FMP (BA): Initial Ideas & Experimentation with Celtic Writing

I decided to follow James Victore's advice on how to find my voice [link here] so instead of spending a day searching for inspirational posters and designs, I focused mainly on gathering inspiration from the Lord of the Rings books and films.

Sketching Ideas 

While I was watching the Fellowship of the Ring I sketched a few rough ideas based on my inspiration, because I prefferred to have something down (no matter how sketchy) so that I didn't forget about it later. I started to draw the Tree of Gondor when I came up with the idea of merging the it with Narsil (Elendir's sword) to portray Aragorn as both are very closely linked to him. I wrote some small notes on how I would briefly look into Chalk Lettering but when I watched the film more I realised that that type style might not be suitable for this 'project'.

I started to think about celtic writing, but I was soon distracted by my other idea that I just left it for a bit and sketched out my tree and sword. I couldn't really decide where I was going to place the type but for now I thought I'd have it overlap the sword & tree and delete the areas they'll overlap so that it's left with a blank space for the text. I thus moved on to focus mainly on the type.

This was probably the first time where I didn't look at any typographic posters and designs for inspiration in detail, and instead just kept flicking through my mood board for an hour or so before completely going off it and drawing whatever layout was on my mind. I felt that I was 'free', in a way, because I didn't want to create something having been inspired by so and so. I did however look at Lord of the Rings for inspiration and at my my research I had gathered in my previous post. 

I first started by writing the sentence and picking the key words such as 'wander', and making marks where the ends of each little section would be. Then I drew out some layouts and went back to trying out Celtic writing. 

At one point I did want to go back to doing a banner before deciding that it wouldn't look right and besides, I've already done a banner for a previous design so I wanted something different. 

Moving on from the type I went back to figuring out what to do with the layout and then thought of doing something that resembled Illuminated Manuscripts by having a detailed border with the elvish inscription around the border. However I wasn't too sure about this so I quickly drafted out some new layouts before deciding to go with the one where the tree would be situated at the top with the type in the middle. 

Improved Sketch

I quickly drew a better sketch of this idea, first drawing out the layout where everything would go and then putting in the writing. I found that even though I do like my sketch, I need to try doing the writing properly because it doesn't look brilliant right now. Here I fully concentrated on Celtic writing. 

I figured that it might be best to try it out with my dip pens that had a flat edge. I haven't really experimented with this type before either so it would be good to figure out how to use them properly.

Practising with Dip Pens

I realised that when I used a small dip pen it didn't really work out when I was doing the bigger letters, and that it looked so much better when I'm writing it really small. Because I don't want to go too small I moved onto a bigger pen nib and achieved successful results (for a first try). I carried on experimenting with it on curvy lines to reflect what they'll look line in the design.

I looked at my results and on a new page I wrote the quote on a straight line so that I could focus on kerning and character widths. After each experiment I wrote annotations on what I could improve on (e.g. the height of the ascender was too tall, x-height was too short). I constantly looked back at the Celtic alphabet I gathered in my research for reference, making note of how wide the characters are and how short the ascenders. 

I noticed that r and l have a shorter width than the others I used so I made note of this to reduce the kerning. I made each letter be around 1.5cm wide, with the thinners ones 1cm, with 0.2 cm kerning between each letter and 1cm between each word. To figure out the height I just did four dashes - a technique I learnt in a previous project - for the x-height with the fifth for the ascenders.

Reflective Thinking - Summary 

I dedicated the whole day to generate ideas and develop them slightly so that I was ready to carry out some experimentations the next day. I was quite happy to start looking at Celtic lettering because I noticed that I've been relying on my own handwriting for the past couple of projects so I think it would be a nice change to see some other style when people are flicking through my book.

My research has enabled me to channel my thoughts so that all of the ideas generated circle around Aragorn. However I feel that I haven't really explored into some other ideas and that could mainly be because I don't really have any other ideas. I can't think of ways to change the ones I had and my other idea wasn't connected to Aragorn at all but for the characters in Lord of the Rings in general. I would like to generate a few more ideas but as the idea I have now is suitable for the quote I don't mind working on that first. Besides, I could always sketch out a new idea if one pops into mind.

I should perhaps draw up a mind map for Aragorn as I had done for Lord of the Rings in general, although I had done that in the form of a list during my research when I wrote about what objects are important to Aragorn. Next time when I reach another project I shall first produce a mind map before moving onto producing ideas so that I could come up with some more possibilities.

I think I shall spend the whole of tomorrow experimenting with Celtic lettering because no matter what design I go for in the end I think this will be consistent as it relates directly to the Lord of the Rings era. 

Learning Outcomes:

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

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

[7] Developed their ability to learn through reflection on practice and experience.
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.