Analogue Communique 3-D

Following on from the first term's workshops around experimental type, the second term's workshops with our tutor Nick are around how type can be created using 3-D forms. When I say 3-D I am not talking about digital special effects but rather analogue materials and objects. The objective of this workshop is to communicate a message through a 3D type installation and to do so, in such a manner that it incorporates elements related to the topic within itself. Due to the universal usage of digital graphics within this field, the audience comes across it on a regular basis and therefore it gains less of a response due its prevalence. Therefore in order to grab the viewers attention and in turn receive a higher emotive response, analogue techniques and mediums will be used.

This week's workshop is about gathering ideas and exploring two of those. We were asked to bring some objects with us, which could range from cardboard and paint to jam and rice pudding. I wasn't sure what to bring to this workshop at first, however after having a think about it I found that I had quite a few variations of items that I could bring with me. The items I brought with me were ones of which I had a large quantity, as due to the nature of the workshop I knew I would need plenty of material to work with. My chosen items were as follows: A packet of straws, selection of shoelaces, a nail varnish collection, Lentils, some old rice, Chocolate coins, uncooked Couscous and some leftover "Smash" mashed potato powder. In the gallery shown above are various photos from my experimentations of the day.

Idea Generation

To start the workshop off we were asked to come up with some words we would like to use and visualize within this and the workshops to come. In particular we were asked to think about how we would create letterforms if there weren’t any limitations and the cost this would incur if we were to carry it out. I came up with a few words, of which the word expression was of most interest to myself and I decided to use this word as the starting point. I began by taking the nail varnish and “painting” letters, as shown this was done in a disorderly fashion as to experiment with the medium. Although the idea was promising, in practice I felt they lacked in terms of effect, partly due to their lack in body form.  After discussion with my tutor I decided to experiment with creating the letterforms using the bottles of varnish themselves, though soon found this to require a lot more bottles then I owned.

Nail Varnish

In regards to the whole range of experiments I created, many were quick to show as example, though I aimed to try and stylize the majority, as well as I could with the materials to hand. One major issue I had with forming the words was a lack of material, although I had taken with me a large amount, there was never enough of one item to complete a whole word in one shot. However there is an exception to this in the case of the lentils, couscous and rice, as I had managed to effectively create simple words using this. A few of these shown are purely to experiment with the form and legibility of the letter forms, to which I found a fair few to be indiscernible or at the very least confusing to quickly understand effectively.

Lentils and Couscous

I feel the experiments that worked to best effect were that of the rice and lentils, as previously mentioned, in addition to the capital letter a using the shoelaces.  In the next workshop we will be working on creating our 3-D type to a more ambitious scale. I plan on creating a further mind-map to generate some more ideas around the workshop, as my initial ideas are very much modest and small in ambition and so I need to think outside of the box more.  Further to this I feel my nail varnish idea lacked in lustre once composed, though obtaining a larger amount of this for a further experiment would be out of my budget also and so I need to re-think my idea. While creating the new ideas I will consider what typeface to stylise my statement around, as I feel this also will determine how and what is practical to use as a medium.