Studio Brief 02- Typeface design

CHOSEN WORD: confusing | CHOSEN TYPEFACE: Helvetica

"a situation, often with a lot of activity and noise, in which people do not know what to do" - Cambridge dictionary 

"a disorderly jumble" 
"the mistaking of one thing for another" - Oxford Dictionary 

synonyms:  chaos, havoc, mess, heap, tangle, disruption. 

I am going to create a capitalised typeface based off of the font Helvetica which will communicate my chosen word of ‘confusion’. I have chosen Helvetica as it's a very neutral type face it's used to be understood, to be straight forward and legible; the opposite of my typeface . As I intend to design a typeface which is obscure and disorderly, I believe the context in which it can be used will mainly be for decorative use such as on posters.

CONCEPT 1

Through research I’ve found multiple definitions to base my design off, one by the Oxford Dictionary describes confusion as “a disorderly jumble”. This has given me the idea to design a jumbled and tangled typeface by manipulating for example the descender on a p can be distorted to invade the counter in order to tangle and intertwine the letter. I could also experiment with adding serifs to the letters to add another element to add to the confusion.

Concept 2

My second idea came from looking at colour blind tests which are obviously confusing to the eye. This then led me to research figure and ground organization; a type of ‘perceptual grouping for recognizing objects through vision’. I want to take the idea form Gestalt phsychology of identifying a figure from a background whilst also using the colour blind test idea of layering figures of small shapes or lines in order to create each individual letterform out of the negative space, or the ‘background’. I believe this idea will communicate the confusing personality as you’ll have to look past the figures to see the type. 

initial inspiration for concept 2

After receiving a group crit on my two concepts, concept 2 was preferred by everyone who reviewed my work. It was described as being "more interesting to look at and experiment with" which i agree with, i feel i have a more thorough idea within concept 2 which will be more successful in communicating confusion. 

I produced some initial 'figure and ground' inspired ideas for concept 2 which i also received crit for. Experiment 3 was unanimously "the most effective idea, as the viewer will really have to engage with it", it was described as being "initially confusing to read, but once seen, it really stands out and is very imaginative" which is exactly what i hope to communicate throughout the development of the typeface.  

I was provided with some suggestions to improve my idea, these included "focusing mainly on the letter forms outlines" and "play around more with negative space" and "simplify idea 3 slightly to ensure it works as a typeface". I'm going to use these suggestions to ensure the 'figures' are being used for their purpose of creating the letter forms, and not just for added decoration.