TYPOGRAPHY Inspiration
This post is solely for Jodie and her lust for good type.
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If you refer back to the post Black and White / Type and Titles, you will get the sort of mood I’d like to direct my typography towards.
However, instead of purely imitating the fonts from the B&W era, I’d like to also introduce and draw on a trending contemporary type style, Chalk Typography, made notorious by the NY designer Dana Tanamachi. Here are some examples from Tanamachi herself and others.
Here are some photoshop pseudo ones that still look great;
I woud love to take the characteristics of the above typography to work into my title sequence. The texture of the chalk coincides well the use of chalk in the movie. The extra embellishments fit well with the genre as it takes elements from the black and white silent era.
Just the overall use of tactile type is what gets me. The precision of the kerning and leading to create something dynamic. I hope to be able to express these characteristics in my title sequence. It seems like a fucking difficult task to me. But let’s see if I can pull this off in the next 4 weeks.
HELP.
incredible chalk typography
tanamachistudio.comi have recently fallen head over heels for chalk typography.
i think i may someday fill my house/studio/life with it.
Playing For Keeps in Situ
Today was the day I put my ideas, thoughts, inspiration etc etc in situ.
Today was, the day.
Everyone take a gander and criticise, all you like.I’m telling you now, (Jodie and Oli) This was so fucking hard to draw up on concrete. The top of my fingers were grazing against the concrete, callus appeared in seconds. Thankfully and fortunately, myboyfriend and myniece helped me out. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without those extra, loving, hands.
So, I did print out three A4 guides as shown in the first picture and tried my best to imitate them on the ground. I even tried using rulers, but it was still so difficult to draw up because the chalk tip was so thick. The kerning isn’t exactly perfect. I might have to talk to good ol’ type nazi about this. Maybe it won’t matter when I put the footage altogether, I’m hoping not.
And yes, I finally shot the scenes for my title sequence. I still haven’t gone through them. I might just do that now.
Chalk Typography
Not related to my sayings, but another piece of handmade typography, done last year for my typo class. This is a quote by Matthew Carter.
“Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters”
I wanted to focus on my interpretation on how it could be read, playing with sequencing and emphasis, to make its meaning more digestible for the viewer. I also wanted to highlight that they are two different descriptions about type, with subtle differences. I delivered them in separate chunks, for viewers to make the comparison.
“Type [pause] is a beautiful group of letters, [pause] not a group of beautiful letters”
I’ll leave you to decide if I was successful! By all means, give me your thoughts on how you would read it. I love talking shop about the craft.
The piece took about 30 hours total, all recorded on camera from start to finish. We had to do it freehand, and were only allowed to use simple guides for size and placement (no projections, and no pre-drawn stencils on the board).
The assignment wasn’t so much about the end result, but rather, the process of constant refinement to get to that stage. I left it with a more profound understanding and respect, for the construction and balance of letter-forms of well designed typefaces, and the subtle nuances and intricacies that make up good type design.
It was my first time using chalk, and it’s really fickle to work with. Half the time I was fighting against the medium. The wall is also slightly angled backwards, which distorted my view and and made chalk dust fall onto bits beneath. Cleanup was a nightmare too; cloudy residue clung to the board no matter how vigorous I was with cleaning.
The final piece stood taller than me (I’m around 6’4” ), but there was also empty space beneath it, so that’s not the best approximation. It also ended up being twice the size in width than most pieces created by other people in my class.
View my other project over here
