The typefaces I used came from http://www.dafonts.com/. They have a great selection of free fonts which I downloaded and installed into Word. I recommend this site; it had the best selection and highest quality of fonts for free. They even had fonts that other sites were charging money for. The only stipulation is it has to be for personal use, so if your plan is to use them for professional work you have to pay.
Expressive Typefaces
The best typeface I could find for stodgy was ‘Big Fat Ugly Cow.’ I didn’t end up modifying this one because it was round and fat and perfectly stodgy. I couldn’t find any others (I looked at 100 typefaces total) that expressed stodgy to me. I think this is because even for a display typeface ‘Big Fat Ugly Cow’ is not very legible.
For crush I found a great typeface called ‘Black Oak’ but unfortunately couldn’t get it to install properly. So I ended up using ‘Destruccion’ which also gave the feeling of being crushed. The text looked like pieces had fallen out of it so I drew little piles on either side to represent that, exaggerating the crushed appearance.
For sludge the best font I found was ‘Cold Night for Alligators.’ It is dripping and dirty and all around sludgy. I used a brush pen to add to the drips and marks around the letterforms. This is the one I used for my main composition so I’ll talk more about it later. I also found a font called ‘Sludge Bucket’ which did the job fairly well. It had smudged edges which I added to with a brush pen.
For ornate I used ‘Bleeding Cowboys’ for its exaggerated sans and other details. Its letterforms had some holes in them which I didn’t feel added to the ornate feeling so I filled them in. I also used a typeface called ‘Circus Ornate’ which is a cool circus style font with a lot of detail. This typeface expresses the feeling of ornate very well, but I did extend the points of the letterforms to add even more detail.
The word scratchy wasn’t in our list but I had to add it because one of the typefaces I found was too perfect. It’s called ‘El&Font Gothic’ and it literally looks like someone scratched letterforms onto the wall with a sharp object. I exaggerated the scratch marks with a fine point black pen.
First Composition: Crush
My first attempt at the design composition was with the word crush and the typeface ‘Destruccion.’ My concept was an asymmetrical balance with the type aligned at the bottom of the composition in a small positive space. This typeface looks like it’s under something very heavy. I wanted the type to be a shape in the design being crushed by the larger shape formed by the negative space. To add to this effect I drew in piles of debris on either side of the type. The dominant element of the composition is the negative space created by the black, and the eye is drawn by the high contrast to the type being crushed under it.
Second Composition: Sludge
This composition is symmetrically balanced with the type aligned in the center. The dominant element is definitely the type. My goal was for it to stand out the most so I made it the darkest element in the composition. With a brush pen I added to the drips and marks around the word and the rest of the page. This really brought out the “sludgy” quality of this typeface. I also wanted to create the feeling that this word was covered in sludge so I threw diluted ink at the page with my fingers. The drops of ink added texture and their lighter color keeps the focus on the type in the middle, while adding depth to the piece. After converting this to a jpeg with my scanner I edited in Photoshop, increasing the contrast and correcting some details with the Heal tool in Camera Raw. This is my favorite one and I had a good time making it.
Summary
I really enjoyed this chapter and the project. It was the first time I downloaded and installed fonts on my computer, and I got to practice many of the design concepts I learned in chapter one. Just writting these notes was good practice using the new vocabualry we are learning. I wish I knew more about Photoshop at this point as I’m sure I could have done most if not all of these compositions on the computer. But this was definitely fun and a good learning experience, and there is something to be said for working by hand.
For ornate I used ‘Bleeding Cowboys’ for its exaggerated sans and other details. Its letterforms had some holes in them which I didn’t feel added to the ornate feeling so I filled them in. I also used a typeface called ‘Circus Ornate’ which is a cool circus style font with a lot of detail. This typeface expresses the feeling of ornate very well, but I did extend the points of the letterforms to add even more detail.
The word scratchy wasn’t in our list but I had to add it because one of the typefaces I found was too perfect. It’s called ‘El&Font Gothic’ and it literally looks like someone scratched letterforms onto the wall with a sharp object. I exaggerated the scratch marks with a fine point black pen.
First Composition: Crush
My first attempt at the design composition was with the word crush and the typeface ‘Destruccion.’ My concept was an asymmetrical balance with the type aligned at the bottom of the composition in a small positive space. This typeface looks like it’s under something very heavy. I wanted the type to be a shape in the design being crushed by the larger shape formed by the negative space. To add to this effect I drew in piles of debris on either side of the type. The dominant element of the composition is the negative space created by the black, and the eye is drawn by the high contrast to the type being crushed under it.
Second Composition: Sludge
This composition is symmetrically balanced with the type aligned in the center. The dominant element is definitely the type. My goal was for it to stand out the most so I made it the darkest element in the composition. With a brush pen I added to the drips and marks around the word and the rest of the page. This really brought out the “sludgy” quality of this typeface. I also wanted to create the feeling that this word was covered in sludge so I threw diluted ink at the page with my fingers. The drops of ink added texture and their lighter color keeps the focus on the type in the middle, while adding depth to the piece. After converting this to a jpeg with my scanner I edited in Photoshop, increasing the contrast and correcting some details with the Heal tool in Camera Raw. This is my favorite one and I had a good time making it.
Summary
I really enjoyed this chapter and the project. It was the first time I downloaded and installed fonts on my computer, and I got to practice many of the design concepts I learned in chapter one. Just writting these notes was good practice using the new vocabualry we are learning. I wish I knew more about Photoshop at this point as I’m sure I could have done most if not all of these compositions on the computer. But this was definitely fun and a good learning experience, and there is something to be said for working by hand.
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