Cuppa...

Today , after CCS , I began sketching some more ideas for my final 3D 't'. I've pretty much decided on my font , which is 'Elephant' because I like the lower case letter 't'. It's long and curving, it has serif and it's slightly fatter in the middle than other fonts. I think the 't' should be relatively familiar and comforting. Nothing too showy or exaggerated. Regular everyday typography like the word itself!


The type face ' Elephant '.


I'm beginning to be reminded of tea everywhere now .... this is not bad, it's more like I have a sudden heightened awareness for the stuff.... On Pinterest this evening alone I stumbled upon these :


By Karin Lindeskov.

        Paper Teacups by Cecilia Levy.




    Illustration be ' Skinny Andy'.




Tonight I made an A4 teabag and printed the letter 't' on it. This is simply a demo , a prototype....if I was to choose this as my final idea, I would make it A1 or A0 size and hang it from the roof.....I'll  hopefully get some photos up tomorrow !

Type Inspiration

Over the weekend I've just been working on thumbnail drawing associated with TEA :-) It's harder to think of words than I would have thought...because after the obvious 'sugar', 'milk', 'biscuits' etc and the more ambiguous, like 'comfort', 'happiness' etc, the list was becoming almost exhausted. Then I thought of places where you drink tea, who actually drinks it and where it comes from and I got some more ideas from that!
I was just researching 3D typography ideas.... Here are some of my favourite images:














I found the artist Stephanie DeArmond . DeArmond's work explores ''language – taking slang phrases, colloquialisms, and snippets of conversation and abstracting them into sculptural form where meanings are revealed and obscured through typography and letter forms'' . The artist ''uses traditional hand-building techniques to make complex constructions from slabs of clay. The typographic forms she creates are based on her own hand-drawn lettering and vintage letter forms. ''
I like her work because it is similar to one of the ideas I began to consider after researching my word TEA. I have been thinking about creating a large 't' , creating it out of broken pieces of teapots, china cups and tea mugs....It's just an idea in thumbnail sketches at the moment ......

Stephanie DeArmond  :

'T' is for......

'' 'T' is for......'' this phrase has literally been running through my mind all week! It was fun researching all the words but the last few nights I've been deciding on my favourite to work with.... I've narrowed it down to TEA and TYCOON.....I'll probably choose tea because I think it's a word close to my heart and something I can totally associate with !  We are a nation of tea drinkers and it is a comfort which basically makes every aspect of life better. There really is very little more enjoyable than THE perfect cup of tea....During all the problems of the current recession or during any time of hardships or upset, the Irish generally open up over a cuppa.... It solves our problems.... or at least convinces us that that is the case :-) It's like happiness in a cup. So that will probably be my word alright, since I clearly seem to love it after this little rant !

I've been experimenting with all the suitable type faces for these words and also coming up with ways to physically create my letter......

I decided to write little conversations on these tea bags because I feel tea is a drink over which we really open up to one another.... it's like a nonalcoholic alcohol or something ! I wrote down any of the little chats I'd had with my friends lately over a cup of tea.....If I was to take this idea further I think I'd ask a selection of people their opinions on tougher subjects such as the recession or money issues etc and record them on the bags..... 

Visual Communications..... Graphic Design !!

   I am so happy to be in Vis Comm! After the first few days I'm already loving it...So our project brief: We were each given a letter form the alphabet and were asked to choose a word beginning with that letter based around the topic ' The State of The Nation ' . My letter is 'T' and I began by brainstorming all the words I could think of based on this topic then narrowed it down to only 'T' words . I spent a lot of time researching all the different words , the urban dictionary had some really funny definitions to some of these words so I used them as well to sort of expand my knowledge of these words too......

 

After the brainstorming I started looking at different type faces so I could sort of educate myself on their form. The idea is to find a type face that matches my word and sort of conveys its meaning. I really enjoy typography (after Berlin I think I'm newly inspired) and I'm so excited for this project! We also have been keeping a personal sketchbook or artistic journal which is fun and because it can be based on any topic or have any medium.... I've only a few pages done but I look forward to really getting into it  ! 

Photography Elective.... Two week summary :-)

 
            I've spent the last two weeks trying out the photography elective. It was so much fun and I really got excited about it ! Our brief was inspired by the film '' La Jetée'' .'La Jetée'  is '' a 1962 French science fiction featurette by Chris Marker. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white. It won the Prix Jean Vigo for short film.''  I really enjoyed this film though it was rather dark . It was a sci fi film but was primarily a love story, which I liked !!  

'La Jetée'

       So we had assessments today and there was loads of really good films from the rest of the class. They were amazing. My final film was based on identity and the idea that while some of us struggle to discover our own identity we may wear a mask in public or in different situations. I used my beautiful sister to model for me last weekend. I literally owe her so much because she strolled around town with a paper bag over her head while I took photos...... we got a crazy amount of awkward looks from people passing in cars and on the street....  :-D  She's a star ! 

For whatever reason I cannot upload the final film here...I'll keep trying to work around this though... but here are some of the still images .....

There were many more but here are just a few which give a general gist of the storyline... I also had a lovely slow piano version of ' Moon River ' playing over the images...

Photography was so much fun and something I was always interested in .... however graphic design is definitely the discipline I want to be in. I've finally made this decision  ! I'll always love fashion and photography so there will probably be elements of both that I'll bring into my art in some ways for the rest of my career. :-)