These were the rough questions and Chris's answers:
1Q. What was your first memory?
A. 3rd birthday, I remember getting a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and one of those red and yellow cars as a present.
2Q. Who do you most aspire to?
A. Muhammed Ali because of his perservation and his ability to battle against the odds and win.
3Q.
A.
4Q. If you could have any super power what would it be?
A. Instant Transportation to get whereever I want and see the world quickly.
5Q. If you could bring anything extict back to life what would it be?
A. Egyptians
6Q. Which actor would you get to play yourself in the story of your life?
A. Tom Hanks because he's really versatile.
7Q. Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
A. Gandalf, David Blaine (for entertainment), Gordon Ramsey (for the food) and Jimmy Carr because hes really weird.
8Q. What things make you unhappy?
A. Doing stuff you don't want to, being uninspired and waking up.
9Q. What would be your ideal fancy dress costume?
A. 1st as Buzz Lightyear (with working wings) and 2nd as Terminator.
10Q. What bad habits do you have?
A. Swearing too much.
After the questionnaire I had a clear first impression of Chris which I was happy to work with. We were able to go into further depth by talking more in our pairs or doing more interviews but I thought it might be a beter idea to work with my first impressions and hopefully produce a font that others would find represented chris on a first impression basis.
To try and start the project off I wrote down what i thought Chris's personality was at a glance and came up with this:
-Bold/Confident
-Relaxed, very down to earth
-Good sense of humour (ref Q7 + 9)
-Quite wise/ has many aspirations and interests (ref Q4 + 7 + 2)
-Passionate about work/ beliefs (ref Q2 + 3 + 8)
-Very positive personality/ good outlook on life
-Some strong links to his childhood
After tis, I tried to link each aspect of his personality to a style or a part of a font that represented the same thing in turn:
Confidence = bold font/ large/ clear
Relaxed = smooth, script
Sense of humour = slightly random/ quirky
Wisdom = serif, script maybe italic
Aspirational = tall letters / stretching upwards
Positivity = bright, large, tall forms
From this I knew how I should start experimenting with the letters. All I needed was a starting font to manipulate so I used the Mac Fontbook application to find a strong bold font to work with and came out with a number of options:
The larger fonts are the ones that I thought worked best as a starting point and I ended up choosing Hattenschweiler which is the Second of the largest fonts from the bottom upwards.
At this point I copied the word Chris onto tracing paper in the Hattenschweiler font and began manipulating different aspects of it over and over again and deciding the point that worked and the points that did not work. (The digital camera finds it pretty hard to focus on tracing paper for some reason)
I experimented with a range of different ideas; adding and subtracting serifs, elongating the letters, making them bolder, experimenting with line and fill on each letterform etc.
I eventually came up with a style that I really liked and it was this one:
To create this letterform I elongated the original letterforms to give them the tall, aspirational feel and add more boldness to an already bold character. I also added serifs to make it more smooth and relaxed in appearance and it gives the letters a really script-like feel of sophisocation.
Once I had created these typefaces I knew I had a good idea tyo continue with, but I also wanted to have another level that expressed Chris and his personality.
I decided to try and incorporate Chris's aspirational aspect of his personality (not that I aspire to be him but that he has a lot of aspirations).
To do this I thought I could focus on his aspiration to see the world (relating to his chosen super power of instant transportation), and I came up with the idea of giving each letter in the font a country of it's own and somehow relate the letterform to the country.
So I compiled a list of letters A-Z and assigned them all a country. Until I hit X, which of course has no country because that would make my job far too easy.
A - Albania
B - Bermuda
C - Canada
D - Denmark
E - Egypt
F - Finland
G - Georgia
H - Hong Kong
I - India
J - Japan
K - Kenya
L - Lithuania
M - Malta
N - New Zealand
O - Oman
P - Panama
Q - Quatar
R - Romania
S - Switzerland
T - Turkey
U - Uzbekistan
V - Vietnam
W - Western Sahara
X -
Y - Yemen
Z - Zimbabwe
While I thought of how to use X in this plan I found an object, skill or landmark that related to each of these countries and used imagery within the already designed letterforms to give them another level of meaning.
This worked really well and I decided that I had found my final idea for the font.
I then worked on finding a suitable image to represent each country and how to incorporate that with the letterforms:
Albania - two headed eagle (from the flag)
Bermuda - 'Quo Fata Ferunt' motto of Bermuda translated to 'Whither the Gods may take us'
Canada - maple leaf is a very strong symbol of Canada and appears on the flag
Denmark - Carslberg brewed and created in Denmark has the crown logo
Egypt - Egyptian head dress
Finland - Finland is an old Norse country and I use the symbol for the Norse god Odin
Georgia - Large population of bears in Georgia
Hong Kong - Bauhinia blakeana is the floral emblem of Hong Kong
India - 'Two and a bud' tea leaves. India was the beginning of the entire tea industry
Japan -
Kenya - Kenya is very famous for its Lions
Lithuania - Symbol from the coat of arms
Malta - old temple ruins from Malta
New Zealand - Kiwi bird is a national symbol of new zealand
Oman - Oman have traditional Khanjar knives used in ceremonies
Panama - Mola is a traditional kind of clothing worn and made in panama
Quatar - Khor al Adaid meaning 'inland sea' is a vast area of sand dunes and inland water
Romania - Dacian king Decebalus is one of the oldest kings in history
Switzerland - Swiss Watch
Turkey - Pamukkale is a great area of natural springs overlooking a large cliff
Uzbekistan - well known for Uzbek Pottery
Vietnam - Huge population of Buddhists in the country, using Lotus flower as a symbol for Buddhism.
Western Sahara - Killim Rugs are a traditional aspect of Western Sahara
-
Yemen - Khat is a locally grown drug, illegal in many countries but very common in Yemen
Zimbabwe - bird symbol from the flag of zimbabwe
Once I had all this information, all I had to do was start making the final letterforms individually.
I now knew what to do with the letter X after looking back over my notes about Chris' personality and seeing the 'strong links to childhood'.
It was at this point that I decided to work in lowercase letter to represent the child-like link and decided to use Buzz Lightyear as the imagery for the X which relates back to Chris' ideal fancy dress constume.
I printed off the Hattenschweiler alphabet in lowercase including glyphs and set about manipulating them into my elongated serifed letterforms:
The center letter was originally 4cm each at x height, with letters like 'b' or 'd' extending the tip another 1cm and the same for the tail of letters like 'g' and 'j'. I extended the top half of the x height an extra 2.5 cm and the bottom half of the x height an extra 1.5 cm. This gave it the impression of extending upwards rather than just being long. For letters with a tail I extended 1.5 cm from the bottom of the original tail and for letter with the tip like 'b' I extended 2.5 cm from the x height and then a further 2.5 from that adding to the upwards elongation effect.
From here I worked on adding the imagery to the individual letterforms on tracing paper and then finally traced each of those on to the final piece. Click on the image to link to a larger view:
For feedback and evaluation see PPD blog.
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