Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

One of the most unique collections we saw during our visit to WSU was the artwork created by a nun named Corina Kempt. While the museum director himself was not fond of the pieces, I thought they were great examples of typography. She is famous for creating a LOVE stamp in the 1980s and her unique use of screen painting. She worked with a lot of words and vivid colors. I was struck by the thought that her designs were so simple, they

Corina Kent, unnamed. Depicts materials-based method. Paint on paper. 

almost looked like they were created by a child. Along with the simplistic artwork, every piece was complete with a quote, usually about love, that she imagined herself. Her work didn’t seem amazingly religious to me but more about peace and acceptance. The piece I chose to write about was unnamed but depicts a butterfly with rainbow wings and a scribbled purple quote that reads “there is no birth  of consciousness without pain.” The butterfly has obvious paint strokes, with different weights and densities. The colors are vivid and simple. All in all, the image resembles a child’s finger painting. The script is nearly illegible (I still do not know what the last words says), with fast-paced lettering and uneven density. It looks obviously very methods-based, seemingly done with the same paint from which she made the butterfly. I thought the script of this piece would be similar to mine, in the way that I also want my typography to seem materials-based and quick. A lot of the elements – the cursive inspiration, the unevenness, the messiness – are what I want to come across in my typography inspired by Sylvia Plath. While Sylvia Plath’s writing is somewhat more structured and legible than Kent’s, I want the typography to be more messy, like Kent’s. The “f” and “t” were very similar from both examples. Kent’s piece gave me inspiration to edit the neat script more.

Andy Warhol created this replication of a receipt he got from the liquor store.

The recreation of one of Andy Warhol receipts for the liquor store was interesting because he is such a famous artist and it seems so simple but his work usually has more meaning. I thought the various typefaces was interesting and I thought the way the red lettering stands out could possibly relate to my typeface. I cannot have multiple fonts in my poster, but I think that I want to have the colors in my font that contrast well with a white or black background.

I also enjoy the difference between the handwritten letters versus the printed letters because it gives the authentic feel to the receipt. The thing I most enjoy about this piece is that raises the questions of why he made this and why did he choose a liquor receipt? I would like to hope my typeface and poster can combine to raise questions like these when I am finished.

During our trip to the WSU Art Museuem I was intrigued by a work that depicted Andy Warhol in a relatively sardonic, clinical fashion.

The photo is stylized almost like an old school anatomy diagram, with arrows pointing to each part of his body and then a brief description or anecdote related to said body part. This inspired me to think more critically about the anatomy of my type design, and how each choice I make could be justified in the context of my overall vision. Using this “anatomy and loose description” model has helped me connect my abstract ideas of what I would like my design to embody to what it actually could look like. It also helped me when figuring out what method I was going to use to create my type.

This also helped me with figuring out whether my design was more modular or organic. I wanted to create a design that organically reflected this fictional world which it was inspired by, but the world itself has a heavy and historical focus on modular, technological design.  In order to attempt to compromise this I used a breadboard to develop the letters, which provided a good skeleton and structure for me to test out ideas upon.