Formalities of type, by Emily Gregor and Zoë Ekonomou

Formalities of TypeBy Emily Gregor and Zoë Ekonomou

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Lowercase “y” Perpetua bold

Part 1The ProblemBuilding on our previous project in the class, we were asked to examine the formal qualities of a letter.

The purpose of this project was to look at the letter as a complete unit.

By using three or more of the same letter in the same size, we hadd to emphasize a particular aspect of its form.

Each had to appear as an integral part of the composition, placed on the square page with enough space around the unit so it stood as a symbol.

For my solution to this problem, I was really intrigued by the lowercase “y” in Perpetua bold, the lowercase “f” in Didot regular, and the lowercase “v” in Avenir black. To me the shapes of these letters stood out and inspired me to find ways to manipulate them, making sure the letters didn’t touch. This was probably my favorite part of this project.

Part One, Emily Gregor

Zoë’s Part 1 will be included in an additional link due to a software issue.

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Lowercase “f” in Didot Regular

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Part One, Emily Gregor Part One, Emily Gregor

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f fffCapital “R” in Avenir Black

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Lowercase “v” Avenir Black

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Part One, Emily Gregor Part One, Emily Gregor

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Part One, Emily Gregor Part One, Emily Gregor

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Part 2Emily’s final sElEctionsTo prepare for part two of the project, we had to choose a few of our designs we thought turned out the best. I chose these because I enjoyed the white space in between the letters, they looked like something I would consider using for a logo, they drew me in. Unfortunately, none of my letter forms were chosen by the class to use in part two of the project, but I still really enjoy them. I had the hardest time with the third typeface, finding a letter I enjoyed working with. I love that typeface, but every design I did seemed childish and didn’t feel like osmething I wanted for my final design. I worked it through and i ended up with the ones I used, but at the end of the day I wish I could’ve thought of one I liked better, whether that be by using a different letter or by being in a different state of mind or maybe designing in a different location.

Part One, Emily Gregor

The ProblemFor the second part of our project we were asked to translate what we considered to be the best and most interesting compositions from part one into a 3-D form. I (Emily) personally found this to be extremely intimidating due to the fact that I’ve never done any 3-D design and am nervous about keeping a good GPA this semester.

The 3-D structure we created is supposed to show the inter-relating parts and personality of the study, the desing subtleties, as revealed through close examination.

Zoë and I chose to work with the piece to the left. The “Q” had been completely transformed to the point where we weren’t sure it was even a “Q” until we looked at it a little more closely. We were allowed to use the medium of our choice to create our 3-D design, which we came up with through some sketching and messing around with cardboard.

Our Final Maquette

Finally, it was time to start constructing our final project. We struggled with finding a good material to use, but we ended up going with foam core. We measured our circles using a compass, cutting them out with a boxcutter, and to construct our form

we put two 12-inch circles together to make our form larger, causing there to be eight circles total. We had tried to use a saw but the saw didn’t seem to be a fan of the material so we ended up sanding it to be as smooth as we could.

To create the two inside circles, we used four of the normal sized circles and divided them using a ruler into three sections. If we were to do this project again we would have made this set of circles a bit smaller due to the fact that when we put it all together the

middle circles ended up looking more like ovals and the middles of them were too long and out of proportion, something that hadn’t been an issue in either one of our maquettes.

To further stabilize our form, we decided to put spokes to hold the pieces together using foam core cut to one and one half inches. We used a ruler to measure out where each “spoke” was and used super glue to adhere them to the foam. Once the

forms were put together we used hot glue to strengthen the bonds as necessary. We thought the spokes added an edge to the project and we liked the movement it evoked, which is why we chose not to cover them up as had been the original plan.

What each piece looked like when fully constructed with the spokes.

Measuring where the spokes should be.

Putting the pieces together using hot glue. What made this part difficult was making sure the pieces lined up perfectly. It was also difficult because the angles of the circles made it so we ended up having to shave off excess that hung off the side. We started with one end and worked our way through the form.

Once we had the bottom constructed, it was time to add the middles of the two inside circles.

The piece shown from various angles before the addition of the tails to create the “Q” letterform.

To create the tails of the “Q” letterforms, we used the foam core again, doubling it up and using a ruler to measure eight 6-inch long strips, the width of the ruler. We then chose to attach them at the four corners of the piece.

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Now that our form was assembled, it was time to spray paint our masterpiece. We chose a bold, glossy red, (Krylon, Wal-Mart stores,) to coat our structure. we ended up going through two cans, coating the entire piece with two even coats.

Above: Our work after one coat of the spray paint.

Below: The finished piece.