Creating Our Own Font

The task was to alter a font through cutting away from it and drawing into it. I chose to make it thinner and to add serifs to the font. The photo's above show the before and after.

Studio Brief 4 News Story Summary

The Hinkley Power Plant

Hinkley Point C will be the first power station to be Built in the UK since Sizewell B.

The Government promise that this £16bn nuclear deal will supply nearly 25,000 jobs and 900 permanent jobs in the plant, it will also bring down energy bills. The China National Nuclear Corporation and China Nuclear Power Group will be investing 40 to 30% into the scheme and French company EDF will be investing 35 to 40% into the project. The power station will have a 60 year operating life.

In theory the deal will increase productivity. Both businesses and the consumers will benefit from the lower energy bills as it will decrease costs for businesses, increase households disposable income. However as it is a long run project it is all very unstable and nothing can be guaranteed.

Benefits of the deal:

• Lower energy prices. This week four of the major energy suppliers; Npower, SSE, British Gas and EDF have all put up gas prices by about 10%. Leaving millions to struggle to afford heating this winter. Not at all matching the 2.7 CPI  inflation (September 2013). Lower energy prices from the nuclear scheme will bring in some competition and will lower prices across the board.
• The Scheme will create a lot of jobs, reducing unemployment in the UK, which is currently sitting at 7.7% and 1.35 million people are receiving job seekers allowance. 
• At full capacity the two reactors could provide up to 7% of the countries energy needs. Ed Davey, The Energy Secretary estimated that 6,000 onshore turbines would be needed to generate as much power as Hinkley Point. 
• The project Will carbon emissions in the UK by 9million tonnes a year. 
• It will create a long term security of supply in the UK. 

The disadvantages of the deal:

• Around 80% of the plant will be invested in by foreign companies, two Chinese companies and EDF which is French.  Between £800m to £1bn a year, that the UK tax payers and energy consumers will be putting into the pockets of the French and Chinese corporations. It sounds like a MNC (multinational company) they will take the profits overseas and leave damage in the host country.
• There will be an increase in the risk of terrorism. Not only to the plant, but to its transport (rail, road and sea). If a nuclear waste train was involved in a terrorist attack, tens of thousands of people could be exposed to cancer from the radiation. 
• There is no safe way to deal with radioactive waste. The government plans to burry it deep underground. Waste may leak back into the environment, contamination the water supplies and the food chain. 
• The risk of an accident. I did some research into the Chernobly disaster in Ukraine1989 and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan 2011 due to the tsunami. During the Chernobly accident 400 times more radioactive waste was realised than from the atom bombing in Hiroshima. After the spill there was an increate in mutations among both animals and human, there was also a large increate in cancer from the radiation. 

Studio Brief 3 Experimentation

Helvetica is Vanessa's favourite font and Lana Del Rey is someone that she admires. I have experimented with combining Helvetica with Releigh Gothic, the font used in Lana Del Reys Album cover. On Photoshop I resized and reshaped Helvetica to make it taller and narrower, more like Reliegh Gothic. 

Studio Brief 4

For this brief we have to research a story that was in the news on the 22nd of October. I picked up two paper; the times and the mirror. I wanted to have two different news papers so I could see a broad range of stories, that is why I picked a broadsheet and a tabloid newspaper.

The story I have chosen to look at is the Hinkley power plant and its effect on the uk. 

Comparing Newspapers

I picked one tabloid (The Mirror) and one broadsheet (The Times) newspaper to compare. Over all I found the papers to be complete opposites of one and other. The Times is aimed at a more intellectual audience, where as The Mirror is aimed at the everyday man. The tone is more simplistic and casual than The Times, which is much more formal and professional.  

Studio Brief 4, Categorising News Papers.

Separating newspapers into different categories. 

Broadsheets: The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Times, The Observer.

Middle Market Tabloid: The Daily Mail.

Tabloid: The Mirror, The Sun, The Star.

Regional: The Northern Echo, Evening Gazette, Herald and Post.

I then looked at the different political alinement of the newspapers. I think this is one of the most important factors to take into account when reading story as some newspapers can be bias and ignore certain facts.

Left Wing (Labour): The Guardian, The Mirror, The Star, The Observer. 

Right Wing (Conservative): The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Telegraph, The Times, The Sun.

Middle non bias: The BBC, The Independent. 

Session 1 - An Introduction To Type

We were asked to organise these different fonts into categories of production, these were stone, bone, quill, wood, lead and digital. The photo above shows where we thought the fonts went.

This photo shows the fonts in the correct column's.  We had mistaken a lot of the digital fonts with the stone fonts because of the serifs. We also confused some of the bone and quill fonts. Hopefully from our mistakes we can now correctly identify the production method of the type.

We then organised the fonts into our own categories  we choose to divide them into hand rendered type, script, thinner fonts, bold fonts, sans serif and slab serif.

Studio Brief 4

Research task.

In groups we looked at the different newspapers and sorted them in to categorise: broadsheet, tabloid, middles market tabloid, regional and free-sheet.

Studio Brief 3 Further Research

From looking at the meaning and words that are associated with Vanessa's favourite colours, this will give me more of an idea of how she is as a person.

As Vanessa likes a lot of bands from the 1960's to the 1980 I wanted to look at type that was used in these decades. I went to the library and looked through "20th–Century Type" by Lewis Blackwell. The photos above show the fonts that I was interested in, I then went on to research the fonts online. 

Helvetica is Vanessa's favourite font. 

Finished 10 Typefaces

Permanent and Time Roman.

The lines are inspired by scaffolding, I wanted to letter to look strong and permanent. Scaffolding is used to support building and help them to last longer.

I experimented with adding extra crossbars to the letters, I wanted the typeface to look structured and stable. 

This one again is inspired by scaffolding, this time just working with straight lines. I found it very challenging to work with the curve of the letter, however after

 a few attempts I am happy with the final result.

This one was again inspired by scaffolding.

This typefaces is supposed to look sunken in the ground. I got the idea from fossils, but things that are deeper in the ground are likely to be more permanent.

Adding crossbars to letters that never previously had them. By doing so it adds extra support to the letters and makes them more structured. 

Making the letters thicker. Something that is bigger and fatter is more likely to be more permanent. Due to things like erosion larger things would take longer to wear away, therefore lasting longer.

Making the letters taller. This is the same concept as in the previous letter, bigger things are stronger and more permanent. 

Equaling out the thickness to make the typeface more balanced and stable.

Overlapping the letter expresses how the more of something there is, more more permanent it is.

All of my typefaces were based on how I could make the letters look stronger and more permanent. A lot were inspired by scaffolding as this allows a building to be more structured and stable.

Full Typefaces

I found that when creating my typefaces I had to see that is could work for the full alphabet before I could use it. This is because for example something that works on a S might not work on a L.

Studio Brief 3

For this brief we have to create a personalised type face for someone. I am working with Vanessa, I will create a unique typeface that expresses her. 

To get to know her better I asked her these questions:

1. When are you happiest? When other people are happy.

2. What is your greatest fear? Buring alive.

3. Where is your favorite place in the world? Berlin.

4. Earliest memory? Crawling down the hallway.

5. What is your most embarassing moment? Throwing up in a handbag.

6. What makes you unhappy? Seeing other people unhappy.

7. Who would play you in a film of your life? Zoe Deschanel 

8. What is your favourite smell? Roast dinner.

9. Favourite word? Hieroglyphics.

10. Fancy dress? An Egyptian.

11. What is your guilty pleasure? Made in Chelsea and 80's Madonna.

12. How do you relax? The pub.

13. If you could edit your past, what would you change? Nothing.

14. Dream job? Magazine/set designer.

Other things I found out from just general conversation were that she listens to Tame Impala, the beatles, jimmi Hendrix, pink Floyd and arctic monkeys. Her favourite colours are black, greys and purple. Her star sign in Taurus, she thinks of herself as a pessimist. She is an organised person. Her idols are Lana Del Rey and Keira Knightley. Her favourite font is Helvetica. 

More Stable Type

I have altered the crossbars and added extra parts to the letters to make them more structured and stong, I feel the the stonger and more structured things are the longer they will last.

Studio Brief 1 Crit

From the crit I got a lot of good feedback and thoughts about my word that I hadent thought of. Embossing and trying different materials will be something I will try.

Scaffolding

From scaffolding I got the idea to try and made the letters look strong, structures and supported; with these things it will help the type to be more permanent.

Layered Type

Layered type. The concept behind the type is that the more of the letter the more permanent it will be.

Infinity

From researching loops and things that are infinate, I experimented with createding a type face that keeps an infinate loop. However I did find it difficult to do this with certain letters.

Cut Type

I think that very few things are permanent, but damage is cannot be undone so is therefore permanent. I cut out the type to show how it is permanent, I can never undo the damage to the paper.

Sunken Type

When I think of something permenat I think of something old, stronger and long lasting. I have experimented with different ways to make the letters look sunken in to the paper, as if they have been there for a while.

Alphabet Manipulation

I started to just slightly pay around with my font times roman. I did simple changes like making the font thicker and ajusted the lines to be more equal. My word was permanent and that makes me think of stable strong things.

Letter manipulation

In groups we were changed letters from serifs to san serifs.

Alphabet Soup

The task for today was to select a random word and font out of a jar. I selected permanent and Times Roman. The aim is to create a type face that expresses the word conceptually. 

This is a mind map of my thoughts and possible ideas. At the moment I am planning on looking at loops and the idea of how went you damage something it is permanently broken e.g scars, cracks and scratches.

   

Finished leaflet

This is the finished leaflet. We made the changes that were brought up in the crit by the other group. I fill that it looks better because of this.

Crit

We had our first crit. From this we received a lot of useful information about how to change our leaflet. 

Things we were told to change:

• To change our layout, as it looks to busy. I agreed with this comment. We will spent some time reorganising the pages and cutting down some of the text.
• To change to font to back, to help draw attention to the diagrams. I agreed with this and we will change all o the test to black. 
• To change the title, as it looks to separate from the rest of the leaflet. I agree with this and we will work on changing the title.