| FORM&CONCEPT |

project one | project two

[carlygranato]

[carlygranato]

[carlygranato]

[carlygranato]

[carlygranato]

Project One Synopsis

I began by choosing fonts that were bold but still contained varying line weight and curved lines. Both Didot and Onyx are fonts that I found to work extremely well. My initial letterform studies are extremely simple and are more geometric in nature, while further into the group you begin to find a lot more fluid lines and shapes. These two different looks is part of the reason I chose my final two, they each represent one of these aesthetics respectively.

The first study did not change much from it's initial design, only a slight enlarging of the letterform and touch-ups within Illustrator to ensure the lines were straight. The reason this design worked so well was the  proximity of the white squares and the sense of depth that is created by having the smaller squares above the larger ones. In contrast, the second study has changed significantly since its beginning stages. Initially, the letterform was parallel with the edge of canvas, by rotating the letterform it doesn't automatically register as being in the foreground. This created the tension that the study had been lacking, though the white space still wasn't dominant enough. I decided to try to redistribute the white space to create different shapes, which is why I ended up moving the letterform off the right side of the canvas instead. This made both of the white shapes large enough and close enough to fit within the Gestalt Principle of closure. Both studies are very different as to how they look and why they work, which allowed me to explore the project's many different solutions more thoroughly.

I have always used a "designers' eye" to explain why some individuals when they look at a design recognize that there is "something off about it" but can't explain why. This project helped me to remember the Gestalt principles, but even more importantly it has helped me to be more specific when describing, discussing or critiquing artwork.

[carlygranato]

From my 36 letterform studies these are the four I chose to refine with the help of Professor Fender. At this point, I narrowed it down based on the different shapes created between the foreground and background. Conceptually I wanted to focus on the areas with the most obvious changes in line weight within the letterforms. Each original work's (on the left) caption includes the letter, typeface and changes made to each, with the revised version on the right.

[carlygranato]

These were my four best designs from my original 36 letter form studies. With these initial studies, I was focused on finding fonts that worked within the restraints of this project. More specifically, I was looking for fonts that are thicker, have varying line weight and the letter that displayed the font's characteristics best. I find that these characteristics lend themselves to creating the visual tension this project focuses on.