Critiques Please :)
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- tOki
Last time I did this similar I got some great feedback on my getoutthere peice when I was stuck. Its bounced around the interwebs a lot since then :) You can see that one here :
http://ffffound.com/image/0523f1…
Anyway I started this:
on the weekend just for fun...
I know some of the curves are a little rough, mainly I want to get the lettering down. The e at the end of life is particularly annoying me!
Cheers.
- Dancer0
Hey.. this is looking really good!!
Yeah you're right, the e does feel a little awkward. the counter seems a bit too big and does not have the same fluidity as the other e in death or the &.
I also find the relationship between the & and the h to be very forced, do they have to be linked?
Great work though, Love the D!!!!
- tOki0
I had played with using the e at the bottom however it didn't sit very nicely with the f. It's one of those characters that can easily just look like a squiggle since there isnt a strong form to it.
The double stroke and swish on the D came about as an absolute accident haha :D
- nice. Do you hand draw these first?Dancer
- No i have terrible fine motor skills in my hands and can only work on screen...tOki
- and no, im actually serioustOki
- think picking up a calligraphic brush would be a good place to begin, even imperfect you'll gain some unexpected cuesfrancoisfido
- happy accidents don't just happen on screen!francoisfido
- they do when you are me lol im 23 and have only ever designed on screen due to my hand issues..tOki
- its a phsyical condition that makes me shake uncontrollably, not parkinsons!tOki
- i started drawing when i was 23, too. when it comes to type, & especially scripts, all formal logic extends from the hand!francoisfido
- think of it this way; your condition could lead to absolute revelation...francoisfido
- not to mention the fact that you'd be producing something far more honest, authentic... instead of whoring trends?francoisfido
- francoisfido0
perhaps you could keep the movement of 'Life' going upward (so your current 'e' doesn't end with a downward flourish.) and 'Death' moving downwards (so your 'h' doesn't join with the stuff going up). then you could possibly use the '&' with both upward and downward movement as a stronger connection between the two words.
also feel like the flourish at the top of the vertical stroke of your 'D' is somewhat unnecessary, or too exaggerated— and that the baseline of your flourishes below 'Death' are a bit flat in their character, too horizontally oriented.
finally the '&' could stand to be larger, looks like it might be getting a bit squashed.
- thanks, I'll have a play :)tOki
- be sure to consider the counter form between the two words, if the & comes out to the right, larger, it may un-clutter that areafrancoisfido
- ckentish0
i love it - really nice flow to it... looks nearly finished to me
- ckentish0
i love it - really nice flow to it... looks nearly finished to me
- francoisfido0
he loves it - said it flows really nice... looks nearly finished to him
- he loves it - said it flows really nice... looks nearly finished to himckentish
- mydo0
do you hand sketch these first? or work it up in illi?
- tOki0
As I was explaining in the comments,
I have a condition which makes my hands shake a lot when I am doing focussed fine motor movement, for example i can't really have soup with a spoon or carry plates with things balanced on them . Often I just lose control and get these crazy shakes. I fumble with change chronically to the point that i use my card..its quite annoying and embarassing. This unfortunately happens when I draw/paint too. I've had blood tests and its part of an underlying condition with my adrenal glands. It's not life threatening and I don't have parkinsons or anything like that.
Working in the digital space is great for me because I can *ctrl+z * rectify my mistakes and if I do get a hand spasm it's not as destructive. I've learnt to live with it but sometimes it still causes me grief. Because of this I've pretty much gone completely digital the entire way through my design career and will never work as a waiter...
I build it up by essentially drawing the strokes/shappes in illustrator with no drawings. I always see things in shapes (a traditional drawing technique i believe?). From there then warp and edit the curves to get the look im after. It's time consuming but rewarding.
I don't know what professional typographers workflow is like..I haven't got any formal training and only do it for fun lol ^^
- Holy crap, man. You are seriously my new hero on here. That is f'in inspiring.luckyorphan
- Seriously. I mean it. Very proud of you for working through it.luckyorphan
- Thanks, but there are people out there doing it tougher than me :)tOki
- Perspective is king, yes, but take the props. You've earned 'em.luckyorphan
- Ladylike0
I love it. And I am picky!
- neverblink0
Good start..
Hope you don't mind.. I can only say how I would do it:
I'd connect the base of the 'L' to the beginning of 'e' (in Life). Make the bottom loop of the 'f' bigger than the top one (so you can loop something through there and have more room for the ampersand). Connect the ending swash of the 'D' to the 'e'. Have the bar of the 't' go through the bottom loop of the f (maybe even into the belly of the 'D'). Connect the ascender of the 'h' to the bar of the ampersand with a clockwise loop.- I can send you an quick sketch if you want to..neverblink
- dyspl0
very nice, my only concern is that some lines make it looks very illustratorish.
I would print it in 20%grey, redraw it by hand, with curves refined where it does not feel natural, and then scan it and redraw it in illustrator.
- akrokdesign0
sweeeeeeeeet. :-)
- luckyorphan0
^ I disagree with neverblink on his notes. They're well-intentioned, but I wouldn't connect the L and e in 'Life', IMO. It's a bit of an unnatural connection, because you wouldn't be doing that in script (writing the first and last letter of a word, then filling in the rest), and I assume that's the effect you're trying to achieve. Also, I'd disregard his f comment in the same word. I think you're on the right track.
The 'e' in 'Life' is tricky, yes. Try to round out the bottom of the 'e' if you can, and have it crest over the top of the 'h' in 'Death'. Just a thought, and it might work.
The 'a' in 'Death' is a lil' wonky to me. The detached form where the ascender doesn't meet the bowl makes it look like a 'c i' sometimes.
The "double-ascender" in the 'D' is a little more complicated than it needs to be, in my opinion. Do you really need the small, angular form that descends over the top and creates a '4'? Seems a little forced.
You have a nice chisel in the base bar on the 'L' of 'Life', but I don't see anything like that anywhere else in the image. It'd be nice to either soften it up like the rest of the forms, or introduce that chisel in a few more places throughout.
Can you explain the need to connect the ampersand to the 'h' in 'Death'? Seems a tad forced, but not a mistake.
There are a few more tweaks to make, if you like, but overall, however, this is 98% there. And you really should be congratulated for making something so refined despite your condition. I can't tell you how impressed I am that you did this.
Thanks for the inspiration. And please take my notes with a grain of salt. Just thought I'd help.
- neverblink0
@luckyorphan: it's all good, I guess everyone has a different way of doing things.
I just wanted to go into your "It's a bit of an unnatural connection, because you wouldn't be doing that in script (writing the first and last letter of a word, then filling in the rest)":
There's a difference between normal script writing and so called penmanship/calligraphy. It's pretty normal to write the base text and then go back in to add swashes or connections.- Thats what I've been doing so far, I'm trying to go for that ultra stylised look. That said I want it to stil retain a written look!tOki
- Well put, neverblink. Good point.luckyorphan
- tOki0
I connected the ampersand as one of the first stylistic improvements actually. I like it personally but can see where you guys are coming from. I'm totally open to connecting it to another letter - its really a matter of balancing strokes within the centre of the form though. That is the hardest part!
By the way,
Does any one know of any good examples of intricate executions of a lower case e? I can't seem to find any.
- neverblink0
The lowercase 'e' is a pretty simple glyph, not much you can do with it. You have two basic shapes you can use the normal 'e'-shape and the 'ε'-shape (basicly an epsilon).
With the first shape it's also possible to extend the horizontal stroke beyond the rest of the character (although that is more often seen in blacklettering and not in this type of script).
- neverblink0
^ e swash
- i_monk0
Life looks like it's a different scale, 10-15% bigger or so than Death.
Otherwise, maybe bring the curve of the 'e' in Life up and have the tail of the & meet it rather than curve down into the 'h' in Death.
