FMP (BA): Feeback & Thoughts

Feedback

I received my results from my previous project, and even though I didn't get the grade I wanted I'm starting to think of it as part of the learning curve. I took some time away to reflect on what I had done and where I'm headed and wrote a few notes of feedback I got back from my lecturers.

Here's a list I produced of the things I really need to think about for my project and ways to overcome them.

Composition

This was what brought down my mark on the last project as my lecturers pointed out that it was probably due to the fact that I rushed at my decision and didn't properly explore it. I must admit that once I find something I'm less likely to budge from my decision, so for this project I really need to break away from that and think of the best ways to produce a design not only to my taste, but to the "client" and examiners. 

To overcome this I shall look more into composition to make sure that I fully understand it as well as take my time during the design process.

Critical Thinking

Even though I was doing this quite a lot I didn't realise just how in depth I had to be, as it was mentioned that I should aim for the same level of analysis than my dissertation. This was quite nerve-wracking for me because I analysed my dissertation in such detail that I don't think I can do the same with this project.

Not that I won't try to, of course, so my plan of action here would be to go back through what I've already analysed and pick the design apart like I would do if it was my dissertation. Here's what the UELT wrote about critical thinking in their guide:

• Actively seek all sides of an argument
• Test the soundness of the claims made
• Test the soundness of the evidence used to support the claims
• Weigh up evidence - for and against
• Stand back - identify bias
• Examine from different perspectives
• Check accuracy
• Check logic
• Identify flaws in reasoning
• Ask questions/problematise

Now this list looks pretty intense and it seems to be aimed more at dissertations, so I wrote down my own list from what I've learnt from it:

• For/against the design, write a brief summary
• For - why is the design inspiration? How? So what? 
• Against - any problems with it? Why don't I like it? 
• Write some evidence - e.g. if it reminds you of a certain type/style, talk about why and make it strong!
• Final thoughts

Hopefully with this list in mind I shall find the critical thinking section a lot easier to do!

Reflective Learning

I have done this quite briefly so far but I didn't fully understand what this meant, and after having a look at this document that was handed out to me I have realised exactly what this means and how close I was to doing this properly. In the document they listed the stages of reflective learning: 

1) Description - describe as a matter of fact just what happened during your critical incident or chosen episode for reflection

2) Feelings - what were you thinking and feeling at the time?

3) Evaluation - List points or tell the story about what was GOOD and what was BAD about the experience

4) Analysis - What sense can you make out of the situation. What does it mean?

5) Conclusion - What else could you have done? What should you perhaps not done?

6) Action Plan - It if arose again, what would you do differently? How will you adapt your practice in the light of this new understanding?

Looking at these I can see I have gently brushed with some of these things mentioned but not all. To achieve this I am going to list at the bottom of every post "Reflecting Learning" and then answer these questions. It might be time-consuming but I want to ensure that my intentions are clear.

My Own Thoughts

I realised that I haven't experimented in this project that much so I think I would like to do a lot more of it! I could just use random words for now and see what effect I can achieve, OR try to aim to use different materials for each chosen quote. 

I also need to delve deeper in terms of research and figuring out the right connotations in my designs and not go for something blatantly obvious. A good example of this is my type project I had done for Nelson Mandela's quote "It always seems impossible until it's done"; I didn't really look into his personal life and the stuff he went through, but just produced a design from the actual quote. Had I have done something more personal and more "Nelson Mandela" then it would've been a stronger design.

Reflective Learning - Summary

To test out my Reflective Learning skills, here's is my "Reflective Learning" section:

I was quite disappointed in my results but I'm going to take it as a challenge to do better to battle those blues! I know I can do this design, I just need to have a little faith in my abilities and not rush anything. Good things doesn't come to those who wait, but those who act! 

To have such mixed emotions could mean that getting feedback was a good and bad thing. Good because I could take it into account and learn from it, but bad because I thought I had tried my hardest but it made me realise that of course I wouldn't be able to be a genius at illustration after trying it for only two weeks! I'm being too hard on myself!

What I should do now is learn from this experience and hit all of those pointers above to help improve my work and hopefully create a design that I am extremely satisfied with. But in the near future - maybe tomorrow - I shall upload the feedback I received for my Nelson Mandela quote and then go through my old analysis' and improve on them.

Learning Outcomes:

[2] Developed a high level of intellectual and conceptual involvement with their chosen subject area, including skills of project proposal, documentation of project development and the presentation of outcomes.

[3] Developed written and oral skills of critical self-evaluation in relation to their design practice.

[6] Developed skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation.

[10] Developed their skills of visual, written and oral communication.

FMP (BA): Lettering Exercise - "It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done"

The Final Piece

The Process

I went along to experiment with Nelson Mandela's quote "It always seems impossible until it's done." I really wanted to try something similar to the papercut style, but as I don't have the materials just yet I first focused on the design. 

I started like I always do with quotes, by figuring out what kind of layout I wanted. This is normally the hardest part for me because it was the most important. I didn't want it too be too cluttered or spaced out so I took my time with this. I also wrote a new list of inspiration and connotations just in case I wanted to incorporate some illustrations into it.

FMP (BA): Politics - Inspiration

I'm aiming to do one or two quotes from famous politicians and during my research I decided to go with either: "It always seems impossible until it's done" by Nelson Mandela or "Whatever you are, be a good one" by Abraham Lincoln. The first thing I did after deciding was write a list of connotations and things associated with politics.

Mood Board - Existing Designs

I found it quite hard to come up with some ideas so instead I went straight to my research stage by gathering some inspirational pieces on Pinterest. Out of curiosity I had a look at existing products that used these two quotes and found that they had been done quite a lot.

This wasn't going to dampen my spirit, because I thought that even though these quotes had been done more than once, I could always make mine look different. From this I drew up a mood board on all of the pieces that showed these two quotes that I found eye-catching:

(all images from my Pinterest board which has the original illustrators/designers credits)

There's one consistent factor with all of these designs; they are all hand-rendered (well, all except for two) and these are mostly done in calligraphy or a chalk-lettering. I found this strange because I associated politics with strong, structured serifs, yet these are all done in quite a dainty way. This shows that instead of making the quotes look political because they were told by a politician, they focused more on the message itself.
This makes the message a bit more personal because someone had taken it upon themselves to design a quote with their own hand, so small "mistakes" would show through which they might not correct on the computer because the mistakes we make makes us human. These subtle mistakes or the human hand could thus relate to the politicians themselves in that they weren't perfect and had to go through a lot to get where they were. 

I want to do something different and the image on the bottom left really caught my eye. I hadn't thought about using different materials for typography! Maybe I could try out using paper or even using watercolours or something unusual, like feathers or twigs? Even doing something different with paper would be acceptable because it's not the simple case of using a pen or ink. It provides a texture of some sort. 

I want to keep my options open, however, so went back to my mood board on Pinterest to pick out the most inspirational images. I would like to incorporate more illustration to my designs and something different to what I had already done so far. 

Inspirational Pieces - Analysis

It's quite difficult to just look for a certain type of typographic style due to the diversity in the piece above. However I am keen on trying paper-cute typography so I shall look at that first (unless I change my mind and use another material).

Whispering Paper - http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhisperingPaper

I don't really know anything about this paper technique but I can tell by looking at this that it's very time-consuming. They would've had to cut around each individual space and make sure that the silhouettes are recognisable in order to see the words properly.

FMP (BA): You Are You Annotations

After I was done experimenting with my "You Are You" design I went along to print it out and make annotations. I always find little things to adjust when it's been printed out and in front of me, so I wasn't surprised to pick up a few things that I hadn't noticed before. I also asked my classmates and lecturer to see if they see anything I hadn't noticed. 

I quickly wrote these notes down before going back to the computer and making those adjustments. I then repeated my annotation process until I was 90% satisfied with my design. I've included a breakdown of my thoughts beneath each photo.

For my first test print I just wanted to see if all of the letters were okay within the outline of the hat. I did notice a few things here and there such as I forgot to thicken some strokes and forgot to make the comma the same blue as the rest of the text, but so far I didn't see anything else to change. So I printed out an improve version and then took a break for a bit so that I could see it again with fresh eyes.

FMP (BA): You Are You Contin.

Okay so to pick up from where we left off, I scanned my sketch into the computer and started to work on Illustrator. I hadn't typed in the exact dimensions of the book as I wanted to mainly focus on the illustration itself, as I had the idea to crop it down at a later stage.

N.B I had taken a lot of screen shots for this exercise because there was quite a lot of adjustments made, so I had to bunch a lot of screenshots together in one picture. To see the images in more detail just click on them. 

Drafting the Type

I started to work on the type first as the type was one of the main focal points. I had quite a fair amount of practice with hand-lettering now on Illustrator so I was able to do it in just a few hours (compared to a day, which was how long it used to take me when I first started). I haven't really thought about colour schemes just yet so I did everything in shades of grey. 

I worked on the easiest type styles first, and to make it as accurate as possible I drew each letter as if it was sitting on a straight line before tilting it slightly. I might change this later but for now I wanted to see what it looked like. I did this for quite a lot of the type - mostly all of it - so it was rather time consuming. I drew the hat outline around the same time. 

FMP (BA): Oxford Literary Festival

I noticed that even though it's a few weeks into this project, I hadn't yet produced a blog post about the Oxford Literary Festival. Instead I had written notes in my sketchpad and on my Pecha Kucha presentation (which I'll write about later on) so I think it might be time to put everything together.

I might've mentioned before that this project might be difficult in terms of target audience because the festival covers quite a wide range of topics, and thus different types of people as well as age groups. That's why I want to produce a book that aims to cover most of these topics instead of just focusing on literature.

Most of the information I gathered about this festival is on their website (here). The festival takes place every year, and this year it's on the last week of March (22nd - 30th) at Christ Church in Oxford, and is being sponsored by FT Weekend. They have provided a "Location and Travel" page on their website which is something I would need to include when it comes to designing their posters. Even though it doesn't really say I have to do these posters I would like to to promote the event. 

They have displayed the post code right at the top of the page although I completely missed this at first because it was included within a paragraph. I was initially looking for a Google Maps gadget, so when I didn't find one I got confused and looked at the page again. 

FMP (BA): Lettering Exercise - "You are You"

After gathering all of the necessary research for this little 'project' I started to draw up some sketches that was inspired from this research and from the list of connotations I had written down. This time I aimed more for the style of lettering I had stumbled upon in my last university project (APP Words) because I really enjoyed doing it, and it would match the 'fun' aspect of the quote. 

I wasn't too sure where to begin at first so I just wrote out the quote and put a circle around the words that really stood out before moving on to drafting my first layout. It was a bit all over the place at first as I tried out different layouts, working with one section at a time. I kept looking back at my inspirations before deciding that I should integrate my words with illustration to see if the process would be any easier. 

It was at this point that I wasn't too sure if my quote would be appropriate for the book, but then I realised... What if children were looking at it? After all, there would be children at the book festival, so I could try and create a product that appealed to the general audience. Thus I carried on sketching and drawing up ideas. 

Once I decided that I wanted the design to be more illustrative I tried out drawing up some crazy type styles with lots of decoration, much like the type shown in the pieces I gathered as inspiration [examples]. It was at this point where I wanted the type to be placed within the striped red-and-white hat that the cat wears in Dr. Seuss' books.
This type of placement was inspired by weareyawn where I analysed one of their pieces where it had the type within the shape of the Direwolf. [click here to see my analysis] 

FMP (BA): Bookbinding

Even though I'm still in my early stages of this project, I wanted to figure out how I will bind my book because I have a feeling that assembling the project would take a bit longer than actually designing it. This is because I would have to purchase materials that I don't have, especially if I'm binding it with thread, so I want to make sure I've got everything in time.

I headed to YouTube and Vimeo to have a look at tutorials as I find it much easier to learn through watching people than flicking through photos. 

The Chelsea Bindery: The Processes of Book-Binding from Peter Harrington on Vimeo.

FMP (BA): New Production Schedule

My new method of tackling each quote as a separate project seems to be working well, so I've produced a new production schedule so that I could keep on track. I was getting worried that I was 'floating around' a little bit as I didn't really organise my time very well. 

Here's my old version:

And my new one:

The last month or so will be spent assembling the product together, so even though I coloured in that I'll be working on the Final Design I will be doing research as well as placing my order at any printing companies.

FMP (BA): Research - Dr Seuss & Inspirations

I've mentioned in my last post that I was going to tackle each chosen quote as a separate project, so my first "project" will be a quote by Dr. Seuss which is: "Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."

This quote really caught my eye as it's really fun and joyful, and I suddenly started thinking back to those funny little illustrations in his books and had ideas of doing multiple type styles all scattered across one page. I highlighted this quote and wrote down some notes of the connotations produced when I looked at it:

Once this was done I wrote that I would research into Dr. Seuss' illustrations for inspiration as well as some typographic pieces that are 'fun' and are combined with illustrations.

Dr. Seuss

The first thing I did after writing my list of connotations was to take a look at some of the book cover art done for Dr. Seuss' work, and have collected everything on my Pinterest board "FMP Inspiration". I'm going to keep everything on this board throughout the whole project so that it'll be easier for me to flick through if I'm in need of inspiration. 

To make it easier for me to talk about them I've created a mood board (shown below) of some of his cover art. 

FMP (BA): Thoughts, Again

This project has been really confusing to me as it involves creating a series, and it wasn't until ten minutes ago that I came up with a solution; I'm going to tackle each page, each quote, as if it was an individual project so that I would first choose a quote and then do some research on inspirational pieces that "relates" to that quote, and go on from there.

I can't believe I hadn't thought of this earlier but I guess it's because it would be a new process to me. I've done something similar for my last FMP when I created some wedding stationary and treated the invitations and save the date cards etc as separate thing, and it worked pretty well.

The process will thus be as follows:

1. Choose a quote 
2. Find it's "voice" - perhaps do a mini mindmap or conjure a list of things related to it?
3. Gather inspiration and analyse it
4. Start sketching
5. Design
6. Done!

Hopefully this will work out! It'll provide me with some sort of timetable anyway.

Learning Outcomes:

[5] Developed skills of independent study, resource utilisation, problem-solving and decision-taking.

FMP (BA): Quotes Contin.

Now that it's been decided that my project is focusing on literature I need to collect a new set of quotes that's solely from books & poems. I have included the ones that I had originally researched, but will add some newer ones so that when it comes to practicing with type I can easily pick one from the list.

I need to make sure that the books these quotes originate from are relatively well-known, but I suppose it wouldn't matter if I threw in a lesser-known narrative as long as it's from a book/poem because the Oxford Literary Festival will attract a wide range of book enthusiasts.

Literature

"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy" - F. Scott Fizgerald, The Crack Up

"Not all those who wander are lost." - J. R.R. Tolkien

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
"All children, except one, grow up." - J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan (1911)
“To die would be an awfully big adventure.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
"Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure." - Albert Camus: The Stranger (1946)
"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
"You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought." - Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company
"Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives." - Siegfried Sassoon, Dreamers
"After all, tomorrow is another day" - Gone With The Wind
"You are, and have always been, my dream." - Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” - Oscar Wilde, The Happy Price and Other Stories
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” ― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” ― Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
 “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” ― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
 “Reality continues to ruin my life.” ― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger
Games
“A person's a person, no matter how small.” ― Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!
“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.” ― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“Jesus!" Luke exclaimed. 
"Actually, it's just me," said Simon. "Although I've been told the resemblance is startling.” - Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
"Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'"- Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

Politics & Politicians

"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end." - Margaret Thatcher
"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit." - Khalil Gibran
"It always seems impossible until it's done." - Nelson Mandela
"It's a funny old world." - Margaret Thatcher
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln
"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln
"Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm." - Abraham Lincoln
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." - Abraham Lincoln
"Whatever you are, be a good one." - Abraham Lincoln
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." - Abraham Lincoln

Travel

"Not all those who wander are lost." J.R.R.Tolkien
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Lao Tzu (Laozi)
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sources: The Telegraph ; http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/top-50-most-romantic-lines-from-literature ; http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171922; http://www.goodreads.com/quotes?; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_politics.html; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nelson_mandela.html; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/abraham_lincoln.html; http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/50-most-inspiring-travel-quotes-of-all-time/; 

FMP (BA): Lettering & Illustrator Exercise - "My Dream"

The Final Piece

The Process

As Valentine's Day is around the corner I was really inspired to come up with a romantic quote, and looked through some quotes by Nicholas Sparks who wrote The Notebook and other notable romance novels. After a while I came across one that was short and sweet: "You are, and have always been, my dream."

FMP (BA): Reflections

I've noticed that I work best when I have a whole mood board of inspirational pieces and just sit there with my list of quotes, pick one, and just draw. This has allowed me to work to a pretty tight schedule, and reflects what would be like in industry as I manage to do a piece in no more than a day. It has shown me that I can work under pressure and to a deadline. However my lack of research does leave my designs a bit stunted (in my opinion), meaning that I'm not developing my ideas as much as I hoped.

I'm going to upload one last piece I have done recently of a book quote and then I'll start researching again. I need to gather more pieces of information and analyse more hand-lettering so that I could understand the reasons why the designer/typographer/illustrator had done something a certain way. I need to research more into the Oxford Literary Festival as well, even though they attract a wide range of people of all ages.

Learning Outcome:
[6] Developed skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation.

FMP (BA): Lettering Exercise - "Tsunami Tides"

I needed to take a break from my previous calligraphy exercise "Afterall, tomorrow is a new day", so I was flicking through my online portfolio @ Behance I looked at a typographic piece I did a year ago that featured some lyrics from "U.N.I" by Ed Sheeran and decided that I would redo it, but this time with my own hand writing. I just feel that it's a bit of a shame that I didn't do it myself and used an existing font!

Here's the original piece:

I based my layout of the original copy, and started drawing out guidelines for all of the words. It's going to be harder to make sure that the leading and kerning it accurate as I wouldn't be able to adjust it as easily as I did on the computer for the original, so this took quite some time! Putting in the words took just as long, but I finally managed it.
When I was done I used a thick micron and wrote over what I had. I did this because I am going to do the final on a separate piece of paper because this paper was getting a bit messy.

FMP (BA): Calligraphy Exercise - "Afterall, Tomorrow Is Another Day"

After seeing how successful my last experiment was I decided to have another stab at hand-lettering, but this time try and focus on the "illustration & type" style that I had looked at in the previous post. I really liked Tobias Saul's work, and wanted to try something similar.

I just picked a random quote off of my list to play about with. I initially wanted to experiment with my dip pens a little further but got distracted by Saul's work and started to create some layouts. 

At this point I got a little bit stuck in terms of layout, and read up on an article where the hand-letterer normally draws up a list of words associated with the quote they're writing. I decided to try this out for myself in a mindmap.

FMP (BA): Inspirational Pieces - Illustration & Typography

Here I shall cover the "Illustration & Typography" section. I know that I may/may not have experimented with calligraphy that much, but I thought I'd treat this week as a 'tester' week before diving into the type of hand-lettering that I enjoy the most. 

To see my 'mood board', click here.

Inspirational Pieces 

Unicorn Empire Prints - http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/UnicornEmpirePrints

I received this top as a Christmas present and fell in love with the layout of type as well as the mix with illustration. I do have a soft spot for illustration, and to see it working so well with type makes this 'piece' all the more inspirational.

The type styles used reflect that of chalk lettering, and I'm hoping to do another post solely on it so that I can provide a comparison between it and this piece.
This link with chalk lettering is shown in the way that some of the words are shaded. In my previous project I noticed that the shading was done quite differently in chalk lettering to make the words stand out a little more even though it was very subtle. Such an effect can be seen in the words "Welcome" and "Demon Blood Special". I have briefly experimented with different shading types in my previous project “Words” but I hope to explore it a little bit more in this project.
What also brings up connotations of it being influenced by chalk lettering is that there's only really one colour used throughout the piece, with the only other colour being the background (the top), yet somehow they've managed to make it clear where the boundaries are between the illustration and type. This is due to the way they've drawn their thick lines to separate each element. This is quite an interesting technique and if I ever create a piece with only two colours I would like to use it.

FMP (BA): Calligraphy Exercise - "My Thoughts Are Stars I Cannot Fathom Into Constellations"

The Final Outcome

The Process

Even though I'm nowhere near finished with my research I wanted to experiment with calligraphy from what I've learnt through my analysis and the YouTube tutorials I had watched a few days ago. It is better for me to work this way because the ideas and inspiration is fresh in my mind, and I might continue to do this when I take a look at different type styles.

I'm not quite sure what quotes I want to use yet so I just used one of my favourites from "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green. I wanted to have another stab at the embrace-your-handwriting idea that I attempted previously, focusing on the layout of each word first.

One of the main reasons why I want to do hand-lettering was to reflect the delicacy of the book; it tells the story of a girl and her boyfriend who both have cancer, and as I don't want to give away any detailed spoilers all I can say is that it had a very sad ending. This was one of the quotes that really stood to me when I was reading it because it shows the mind of the novelist within the story that the girl was inspired by.  

FMP (BA): Inspirational Pieces - Calligraphy

I've created a new board "FMP Inspiration" on Pinterest to separate this project from my previous ones, and for the last couple of days I have been going through multiple websites to gather some inspiration. I'm hoping to gather as many different types of type styles as possible so that I could experiment a little more than I did in my APP Words.
Each type of lettering will be separated into multiple sections, as seen in my to-do list shown in my previous post. Here I shall cover the "Calligraphy" section. 

To see my 'mood board', click here.

Inspirational Pieces 

I'm finding it quite hard doing calligraphy despite looking through lots of videos on YouTube, and that's when I realised that I haven't really looked at any closely and analysed them. So I went onto my Pinterest board and selected a few that I find most inspiring.

Dear Lillie - http://dearlillieblog.blogspot.co.uk/

This isn't strictly a calligraphy based piece but I decided to include it in this category anyway because of the way most of the words were drawn. I should've placed it in my Chalk Lettering section but... Oh well.

What really caught my eye about this piece in particular was the way they've drawn "How do I" and "Let me count". It's so beautiful and elegant because of the soft curves and the little decorative swashes, and this reminds me of those curly plants (I think they're called Curly Wurly Rush or something) which brings back memories of my childhood. This thus creates a very personal and 'warm' atmosphere to the piece, which reflects the message written. The swashes also make the type appear slightly delicate as it thins out the character slightly, which could mirror the delicacy of the subject matter.

This typeface has a therefore feminine appearance due to elegant swashes and letterforms, but it is granted some 'strength' through the use of shading. This shading is very similar to that used in chalk lettering and gives the letters a bit more structure as well as making them stand out a bit more. This shading only applies to the main body of the letterforms, and not to the swashes, emphasising their fineness. 

I have seen quite a few pieces where they used a similar typeface although perhaps without the shading - an aspect carried across from chalk lettering - so this could quite possibly be a current typographic trend. By including something like this in my design will make it seem modern as I'm flowing with what's in fashion.

FMP (BA): To-do List - Research

Taking a look back at my production schedule I decided to do my to-do lists in three sections: one for research, one for experimentation, and another for anything extra I needed to brush up on.

Here's my to-do list for my research section which I would need to complete in around two weeks. I've only allowed myself a short time for research so that I could focus more on experimentation and practicing with type, although if I need to do any more research I'll do it alongside my experimentation.

FMP (BA): Calligraphy Tutorials

I gathered a few videos and dip pen/calligraphy tutorials and time lapses to help me out the next time I experiment with my two sets. Even though I had a look at them before my second exercise I didn't really concentrate on how they held the pen and how much ink they added, so now I shall look at them all with fresh eyes in hope of improving my calligraphy!

Calligraphy for Beginners - Lesson no.2

This tutorial shows how to use a fountain pen rather than a dip pen, but the reason I've included it is because she talks about how to hold the pen and what the ideal angle it is to do so. The way she writes is similar to Blackletter which is another type style I'd like to explore. 

Taking a closer look at her pen it resembles closely to the roundhand dip pen I have; she doesn't produce a strong contrast between thick and thin strokes, and the end of the fountain pen is straight rather than pointed. 

How to Write Copperplate

Rather than it being a tutorial like the video above, this one is a time lapse where they show very clearly how they write the word "Flourish". Because the video is quite slow I can concentrate on how they hold the pen and just how delicate the results can be. The ink had to be topped up regularly, and they sometimes had to 'colour' parts in. There is actually quite a lot of ink on the paper because it's very 'shiny' so I'm guessing they had to leave it to dry for a while. 

I was quite interested to see the guide they used because previous time lapse videos didn't necessarily show this. 

FMP (BA): Embracing My Handwriting

I wasn't able to explore that much into calligraphy during my last project so for this one I would like to have at least one of my quotes in that style. I found this article via “The Fozzy Book”, a blog run by a hand-letterer, which explains that we should embrace our own hand-lettering and turn it into something calligraphic.

To embrace my hand writing I had to first write out a word multiple times on a piece of paper, and I've done it with a biro pen and a micron at 005.

Then it was time to move onto one of my Dip Pens and the first one I tried out was the “roundhand” versions. I found in my previous experiment that the roundhand was a lot easier to use although it doesn't really vary in thickness.