. I came across this font below:

I found the cutout shapes in the letters interesting and wanted to replicate this in my own work. I merged the two fonts that I have been talking about to create a serif font with thick and thin strokes with cutout shapes in the letters.

This is my favourite design so far. There is a lot of work needed to it before it would be a complete, working font, for example, I need to work on the sizes and shapes of all the letters so they are all equal and matching, and I am not happy with the ‘R’ at all, however I think for a first draft of a design I think that it has gone quite well. I like the serifs on the ‘T’ and ‘E’ and I am happy with the shape of the ‘C’, although I do feel that it needs a bit of work (straightening up etc). I am particularly happy with the ‘A’ as I believe that this gives the font a different edge to it and makes it a little bit quirky.

I chose the diamond shape inside the letters to start with just as a shape to put inside as I didn’t want to completely copy the font that I had found. In reflection, it has inspired to me to look into playing cards and the fonts used there and if I continue on with this design I think that my product that my font is designed for would be for a pack of cards, which I will look into in more detail at some point.