OUGD403 Alphabet Soup - Visual Thinking

For our Summer Brief we had to collect a variety of letterforms, and in a group we organised them into different colours to gain a better idea of the anatomy of type for our next project: Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking.

Brief
Produce a set, series or sequence of then letterforms that explore and communicate your interpretation of a word that you have selected from the randomisers.
Using your newfound appreciation of the anatomy of typographic forms and the wealth of research that you have gathered, focus on the manipulation of existing letterforms in order to solve this problem.

The word I picked out of the randomiser is Dissect.

We have some constraints against us, such as:
The only colours we can use are monochrome
They have to be hand drawn letters
We can't use the letter 'O'

I looked up the dictionary definition which was:

dis·sect/diˈsekt/

Verb:

Methodically cut up (a body, part, or plant) in order to study its internal parts. Analyze (something) in minute detail.

 I then started to sketch some type ideas while looking at research...

 

I started saving type I liked on my pinterest, and examples of my visual research can also be found on my design context blog.
Once I started sketching some ideas that I liked, I scanned them onto Illustrator to produce them accurately.

 

I used lots of different sized curves to create this C, and I think it depicts dissect because each curve is cut out, and at different lengths. I like this one because it looks quite mechanical and clean.








This B is made out of four different fonts, and I think it depicts dissect because I have pulled apart different sections, and by putting them together it makes a letterform. I don't like this one because I don't think it is clear what it means, and it doesn't look good because it is chaotic.

I think this literally depicts dissect because it is cut up

and laid out to make the letterform. I think the 3D aspect looks good, but it is quite simple.

I took away parts of the stems for this letter, only leaving certain parts which still make the letter easy to understand. This represents dissect because things have literally been dissected from the full letterform.








This is reflected because it is going to be a papercut letter, so needs to be printed the opposite way round first. This depicts dissect clearly because the letter is cut out, and the gaps in the paper are what make the shape of the letter. I liked this letter because it is handcrafted.








I really like this P, as I like the shapes that I used to create it. I thought that this represented dissect because parts of it are taken apart, and not completely put back together again to show the letterform. 










For this S, I made it on Illustrator, and sectioned a normal letterform into equal sections, then moved them around to create a letter that although isn't the correct shape, it is still legible. It depicts dissect clearly because parts of it have been taken apart.

When printed, they will be on tracing paper and on top of each other, so when you lift up one letter, the one underneath reveals a dissected version. It will do this until there is only single strokes, with no thicker weight or serif. I did this to show that when you dissect a letter you can still tell what it represents.


I then printed them out onto tracing paper, and traced them onto card. I then coloured them in, in black pen. The other two remaining letters were done completely by hand (H and I). I think if I managed my time better, and did these earlier, I would have some better letterforms because I am not completely happy with all of these.