Exhibition Mounting!

Phew! It's been one of those days, mounting and preparing exhibition spaces isn't one of my strong points, but it's worthwhile in the end. These two boards will be the blank canvas where my Final Major Project will unfold; I've decided to focus on the Swiss Typeface I created, as I feel this was the most successful body of work. The reason I think that, is probably because I like the theme behind it so much, the whole turning traditional Swiss Typography on it's head and applying a literal and ironic feel to it has been interesting, and I still think there's potential for it (or alternative routes I could have taken whilst still fulfilling my goal).

But here it is. I can honestly say I'm pleased with it, it's not mind blowing I'll admit, and it's not the strongest body of work I've done either, but I can genuinely say I believe I've achieved the goals I set out to accomplish.

Matterhorn Poster

Here's a new poster I've made today to showcase my Swiss Typeface for my FMP, it's a mixture of photo-editing, photo-illustration and Typography. Again I've stuck with Avenir as to strike a direct contrast between the Ironic Swiss Typeface I've created and the traditional sans serif style.

Whilst making it I found my self sitting looking at it and wondering what was missing, it finally clicked that I needed a reflection in the water, I feel it adds an extra level of realism. My plan is to pair this with the other A3+ poster (below) I made for this series of work and display them both in exhibition.

Digital Swiss Collage

And here is the final one. I think it'll be nice once printed out full size with supporting media. I'm really pleased with it actually, it's been a lot of work, but rewarding at the same time. It's been nice to finally get some real Graphic Design work done. What I mean by that is, I've enjoyed doing my final major project very much, designing Typefaces has been an interesting learning curve and I'll probably visit the techniques I've learned again in the future. And while I've enjoyed it, I still enjoy putting the supporting design work towards it better. I think it's improved my view of Typefaces, I understand them differently now.

Supporting Poster (Part 2)

Here are a couple of alternatives, the one with inverted colour is the most interesting, I especially like the look of the mountain in that colour scheme. The white smoke leaving the rectangles is also a nice effect. The top image is just an earlier version with less elements, and the one below is the cross like shape I created, to represent the cross for Switzerland.

Swiss Typeface Supporting Poster (Part 1)

I posted last week about the Swiss Typeface I made for my project, well I stated early on that it was always my intention to design some supporting promotional material to show it off. Well, here's a poster I've done today. It's an A3 of lots of different media cleverly mixed through different layers and masks etc. It's been a lot of work, and I've really enjoyed making it. I'll post different sections of the body of work under new posts just to explain more about the images, just to keep it more organised.

So these first four images show the incremental/sectioned elements that make up the overall piece. I started of with a graphic that was built up using lots of different circles and altered rectangles (my intentions were for it to represent the square cross of Switzerland). The third image down you may notice is made of chocolate, this was an effect which I knew quite well and was keen to use for this particular piece. The other two images depict photographs and images that I used in the digital collage, all edited beyond belief... And of course the Typeface itself. The overall feel of the graphics mirror the style of the Typeface; sharp edged, primitive and graphic.

Swiss Typeface

I've mentioned that as part of my final major project I'm creating Typefaces. Well this here is one created with the intention of it being Swiss through and throughout. But not by traditional standards, when we think of Swiss Style Typefaces, we think of the classics like Helvetica, Avenir, Frutiger and so on; but this here is embodying a different sense of Swiss. I decided to pair each character with a matching photograph that represented Switzerland in it's own way, a lot of them being mountainous Alpine scenery. That's what actually gave me the idea in the first place. The first two characters I created were A & M, if you look again you'll notice the M is just a doubled-up version; both of these characters already have a mountainous quality to them, so I had the idea to add a photograph over the top to emphasise the shape of the character.

Overall I think it's worked it okay, I like the whole concept and idea, it gives it a whole ironic and literal context. To be honest though, it was difficult to find pictures suitable for some of the less obvious ones. For example, a lot are simply places in Switzerland e.g. Zurich, Geneva etc. The Typeface I used for "The Real Swiss Typeface" is Avenir, not just because I like it, but because it's neutral enough to add the exact juxtaposition I was looking for; literal vs actual Swiss Style Typeface.