Brief 3: Week 3 Progress

I don't feel that this week has gone particularly well in terms of my progress. I have found that I haven't had so much time this week to be able to do this brief well every day, so a couple of the days are quite rushed and are disappointing, but it's all part of the learning experience of it. It's shown me that it takes time and patience to create a good piece of hand drawn type.

I'm happy with the results on Day 15 & 19. Day 21 was also ok. I followed the couple of examples I took influence from, but I think the dramatic changes in weight doesn't work so well overall. It looks quite unbalanced, mainly due to the 'O's'. If I were to do it again I would include the thin weight at a point and carefully consider how the two weights work together.

I am starting to find that I am creating much better work when it is structured type, like day 15 and 19. I am also starting to get better with the use of serifs and how I draw them into the letters. This is definitely something I want to continue with. Hand drawn type doesn't necessarily always have to be a script-like font. I think creating a more complex serif font design takes more time, patience and skill, so I am glad that I am enjoying this.

I have found that I am still finding it quite hard to create good script-like type, so for the last 9 days of this brief I want to narrow the designs down into the style of type which I have been most successful at.

Days I think have been successful:
6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 19

It is a bit of a mix between structured and script designs. I also really enjoyed Day 9 which involved creating a shape and fitting the text in this, warping it. This is something that I want to work on too because it adds a bit of character to a design which can use a simple font design.

I enjoyed Day 6, 10 and 12 because of the use of different fonts in the same design. This is something that I want to consider working on. It gives each word a bit of individuality and presence. Day 13 was the design that I enjoyed the most. This was a bit of a surprise, and I was really happy with the outcome, so working in this kind of style is something I want to try again.

Overall my general thoughts about this past week are that while the results haven't been as good as I'd have hoped, it has helped me reflect on the work from the week and whole brief and decide how to move forward in this last week.

It has also made me start to think about what I want to do as a continuation to this brief. Right now I am considering doing the brief over again so I can focus down more and work on the skill more because it is obviously something that isn't easy to learn and do well. While I know my work on script-life type isn't entirely successful at this point, I really would like to keep working at it so I can eventually have a range of type styles that I feel comfortable working in.