Study Task 01 - Punctuation, Ligatures and Emojis

Task:

Design and develop a new character for a typeface of your choice.

The new character should be designed as a response to a pre-identified problem

Explore the use of negative space, silhouettes, angles and shape. Explore the use of abstract and representational forms.

Characters within a typeface should work effectively on a range of scales from large to small.

To an extent typefaces are international, there are no language barriers.

This task was initially set to be carried out in partners however due to unforeseen circumstances I ended up doing this task solo.

For this task I began by looking for phrases and abbreviations I use often, in real life, on text and through social media; as well as picking up on friends phrases. I noticed that in general we are quite a lazy generation and like to have abbreviations for words rather than typing the whole thing out, which doesn’t make much sense as everyone I know can type rather quickly! I also focused on words most commonly used, which I think would be a better option, as everyone will use them not just the younger generation.

Some of the options:

·      ‘cba’ – cant be arsed

·      ‘omg’ – oh my god/gosh

·      cool

·      ‘ily’ – I love you

·      ‘lol’ – laugh out loud

·      ‘idk’ – I don’t know

·      okay

·      yes/no

·      because

Having looked at the Ampersand and how it uses the letters involved in a very ornamental way to create a symbol I wanted to find a word or abbreviation that I could do this with. With this in mind I decided to go for the word ‘okay’ I thought this would be a success as everyone generally uses this word and it is rather universally known; "OK" has frequently turned up as a loanword in many other languages and has been described as the world's most widely-understood word.

Definition: denotes approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. "OK", as an adjective, can also express acknowledgment without approval.

I started off by sketching a few ideas out [see figure 1] and playing around with the letters ‘o’ and ‘k’ primarily seen as from reading up on the history this is how the word started off, apparently the first record of the word being used was in an American newspaper, so with this in mind I would like to create a ligature easy to type without too many complicated lines that could look messy in print.

I wasn’t feeling too confident with this task as my skills on Illustrator are limited and this was the software most suited to the result I wanted to achieve. So I started on Photoshop roughly using the paintbrush tool to do some basic shapes [see figure 2]. I then went on to develop the characters on Illustrator to the best of my ability, I didn’t design them strictly to a type face but I kept in mind that they must suit every point size and both serif / san serif fonts. I also wanted it to be identifiable to other languages, making a character that didn’t too closely resemble just an ‘O’ and ‘K’.

In the end I produced 4 different options [figure a,b,c and d] all with their strengths and weaknesses, I chose figure d to get valuable feedback from my peers and tutors:

·      The top of the character resembles/reminds them of fingers whilst motioning the OK hand symbol
·      The character focuses mostly on the letter K however features an O not so obviously shaped – maybe this could be a little more rounded, less rigid.
·      Think about it thinking on a laptop/ keyboard, would the symbol be suitable for a square canvas? Would it have to be shrunk down/ height changed?

What I will focus on next time:

·      I will carry out a lot more research next time, to ensure my work has actual meaning rather than just trying to make something look good.
·      Considering the personality of a character, be it a ligature, letter, punctuation etc. small tweaks and stylistic serifs or angled lines, bowls, eyes or counters can make all of the difference in the message I’m trying to get across.

figure 1

figure 2

figure a

figure b

figure c

figure d