Goodtype Sketch Developments

To begin this project, I made a list of various words which appealed to me in some way - in their aesthetic, sound and meaning. I wanted to keep this brief as free as possible to develop my hand-drawn type skills and consider type as image.

The list consisted of the following words:

• Bliss
• Dollop
• Enigma
• Epiphany
• Euphoria
• Ambition
• Persistance
• Hysteria
• Kaleidoscope
• Lollop
• Serendipity
• Suave
• Sublime
• Paradise
• Willow
• A cappella
• Cassette
• Lullaby
• Delirium
• Rhapsody
• Serenity
• Fairy
• Duet
• Tempo
• Sizzle 

From this, I chose Cassette, Dollop and Sizzle as my top three words. The words gave me three very different ideas to work with visually. I visualised Cassette as elegant, italic and fluent. Dollop instantly made me think of splash of ice cream. Sizzle suggests heat, flame and waves. Using these as my base ideas I began sketching the different designs.

This was a great alternative project to all of the previous digital work I had been doing.

As I wanted this to be a quick, turn-around project, I limited myself to two days of drawing. This made it easier to focus entirely on this project as it was only a short period of time. It also pushed me to take more chances with the designs as I didn't have long to mess about with different possible ideas. 

After the two days I had chosen 'Cassette Tapes' as my favourite design. I thought it was the most appropriate outcome after researching more of the Goodtype Instagram page and website. The majority of their posts were praising elegant italic and experimental hand-drawn type projects. I also thought this outcome reflected the type of hand-type I had been developing over the past few months.

To push the idea further, I scanned the design Illustrator where I transformed it into a vector image. I then expanded the image to prepare it for laser cutting.

Scanned Version

Vector Version

I cut the design out of a selection of different paper stock and colours using the 'cut out' effect on the laser cutting machine. Due to time restraints I decided to stick to paper stock for this process as opposed to experimenting with wood or other thick media. This kept the process systematic and saved time by using the 're-cut' feature to produce as many versions of the design possible in the 1-2 hour time slots I had to work within.

When I moved the paper off of the laser bed, I the scraps left behind had also created an interested positive version of the design which I thought was definitely worth documenting. 

As experimentation I considered using tracing paper to separate the different coloured cut outs to create a layered 3D effect. Although this was time-consuming I was really pleased with the outcome. The colours complemented each other well and the tracing paper created an effect on the tints of the cut outs, similar to lowering the opacity in Photoshop.

I then tried placing a maroon cut out of the design onto a bold mango yellow sheet of paper. The contrast was striking and caused the yellow to appear as it if were glowing through. When the design was presented in these colours I received feedback that it reminded various people that it reminded them of a Rob Ryan piece! 

After consideration and comparison of the different outcomes and various feedback from others, I decided to use the maroon and yellow cut out as my final design to submit to Goodtype.