OUGD403 - Study Task 1 - Ligature task

Study Task 1

Ligature task

This task was to design and a new character for a typeface of our choice.

I started this project by mind mapping ideas.

My first idea was to take the word ‘selfie’ and make a symbol with it. My idea was to combine a camera into the letter ‘s’. I didn’t think this idea was successful so I moved onto another idea, still using ‘selfie’ as my starting point. I used the YSL logo as a starting point. Again I didn’t think this idea worked. I moved away from ‘selfie’ and started to look at the word ‘okay’. I developed this idea by combining the ‘o’ and ‘k’. I especially liked the idea with the o above the k as it reminded me of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s font. I also looked at the hand signals for okay and explored how to make these into a character.

With the ideas I produced I put some designs into sentences to see how they would fit around existing words and fonts. I tried a few of the symbols within questions. This gave me the idea to explore how the word okay is used both in questions and in statements. I developed this further by looking at how tone of voice changes when asking a question in contrast to when stating a sentence and applying this to the character.

At this point I decided that I wanted to work with a character that could be drawn in one motion, like the ampersand. To do this I looked at short hand.

Our final character is a singular looped line to represent the o in okay. It can be applied to both question and statement. When used in a statement the tail of the character ascends upward to represent how our voices change when asking a question. The serif points upward to exaggerate this point. When used in a statement the character the line that follows the counter is a straight line because our tone of voice remains constant when saying a statement. The serif on this character points downwards in order to contrast from the question character.

On both characters the character starts from the same point. The aperture raises slightly above the x height with the bowl sitting within the dimensions of the x height. The character sits on the baseline. When used in a question the ascender rises to cap height with the serif reaching slightly above than this.

 The feedback I received on this project was to try the character within different fonts. This is particularly important for this design task as, like the ‘&’ it must work in all fonts. I should also consider what the symbol would look like in italics and sans serif fonts. On reflection I also think the character I have designed looks too long in comparison to other letters and symbols and would be better understood if explained within context.

 On my next project I will do more research into individual designers as well as broader research about the project its self as this is something I failed to do during this task.

In conclusion, I think our final outcome is successful as a symbol, especially in regular type. To develop the symbol further I would like to explore italics as well as lighter and bolder designs. I also would explore how the symbol would work across a range of typefaces including both sans serif and serif typefaces as this is something I did not fully consider when designing the symbol.