Project One- Expressive Type and Design

My first step in doing this assignment was to look up the definitions of the words stodgy, crush, ornate and sludge. Even though I already knew what they meant I wanted to see what the dictionary said in the hopes the inspiration would come my way.

ORNATE:

Ornate was the easiest to do. I used the font vivaldi italic to start off with. I then used the create outlines option which is under the type menu. Next I used the twirl tool in Adobe Illustrator. I began by adding lots of twirls to each of the letters. After that I used the arc tool to create a few lines that crossed behind the word. I then used the twirl tool on those lines to add a little twirl to each end.

I believe that this one was successful in portraying the word ornate. It was showy and had lots of extras.

STODGY:

Stodgy was harder and I am still not sure that I was successful on it. I used the font Castellar to create this one. I then made some changes to the tracking, kerning, leading, vertical scale and horizontal scale which are all things that can be changed from the Character Panel which is under the Type Window on Illustrator. I set the leading to 60 pt., changed the kerning to optical, set the tracking to -100, changed the vertical scale to 200% and finally changed the horizontal scale to 50%.

With these changes the font was now skinnier and taller then the original font. To give it a little bit more old-fashioned look I used the stamp effect which can be found under the sketch sub menu which is under the effects menu. I set the light/dark balance to 23 and the smoothness to 9.

CRUSH:

Crush was created by using the Poplar std black font and setting the tracking to -100. I then created outlines with the text. This gave me the ability to scrunch up each letter individually. Next I created a rectangle and filled it with black. I arranged it behind the word crush which I turned white so it would show up on the black box. I then used the glass effect, which is under the distort sub menu under the effects menu, on the black box to give it a more textured look. I set the distortion to 8, the smoothness to 3 and gave it a frosted texture.

I think that this one is successful. The letters looked crushed which obviously speaks to the meaning of the word crush.

SLUDGE:

Sludge was created with the font Matisse ITC. My first step was to create outlines and warp the letters a bit to give it a less refined look. I next applied the ocean ripple effect, which is in the distort sub menu under the effects menu. I set the ripple size to 11 and the ripple magnitude to 9.

I definitely think this looks muddy or like sediment.

SLUDGE COMPOSITION:

I created my sludge composition by positioning my text in the upper left corner. I then created a black rectangle box which warped and with the warp tool. I then reshaped it to be really small and skinny and changed the opacity to 50%. I then kept copying the rectangle over and over until I would get a few and then select all those and copy again. Once I had enough to fill my screen I selected individual points to warp the bottom of the rectangles even further. Next I used the wrinkle tool to create a mixed, muddy look of all the little rectangles so they would not look so uniform.

My goal with this composition was to make a muddy mess behind the word sludge. I think I was successful.