Practical Drawing Interior Space

This week our practical drawing class with john consisted of interior drawing. This was the complete opposite of my last lesson with john, as we focused on wide open spaces. This week was about understanding interior environments, focusing on perspective. I wasn't very good at this, however I used a basic line style of drawing, using different coloured sharpies for each scene. I wanted to explore the idea of looking outside from an interior, giving a much more enclose feeling but having a glimpse of freedom.

This area was a drawing for the perspective of the practical studio area where we have many of our group tutorials on a Friday. With the late windows I began to use them like a natural frame, focusing my detail within the my makeshift canvas. From my perspective I could only see the roofs, so I was limited to what I could draw, and I didn't want to focus on my interior surroundings.

This quick sketch focused on little areas of inside objects, and had quite an abstract theme.

Overall I am not very happy with the outcomes of this drawing session and I would like to get better in future so that I can better integrate drawing into my graphic design studies, as I see it as a useful skill to have for the foundation of ideas.

Practical Drawing: Object Drawing

This practical drawing session with john was about improving our skills of drawing and understand drawing with perspective. The task which was set for this was object drawing. We were set given a number of scenarios where objects were displayed together, and we had to draw the objects from our current perspective. I found this task quite hard as I know that I am not a particularly good drawer and struggle with gather a correct perspective. However I attempted at capturing what I saw in-front of me. I decided that I would go along with any mistakes that I made and draw in fine liner as I would quickly shade any darker areas of my drawing. I think that this turned out okay, but I understand that I need to improve.

So that I could improve I started drawing some objects with pencil and setup my own little display with a meal deal I purchased at the student union. I wanted to focus on getting the outline right to begin with, so I began sketching my displayed objects. Overall I thought that I had a nice perspective but struggled getting some detail within my drawing.

Photograph Of Object Drawing Scene (Meal Set)

With my next sketch I began to focus on one particular object, a can, looking at understanding detail. I picked a can as it was a easy shape to draw and I could better concentrate on the detail with some shading. I decided to focus on the top of the can as that was the easiest with detail.

Photograph Of Object Drawing Scene (Can)

Overall I thought that this weeks object drawing task was very difficult for myself to understand perspective in drawing. Though that I believe that the outcomes were not completed very well, I do understand my strengths and weakness much better about myself. I will hope to improve my drawing skills thought the year, and use my strengths to my advantage.

Practical Drawing: Typography Week 3

The task this week was to produce a finalised version of my chosen typeface. I decided that I wanted to proceed with the creation version of my 5 by 4 square grid typeface. This typeface would also be an experiment which I would include in my EU referendum engagement project.

Finished Alphabet Layout Of Chosen Type

Illustrator Converted Type Vector Design

To better apply my typeface in a more digital way, I decided that I would create a vector based version of my physically created type. With the ability to create cleaner lines and colour I created each type out of a 4 by 5 group of boxes. These boxes would have the letter filled with a black box, while any negative would be a white box, with a slight stoke around the edge. This helped myself visualise the idea digitally. I also thought that this allowed the type to keep to a constant formation when being used to display words.

I think that these typography workshops have been very beneficial to my development as a graphic design, I now think much differently about how type is generated and  have gained valuable experience in the construction of my own typeface. With these skills developed I can hopefully explore a typeface generation project in the future.

Practical Drawing: Typography Week 2

This was the second task of my process and production lesson, the purpose of this task was to construct 3 complete alphabets forms. I have completed three styles of alphabets, each using a particular method of producing a particular shape. However all of these typefaces are being constructed under the theme of compression.

This alphabet is focusing on using shapes to cut out of a square block to produce a an identifiable letter form. This alphabet is mostly using triangles to form negative space for the shapes. This is a really nice and unique looking typeface, however for letters like the G, O and P the letters a much harder to read, this is an obvious complication as a good typeface can be read easily.

Square Box Cutout Typeface

I personally really like the way in-which this typeface formed, giving the impression of digitalisation and almost like a retro themed design. This type of design had a unique form of structure due myself limiting the area of space which I could work with. During the creation of this typeface, I understood how good typefaces require good transition from one letter to another, as it this makes the typeface much easier to read in a sentence or when words are constructed.

5 by 4 Square Limited Ratio Typeface

This typeface focused on compressing the size of letters. Making them look much thinner and removing any curves. This would give the type a particular shape edged look. I also thought about completely filling the lines but I thought that the the way in-which you see the construvtive shapes and lines added to the overall character of the typeface.

Reduced Letter Size Typeface

Overall I am very happy with my three created alphabet typefaces, I will also look forward to producing one of these typefaces further seeing how I can improve and refine the overall design. 

Practical Drawing: Typography Week 1

This weeks practical drawing process and production session focused on the generation of physically produced typography. We was told that this would span across the rest of out process and production workshops, focusing on a different task each week. This week my task was to transcribe shapes into letter forms, either upper or lower case. I began by joining shapes together using a curved edge and in separate parts, this was so that I could understand the construction of the shape, knowing where each part of the text formed. The letter this created was a J and looked somewhat mechanical, like the binding bridge between the wheels on a old steam train. With this in mind I created a few other shapes that used the same process.

I then wanted to explore using simple geometric shapes to explore how together they could create a letter. At this point I wasn't to bother about lower and upper case letter, my main priority was to understand how letter forms constructed. I used a group of circles to produce the letter I. However, I didn't think that these circles should join as this would be to predicable. However this created the complication that the letter I would look much different that its intended form. I decided that to help produce the idea of the letter eye, I would then with the traditional head of a lowercase eye, add some other circles to resemble a pupil and iris, giving a more visual representative of the letter eye. This can also be seen with Dingbat letter forms. 

An Example Of Dingbat Letter Forms

I then looked at producing a few more compressed letter form, forming shapes within a boundary or touching each other. For example the letter S would commonly be much taller on a standard font, however I shortened this letter by removing unnecessary parts of the letter, but retaining its iconic state. I understood that this was a very relevant factor to creating a good typeface.

I then began to produce an alphabet series based on my compressed typeface idea. I decided that I would go with a restriction 5 by 4 squares, to fit with the theme. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of this typeface as it gives a really nice introduction to this process and production typography series.

Practical Drawing: Huddersfield Town Centre

Scans Of Drawings (72 DPI) Screen Resolution

For my studio practical session I was asked to gather a range of primary drawing around key locations in the centre of huddersfield. These locations had distinct architectural building styles, which allowed myself to focus on key elements such as tone, texture and composition. I found the session to be rather enjoyable and felt like I had improved marginally with my understanding in my drawing skills.

Jordan L. Rodgers was a big influence during this practical session, this was apparent due to hevey focus on using a fine liner medium, although I did experiment with both charcoal and marker pens. In addition to this I also experimented by layering tracing paper, in an attempt to create a completely new image out of singular incomplete drawings. I wanted to explore the use of photography along side this, however I believe that I had taken on more than was able of myself as drawings isn’t a particular strong point of mine. In future I shall keep things much more simple, allowing me to complete tasks at a higher standard, rather than diluting my efforts to multiple medias at the same time.

Something which I think that this activity missed, and could be incorporated at a later date, is to combine a larger range of medias such as inks, collage and typography to the physical drawn pieces, allowing me to explore with more depth.