OUGD603 - Typeface design - Evaluation

With this brief being my final project of the year, it has been by far the most rewarding and enjoyable one to undertake. It all began with this brief being influenced by one of my early briefs in the year, the Grainger Market identity. Orginally, I did that brief to be representative of me and where I’m from. Creating work i’m passionate about and something which can be a form of expression in my portfolio. So to further this expression through another deliverable was really rewarding.

In terms of what I have produced I am overly happy with the design side of things, the research and development paid off in the end. Along with having time away from the brief to collect my thoughts on how to best represent Grainger Town through a typeface. I knew that the key to creating something succesfull was having the typeface heavily informed by research. Personally, I dont see the relevance in some types which are created to simply be visually nice to look at. I wanted my typeface to have a backbone, and I feel it does with my research into Grainger Town and its history.

The design of the type allowed me to use new softwares such as glyphs so I know how to use this software from now on. Furthermore, the satisfaction from exporting the type from glyphs and typing for the first time with it, is unrivalled to any other brief from this year. I felt like I crafted this idea more than anything ive done while at uni. Once the typeface was finalised it was more of task finding ways to place the type into a catergory and ways in which to best communicate it through a specimen. Experimentation during this process was again a fulfilling part of the brief, as my orginal plan of using newspaper was changed which in turn benefited the overall final specimen. What didnt go to plan during this brief was the oppurtunity missed to create woodblock. Everything was put into place to get woodblock letterforms ready for deadline, but sadly inexpeirence in this production costed the brief. A little more time and preperation would have enabled me to hand in on time, but nevertheless this was an expansion of the brief so not a neccesity to hand in. Although, I was unable to make the wooblock in time I will continue this project after extended practice. As this brief will form a part of my final show piece. So far I have the final typeface and specimen, with woodblock in the works, but this project has so much potential I believe.