Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

I have found a quote from the Dalai Lama. I really love this quote, and lately I have been very over stressed with everything I have going on in my life. I have chosen to use this piece of text as inspiration behind what I want my alphabet to have a calming relaxing sort-of feeling.

This is a quote from the Dalai Lama, found on google.com

A Namaste image of relaxation and zen, found on google.com

I dove farther into the text itself and thought to go into the Dalai Lama himself. I will be going with his religion which is Buddhist. I have found another image that goes along with Buddhism of one simple very meaning full word with that religion and the alphabet used for it is sort of what I will be basing my alphabet off of. I have also found a religious text in the Buddhist language. The text appears to be hand-written onto the book, and is beautiful. Although I do not practice Buddhism, I think it is a wonderful practice. I think that mostly its their practices of relaxation and zen that I am drawn to for this part of the project.

This is a religious text in the Buddhist language, found on google.com

I will hopefully be able to follow the module set of rules. I will create a box, and have it be the set size each letter must exist in. I plan on doing a sort of grid maybe and have a set of what each different piece could go in. I plan on working in illustrator and using the pen tool mostly because I am more comfortable working in this program than in any other programs. I will be drawing out what I think each letter should look like. I plan on perhaps only having a set height that the letters will need to be in. Ascenders and descenders will be the same height so as to maintain consistency.

The book I am basing this alphabet on.

A possible way I would want this to look like.

The reason I picked playing cards for my alphabet is because of the symbolic role they played in a book I read called, Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich. The book has a lot of similarities to another book I was reading at the time, The Great Gatsby. Bingo Palace is about a man who returns home and fights for the affection of the woman he loves. He is also competing with another man for her, except his romantic rival is richer and has higher social status.

In terms of font, I plan on using Humanist Sans. I chose this font because I feel it is most simple and geometric font to chose from. I also appreciate what cards symbols in today’s culture. They symbolize gambling, money, and a variety of games.

Cards also mean something to me. When I was younger, something I would always do to pass the time was building card towers. There were also other card games I became obsessed with like Pokemon and Uno.

I wish to scan the cards because I believe it will be the best way to get perfectly flat images of the cards instead of having pictures of the cards at odd angles. I will probably use a resolution-based editing software like Photoshop because I am more familiar will Photoshop over Illustrator. I am currently not sure if I will scan the pictures of cards and then construct the letters later in Photoshop or build the letters in the scanner and scan it that way.

For this assignment I found myself looking for inspiration in the strangest places. It was not until I received my monthly makeup subscription from Ipsy, that I got the inspiration to create an alphabet out of lip stick and lip glosses! I absolutely love makeup, especially lip products and figured what better than to make a glamorous and fun typeface out of some of my favorite products? I plan on using various sizes of lip glosses, all in cylindrical and similar shapes. My alphabet will be relatively straight with little to no curves, since I am creating it out of solid and hard shapes. I might try to add flare and possibly curves to my typeface in photoshop or illustrator, but I think my first challenge will be to physically create the alphabet and scan it. My favorite thing about my various lip products is that they are all unique in color and shine, but maintain a similar shape.

Image from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-close-up-color-container-301367/

My alphabet will be made up entirely from scans, and will not be sketched or created digitally. I plan on using 15 different lip tubes of various widths and lengths to create an alphabet with enough variation. I already have enough lip products at my house, so I need to bring them all to the CDSC and arrange them in various ways to create different letters. I will use the black felt provided to create more contrast, as most of my lip products are light and wouldn’t contrast well against white. I also need the fabric to help create the scan as the lip tubes are three dimensional.

The text source that I am using as my source of inspiration is a monastic free font text created by a contemporary graphic designer. The text was created for fashion and artistic purposes. When I looked at the design it made me think of photography and high fashion, as well as magazine covers. Me being a photographer and seeing what I saw in the font inspired me. It made me visualize different photos that I have seen and loved, also the type of photos that I would like to take and have the font associated to the images themselves. The text is sexy, clean, artistic and contemporary. The artistic inspiration that I got from seeing the text and how I could use it is what made me choose it. I think that readers feel the same way, but they depict themselves or thinks that they like through the text rather then how they could use it to create something else. The image inspires visual excellence and I think it will allow the viewer to think of something artistic and fashionable when the see the text the way that I did.

My design will be modular, this is because the design that I want and construction of the text is very digital rigid, there are no organic elements in the design that I have in mind so I will not require scans of materials. The rules that I have for my text design are simplistic. I will focus the weight of the letters or thicker lines on one side of the image and have the other side be very light and thin, but I want the thick and thin sides of the text to be consistent across each letter the same.  To do this I will be using adobe illustrator and photo shop. These tools will allow me to manipulate the designs that I want or create new elements in the design using the pen tool or fill for the thick ends of the letters. Vector based editing software will be my focus especially with the features that illustrator has to offer. This will allow me to manipulate the proportions and size as I please without needing to consider the amount of pixels I may or may not have. This freedom will make creating the letter design much easier and more convenient, while also giving me the sharp angles that I am looking for. The letter designs will be created using computer graphics only because the inspiration and texture of the image does not require hand made elements.

Monastic Free Font by Saptarshi Nath