Drawer

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand

Whilst you'll see all of these images (and a few more) and learn in more detail what is what in the class, I thought I'd share this quick overview of my creative process here as a sort of sample project of what I'd love to see from you in your projects for this class!;)

 

Structural Research — quick visual analysis of different ways ampersands can be created structurally in a form of rough sketches.

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 1 - student project

 

Selected Rough Sketches — narrowing down the potential design directions

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 2 - student project

 

Stylistic References — gathering and analysing various design elements and principles to explore when designing a letterform

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 3 - student project

 

Construction Grid — developing a construction grid whilst taking into account different structural aspects (i.e. angles, number of circles, proportion of the letterform).

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 4 - student project

 

Initial Letterform Sketches — using exactly the same construction grid sketching down a few letterform ideas in response to the structural and stylistic references. 

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 5 - student project

 

Styling Sketches — I usually work in Illustrator straight-away, but sketching on paper can be quite liberating and can help to come up with some unexpected ideas (especially if you have a few different sets of stylistic references) it helps to come up with rough ideas very quickly and even if you don't end up using this ideas, you never know what they can inspire in future!

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 6 - student project

 

Stylistic Iterations — using the same structural elements I played around and created a few different stylistic iterations (this is just a part of them), which allowed me to explore a few different graphic directions. If you don't have a definite look which you want to create, creating a few stylistic iterations really helps to explore different options and have fun during the process!

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 7 - student project

 

Final Selection of Letterforms — narrowing down the selection, finalising the colours, but cannot stop with selecting just one letterform design!;)

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 8 - student project

 

Alternative Letterforms — just a couple of examples based on slightly different construction grids and inspired by different references.

Geometric Lettering: Decorative Ampersand - image 9 - student project

 

Thanks for watching!

—Evgeniya