In designing my font on FontStruct, I wanted to construct characters that reflect my current perception of self in relation to my personal and professional identities in transition. My goal was to design a font that captures the paths that lead to progress.
Before designing my own font, I wanted to determine which existing font I would use as a basis for variation. Lupton explains, “When choosing a font, graphic designers consider the history of typefaces and their current connotations as well as their formal qualities. The goal is to find an appropriate match between the style of letters and the specific social situations and body of content that define the project at hand” (p. 30). I started with Times New Roman, partly because of my familiarity with this font, but also because it is widely used and transferable. As the default for most Web sites, this is a font users are expected to have on their computers (p. 55). As one of the characteristics of my font focuses on the duality of human nature, I also see this font as a point of fusion, as it is often the most accepted in academic as well as corporate correspondence.
My initial sketch shows intention to reconstruct the Times New Roman font with variation, such as with the Ascenders in the capitol letter “A.” I started by enlarging this character in Word. I wanted to font’s structure to carry forward movement which, in the case of the letter A, meant traveling upward to its highest point. (To reinforce this movement, I used bricks that, when combined, gave the appearance of arrows pointing upward.)
However, I had difficulty working the angles of this letter as Times New Roman captured it and settled for more of a block structure, maintaining the base of Times New Roman. Within the letter’s base, I used the brick that contained a small white square within a larger, undefined space, emphasizing the placement of each of us within a realm of possibility.
As I moved on to the letter “B”, however, I realized the concept of moving up and forward was compromised by this letter’s path—to where would one be moving forward? This caused me to re-evaluate my directional bricks. With some experimenting, I decided on the combination of bricks below with the following in mind: depending on perception, the triangles provide different meanings. To focus on the pair of black triangles, facing inward, emphasizes my introverted personality (though this changes based on my comfort level and surroundings). To focus on the white triangles (the combination of which forms a diamond) these can carry the eye upward (showing progress) or downward (as we all have moments when we feel like we’re falling or moving in the opposite direction of where we’re trying to go).
With further consideration to my theme of progression, I inserted the circular bricks at crossroads within the letter (the placement of these vary based on the letter’s direction). These circles are meant to represent the necessary points of introspection—those moments when our thoughts may seem circuitous and disconnected from others. Such moments, though they may make us feel like we’re standing still, are necessary in order to move forward.
I worked to create consistency with size, keeping my lower case letters half the height of my capitol letters, as Lupton illustrates (p. 36).
For my color pallet, created in Kuler, I wanted to capture colors reflective of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, as this is a milestone in my journey to progression. (I pulled images from the Web, as I cannot take pictures within my facility.) Working through several images and color combinations, I decided on one that transitioned from cool to warm colors. In Gage’s discussion of the connotations derived from color and its history, he describes the three social divisions of color in the nineteenth century: nobles = gold; freemen = red; slaves = blue (p. 34). While I had no such perception of social class in mind, I wanted to use similar colors to reflect modern associations that may be loosely derived from this history. For example, blues (especially darker ones) are often associated with sadness or melancholy, whereas yellows indicate happiness. I liked the duality of this combination and the transition in thought and emotion that viewers may travel through when encountering such images.
Created from the picture below, from www.lockheedmartin.com
