Illustrator Typeface

From the very brief we had on letterform, where we were given a word and had to portray this within a letterform, we had to choose one of the 10 final letters to produce a full typeface with 6 glyphs on Illustrator, this was to form our Illustrator workshop.


I choose this letter:

I choose this letter because it was my favourite our of them all and the one i thought would have the most mileage in creating a full typeface and glyphs. 

I started by making the letters just as an outline as i wasn't sure if i wanted them block colour etc. In the end i have decided to go with a halftone effect in cyan, i decided this because when i did the halftone effect it looks as the its expanding upwards, as the closer to the top of the letter the more it becomes a solid colour, this fits in with the theme of the typeface. I choose cyan because i think it works well with black and i like the colour.

Outine Letter:

Finished letter:

As you can see on the letter it looks like it is expanding from the bottom upwards.

Full Typeface:

Finished full typeface:

I worked this typeface up on A4 to start with because it was alot easier for me, then when i came to scale it up to A1 it was impossible. The way that the half tone effect is created is using an effect then rasterising this then live painting it then expanding the live paint. This makes the file very big, and when i came to upscale it, my laptop or the iMacs in college couldnt manage it. This forced me to re-work something new!

I decided to experiment with different colours and opacitys.

Everything on 100% opacity, just layered over each other

opacity of black layer 40%

opacity of black layer: 40, 60, 80%

opacity 40% with lines across

different layer modes

layer mode: screen

layer mode: screen - opacity: 50%

layer mode: screen - opacity 80%

layer mode: difference - opacity:100%

My favourite ones

These both are with layer mode: screen and on 100% opacity.

How i got to the final design

On the brief it says we can only use two colours black and either C,M,Y. On my final typeface some could say i have used 3, well two and stock colour. Just to show i came to my final design i have screenshots of it being done.

As you can see, experimenting with the layer mode or opacity can produce some interesting designs, in this case i have used it as my final typeface.

I experimented with the typeface by printing it off onto acetate, one in black and black at 50% opacity, then one in blue and blue at 50% opacity, I then placed different coloured paper underneath to see the effect.