DIY Alphabet - Week 3

Following my feedback session last week, I decided to begin to follow up a couple of my ideas, particularly the cat typeface, and I also want to explore the sewing kit typeface; both being different, one digital, one photographic. Admittedly, most of my focus this week had been on my other project; my wordless recipe, and juggling the two this week proved a little more difficult.

Cats

With this said, I began this week by sketching out the cat alphabet, exploring more letters traditionally before I scanned them in digitally. There were few problems I ran into, yet one of them was for the more basic letters such as 'I' and 'H' which need a little more tweaking and/or redesigning as they aren't as effective as other letters. For some letters, it was easier to come up with ideas, as could be used again to create different letters such as was seen in 'B' and 'L', and 'C' and 'G'. 

From there forth, I scanned my sketches and drew them out digitally, yet switched them up as to have the letters be shadows as opposed to outline. This proved to be more effective as when zooming out, they were clearer than those that that were just an outline. 

For the most part, this idea works as the silhouettes are able to convey the shapes of the letters better than the outline, and for some letters, it was easily repeated. However, that didn't mean there weren't issues along the way, particularly with the letter 'H' and 'I'. One was more complex to work around, and the other was simpler than the letters that had come before. With my initial ideas for those letters laid out digitally, I decided that I didn't like the look of them, and tried to think of another way around it. 

The issue was they looked to repetitive, and the letter 'H' being two cats instead worked against the group, as this letter (and the letter 'M', that was changed earlier on) was the only one that was made up of two cats, and seemed like an easy way out.  I much preferred the second outcome, as although the letter 'H' was a little more odd in regards to the shadow, it did look better than the previous idea, as well as being less confusing too.  

Having worked with the whole alphabet in the end, this idea is one that could be taken forwards to be my final outcome with a little bit of tweaking. Numbers shouldn't be too much of an issue as the shapes that are present in the letters can be replicated into numbers with some tweaking. As for punctuation, I believe I'd have to incoropatate things that are associated with cats to make the most of their smaller scale. 

Koi 

Working on from last week, I began by looking at how my Koi fish could be used in the form of shadows instead of vibrant coloured fish, as the brief said the final lettering was to be done in black and white, and translating it from colour into black and white would not have the same effect. This alphabet proved difficult to work with at first, yet, I do like the way it looks, even if it has more parts than my cat alphabet. Whether I will take this further, I am unsure as I do prefer the cat alphabet more given its flexibility.