maryguygraphicdesign

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Final series

These are the series of photographs that will be apart of my final outcome. Alongside this series will be my newspaper manifesto and the updated keyboard I designed.

I plan to have the newspaper and keyboard on a desk which viewers will approach first. After learning about the new language they will then walk down, following the line of photographs, each with a different example of a translated Comma word. 

On reflection, I should have included more words that have repetitions of letters so viewers could get a better understanding of how my language works. The only word in my final series that has repeated letters is ‘radiator’, this photograph is slightly blurred but I had to keep it in to provide an example of how words with repeated letters would be translated. If I had more time, I would have liked to experiment more with lighting and exposure.

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Red Lettering - Flash

Originally, I accidentally left the flash on when taking a picture of ‘iron’ but when looking back at my photographs, realised it gave the images quite an interesting shadow. I then retook some of my previous images with flash. However, only some worked with the flash setting. 

I plan to have a series of three A2 or A1 images as apart of my final outcome as examples of translated Comma words alongside the Communa Lingua newspaper I designed explaining how the language works.

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Red Lettering

I lasercut this alphabet from plywood, A6 size, and painted them red. The typeface I used for the regular alphabet was Helvetica because that typeface was created to take up an equal amount of space. 

I trialled some pictures in my house and decided to remain within my house naming inanimate objects rather than naming scenes like I had done before (e.g. Beach, Garden, Alleyway). The letter I had made were much smaller and so suited smaller objects. The red of the letters works well against the whites, blues and yellows of my house. The more simple photographs work the best with minimal background information such as the ‘Iron’ photographs where all attention is on the word itself. I also prefer the images where the text is actually sitting on the object rather than on another platform. For example, the radiator images don’t work as well because it isn’t directly obvious what the text is naming, especially as ‘radiator’ translated into Comma is only ‘radito’ and so is it quite hard to read what the word is.

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Alley trials

Like with the garden photographs, the alley photographs don’t work. The backdrop is too ‘crowded’ and the black text is barely legible. When taking the alley photographs, I found it hard to find a position to photograph them as the symbols are only attached to sticks and cannot stand up without support. 

To improve this photograph series, I need to determine a way to make the symbols stand up by themselves. To do this I am planing to get the symbols cut out of wood again but A6 size and to attach something at the back to make them stand up. I also plan on cutting the whole alphabet out of wood, including the symbols, so the whole word will be photographed in the same medium. Finally, I plan on painting these new cut letters in a bright, bold colour to make them stand out from the backdrop. Living in London, it would be hard to find somewhere as bare as Dungeness and so the text has to be able to stan out from the backdrop with bright colours instead. The colour I am considering the most is red.

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Garden trials

My garden photographs didn’t work nearly as well as the Dungeness photographs for two reasons; the backdrop needs to be very minimal in order for the text to be distinguished from the rest of the image, the photographs in Dungeness were very bare with little visual information and secondly, the text needs to be a completely different colour to the rest of the photograph, in the Dungeness photographs, the black text worked well against the light blue sky and sea and easily stood out whereas with the garden photographs, the black text blends in far too much with the backdrop and the text is barely legible. With the garden photographs, red symbols would have worked much better against the mainly green backdrop as red is the opposite colour of green. 

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BEACH change

‘Beach’ is written in Helvetica Light and works much better alongside the symbols as they are all the same width, making it look like one complete word. The composition of the photograph works the best out of all the photographs taken at Dungeness, with the figures in the background and the grey skies which is typical for a British beach. 

I plan to risograph this image onto A3 yellow sugar paper to add more bold colours to my work. Like I said previously, I also want to experiment with making the text into a bold colour, to make it stand out against the backdrop.

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The Comma Alphabet

In lower case, cursive and upper case hand writing.

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Newspaper Manifesto

The first page from my newspaper manifesto, explaining how Comma was created and how to use it.

However, after sending the newspaper to print, I’ve realised that I should have gone into more detail about the different designs of the upper and lower case symbols. 

Alongside my newspaper manifesto, I want to elaborate on the examples of translated Comma words. I plan on doing a series of photographs like the photographs taken at Dungeness to go alongside this newspaper.

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Commune Lingua

The name of my new language is: Commune Lingua, which is Latin for ‘equal language’. However, it is more commonly referred to as Comma.

As so much of the English language is derived from Latin, I decided to look into naming my new language in Latin. However, I also coined a ‘more commonly used’ name for my language; Comma. This is a fusion of both Commune and Lingua. The word comma is much more memorable and is the shorthand version of the full name. I took my inspiration primarily from flowers, as they have both a Latin name and more common name. 

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Updated Keyboard

I updated an old keyboard to accommodate my new language. I like how the newly added symbols are slightly larger than the other letters and numbers as if to emphasise their significance in the alphabet. However, after taking pictures of my new keyboard, I realised it needed to be photographed where keyboards belong, in front of a computer monitor. Therefore I plan to go to photograph this keyboard everywhere possible that would have a keyboard, for example, in front of my own computer, in a library and in a shop such as Curry’s where new keyboards are sold.

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Signage Research

1st image - Hollywood sign 2nd image - Jessie Brennan, If This Were To Be Lost, 2016

I am looking at 3D signage and at the artist, Jessie Brennan, and her community project. I found with these two pieces of text, they are bright colours to make the text stand out from the background. My cardboard symbols, arguably, stand out less from the backdrop because they are black and not a bright colour. The bold colours work well in making the text more prominent in relation to its surroundings. 

I plan to experiment with painting my symbols bright colours to see the contrast between the text and backdrop. The colour I am most interested in using is red.

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Dungeness - all symbols

(One symbol is missing - I was unable to bring the backwards N as the paint hadn’t yet dried)

The symbols by themselves in photographs look impressive on their own without the original word before it. The drawing in my sketchbook is of a potential outcome for this project. To have the symbols on sticks in concrete blocks in the middle of the floor space. Perhaps next to A0 posters or a plinth of a translated double page spread of either the bible, dictionary, newspaper. 

To improve my 3D symbols, I plan to laser cut them out of wood, to make a much smoother finish. The texture of the cardboard symbols are very uneven because I wrapped the two layers of cardboard in tape before spray painting them. With laser-cut wood, the finish of the letters would be of a much better standard and feel a lot less flimsy. 

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Dungeness Beach Trials

On reflection, the ‘beach’ text should be the same width as the symbols in the picture and same distance apart as the symbols. I originally chose Helvetica bold because it is a much more striking text and stands out much better int he pictures. But when using bold, the symbols don’t look like they are apart of the word. Therefore if the symbols are to have the same relevance as the other letters, I believe they should al be the same width and distance apart. E.g. ‘B E A C H’ works much better than ‘BEA C H’ 

I plan to recreate this image in several anonymous places, such as ‘park’, ‘alley way’, ‘train’ etc. 

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3D Cardboard Symbols

The thinking behind creating these cardboard symbols was to take my project away from ‘conventional’ graphic design. I plan to take these symbols into real life and create different words in this new language. 

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Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.

Mathew Carter

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Riso of Apple Poster

This is a blue risograph on grey paper. Although the colours work well together, the actual image and text do not. I’ve decided that the mathematically equal type doesn’t work as a typeface because of the changes in sizes. It is because of this that I’ve decided to make all the letters the same size in future designs, as from a graphic design point of view, they will work much better visually. As Mathew Carter said; type is beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.

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Square Keyboard Trails

The last keyboard is my final keyboard design. I took inspiration from keyboards that have built in hand rests, the darker patches would be soft pads to rest your hands. The design is centred around touch-typing, the new symbols underneath the regular keyboard can be easily accessed by the thumbs when touch typing.