What Language Looks Like Part 2

Project Description

                The purpose of this project is to experiment with designing compositions that help emphasize the definition of a chosen word. For example, my chosen word is squeeze and my designs focus on compressing the “e”s to emphasize the idea of something being squeezed together. The following pages contain cut-and-paste style designs, black-and-white computer compositions, and color/space compositions. Each of these stages is followed by a critique section which gives the designer feedback on their designs – pointing out the strong aspects and explaining what points could be improved upon.

Reflection of “Parts of the Letter”

                There are so many different fonts, each has their own design features and special characters, however, all fonts follow a basic set of guidelines. In our design lecture, the presenter explained how fonts are composed of many parts. Some of these features include the descender, which is the section of the letter that drops below the baseline, the tail, which is the short (or long) stroke that differentiates a Q from an O, and cross strokes, which is the line on a letter t. The lines that make up a letter are called strokes. Counters are the negative space inside the letters.

Reflection on Project

                Working on this design problem was a new experience for me. I’ve never really focused on font specifically in a project. I learned that I really enjoy designing black-and-white word compositions in Adobe Illustrator. It was also fun to create the cut and paste designs in class because it was almost like arts-and-crafts with purpose. However there were a few difficulties due to the physical restrictions of using paper, an exacto knife, and glue. The most challenging aspect of the project for me was actually trying to convert the black-and-white compositions into color. I really liked the strong contrast of the black-and-white, which set me into a one-track focus for the word, but after going through the color tutorial and critique in class, it was easier to switch to color formatting. I was very pleased with the final color combinations.