Transcripts
1. Introduction: For me finding my voice has always been about making a lot of different kinds of things, and trying a lot of different things, putting it out in the world, and trying to connect to an audience via my work. Hi, I'm Timothy Goodman, I'm in New York City based designer and illustrator. Grandma calls an artist some times too. So in today's class, I'm going to be taking you through a series of exercises that will hopefully help you discover your own voice through image making. I do a wide variety of projects, from more traditional graphic design to a lot of wall murals and illustrations for corporate clients. And I also do a lot of work for myself, whether it's from my own Instagram account, whether it's personal projects for my friend Jessica. For me it's always been about an idea first. I've never been a person who's purely interested in craft. When I was working at Apple and in branding for the first four or five years in my career, I was also doing a ton of editorial illustration on the side. I've done over 200 of them in my career so far. And so I have to pump out a lot of different ideas and I've worked with a lot of different styles doing that. So, whether it was photo illustration, and whether it was drawing, whether it was vector Illustration, the idea was always the catalyst for the style. So, I think making all that stuff really helped me to get to a point where I really felt like, "Oh no, this is what I like. This is what I love. This is what it feels more natural to me now." So, I think you have to make a lot of stuff to be able to make stuff like yourself. So, today we're going to do a series of short exercises, all leading up to making your own conceptual or expressive alphabet. In the beginning we're going to start with a bunch of short exercises, all kind of warming up and playing, and loosening up and expressing yourself. And then we're going to start to take some of that stuff and refine it more. And I'm going to teach you how I refine things, and how I've refined things I've done by hand. All to bring it on the computer and refining it on the computer, and hopefully having a beautiful end product.
2. Project Materials: So, obviously when you start, you've got to have all your materials. It's good to start with a pencil. Always have a pencil, good eraser, just a regular good old fashioned Grandma Sharpie, can help you warm up and get started. One of my favorite kind of markers, is the brush-tip. You can get them in Sharpie, you can get them- I think they're called Tombows are really good. There's a lot of different companies that make these brush-tips that are really interesting, we're going to talk about these. I also love paint markers. This is what I do a lot of my freestyle murals with. The bold tip oil-based paint marker, you really get like a good stroke out of. A lot of these two would like with the brush-tip for instance. The reason I like them so much, is because you get texture when you draw. You also get a lot of thick and thin strokes, and you can kind of play with that and make that part of your style. My biggest hidden secret with everything I do in the beginning, is tracing paper. Generally, I start off and I start drawing with pencil, just like freestyle. Then, I put tracing paper over it. Then, I trace over with pen or marker and I keep layering, and layering, keep refining. So, tracing paper is my hidden secret no matter what. So, this is super good, you can get a pad. I love these rolls, they go on for days. So, yeah. You can get these at any art store, they're really good. So, you got to have your materials. Now, obviously, in my Sharpie book, I actually talk a lot about different kinds of markers you can use from these very thin ones to and I show the different kind of strokes you can get out of them. Get the ones you feel comfortable with. A lot of art stores will actually let you play with them in the store. So, you can kind of get a feel for the stroke. Also, there's so many different kinds of colors. I'm always attracted to just using black. When my graphic design teacher at SVA would always say, "If it doesn't work in black and white first before color then, it's not working." So, I've always thought about that and I think that's why I was attracted to just working with black.
3. Exercise 1: Full Page Doodle: For this first exercise, I want you to doodle and scribble and play and explore. It could be anything. I mean literally, it can be anything. It could just be shapes, it could be doodles, it could be words. There's so many different ways and things you can do. The only requirement is I want you to fill the entire page up, and to take about 10 or 15 minutes, and just let the, as an old teacher of mine used to say, "Let the cosmos come to you." Just play and explore and have fun and just fill up the page and warm up. It's like athletes, they have to stretch before a big game so this is your stretching. Don't worry about what it looks like too much. Don't worry about expectations. It's not going to have any bearing on the other exercise we're going to do, which is simply a warm up exercise. So, have fun. I always really love like in the morning, sometimes if I'm just having some tea or coffee, I just started doodling. Just like anything that I want. Obviously, I have my personal favorites like spilling coffee or pizza, generally food because I love food. But just draw whatever you love. I mean, it could just be shapes, it could just be shapes, it could be triangles, it could be squiggly marks. I mean, what I love about this exercise is just how do I just let it go. Don't worry about what it looks like. Don't worry about it being quote unquote professional or something that feels finished, just like what can it be? Is it arrows? Is it shapes? Do you just want to write your letters and words over and over again. You can really do anything. So, I do a lot of this. I give workshops all over the world really. I always start off, the people in my workshop, I always start off with this exercise first. Just spend 15 minutes just doodling, scribbling, making marks, just whatever you can. But there's only one requirement is that you have to fill up the entire page. They're really so beautiful to see. We hang them all up in the room, it's like 20, 30, 40, 50 people in my workshop and to see all these beautiful pages of just doodles and scribbles. You really get a sense for someone in a way. You get a sense of who they are in some weird way. You can certainly start warming up with a pencil but because I want this, this isn't something that is going to be go to a finished product or anything. I want the immediacy of the marker. I work with pencil and we'll talk about that in a little bit. If we're going to start doing something that is going to be for an assignment or a client-based thing, I like to start with pencil because it's more for mapping out and I can erase. But for this, there's no such thing as messing up on this. So I want the immediacy of whatever you're doing to really come to fruition. So obviously, this class, we're going to be doing a conceptual or expressive alphabet. But this little exercise here, this doodle stage, this isn't really going to have any effect on that. It's not in a direct way. Again, it's like a loosening up thing before the big game. It's stretching. It's just really getting your juices flowing and not worrying about messing up because I think so much about when we're trying to work, especially with something like an assignment, a class assignment, like doing an alphabet. You might get tight. You might worry too much about what it looks like and what it doesn't look like or someone else is doing better and I want you to try to be free of that. I think so much of the best stuff we create is the stuff that's unexpected, the stuff that you're not used to, that's what makes things memorable or our intuition wants us to make stuff that is kind of expected and something that we know that looks good. It's hard to be free of that and break ground. So again, really, there's no expectation with this. You really let the marker take you to wherever you're going. This is what I did. But it could be so many other different kinds of things. You can't get bogged down with how it looks or what it is. Obviously, I do this a lot, so I don't want that to discourage you. For example, so many different kinds of students have done different things in my workshops. You could do, for instance like this, which is all letters. The letters and words, can be whatever you want. This person drew all these crazy faces which is so cool. I mean, there's so many. Here's another one, it's so cool. There's so many different ways and things you can do. Again, the only requirement is that I love to see these filled to the rim and so to get that impact. I love this one, very kind of doodley-style. I love all the ridges and edges of this person's pen. It's really cool. So, don't worry about what it is. It's really just for you. Warm up, doodle, stretch those muscles and let's go on to the next exercise.
4. Exercise 2: Remove the Cliché: So, for this next step, we're going to work with cliches. We're going to do a quick exercise that I do in my workshop a lot. Cliches are very important to us as visual communicators. We have to be able to take these clichés and flip them a little bit. To me, that's what image making graphic design has always been about. How do I do that a little bit and then, I get to something a little more interesting, a little more meaningful for an audience? So, we're going to take the word H-O-T, hot, and we're going to do some kind of visual word associations, and see if we can get to somewhere interesting with it. So, when I take the word H-O-T, this is something I do in my workshop a lot. The only requirement is that you have to use the letters H-O-T. Now, how are you visually going to represent what that means to me? If I were going to do a magazine cover and it had to be H-O-T, hot, the hot issue, for instance. This is what I would do, I would sit down with my marker, and I would just start sketching out ideas. Just what are all the ways that I can represent hot and they're usually pretty bad. Is it a cactus? We have to get rid of all these cliches, we have to push past all these things to start to get to somewhere that's a little more interesting. So, this is a really good exercise because when we work with this conceptual alphabet, we're going to be doing similar things with letter forms. It's like you're going to be working with cliches and associations. I think, this is a good one just to kind of as a practice, again, is another warm up to start thinking about letter forms in these ways. Now, also keep in mind that it doesn't always have to be about some glorious big idea, of course, either. You can take something that is seemingly cliche, like I could take ice cubes for instance, that the H-O-T is carved out. Now, this is just a sketch. Yeah. That's kind of cliche, but imagine if you took H-O-T carved out of ice cubes, like real ice cubes and you photographed it, and they're melting. You did a time-lapse of them melting. Well, then that would be beautiful. So, it's also important to think about the how. As my old teacher would always say, how you actually execute something is really important too because sometimes the beauty is the idea. So, your concept doesn't have to be some big genius concept, it could just be about how you execute it really simply in a really beautiful way. You could take the word H-O-T, you can build like a structure and then, burn them, and have a time-lapse. Well, that would be glorious and beautiful too. So, it's not always about some big idea, of course. So, now we've done two exercises and the reason I gave you those two before we get into the letter making is because we could just totally not even do those two and just start with letterforms. But, I really wanted you to get loosened up, to start thinking about this, disconnected from the actual assignment because it really gets you loosened up. When you're doing the doodle thing, that's very much about a physical thing. When you're doing the hot exercise, that's more mental and that kind of fucks with you mentally. I think, that's really good to get out of your comfort zone and you have a nice foundation. So, when we go into the next exercises, you already have been playing and thinking about this both mentally and with your hand. That's a really good foundation and a good primer for the next one.
5. Exercise 3: Explore One Letter: So, for the next step, I'm going to ask you guys to take the first letter of your first name. Just like the first exercise, we're going to completely populate an entire page but just the first letter of your first name. So for me, I'm going to take T, I'm going to make a bazillion different kinds of Ts on this page. I really want you to think about this. I want you to remove, again, all the expectations of what things are supposed to look like, or what things are supposed to be. I don't think I have a great style, for instance, with me. My style comes just from me wanting to get a message out, or be immediate with my mark making. So, you don't have to have some style or something that you're latching on to. Just let it be free, what are all the different ways that you can make a letter? To me, it's just an object at the end of the day. If I was an alien and I came down here and I just looked at these forms, they were just big forms. That's all they are. So, how can you remove some of that? Again, thinking about what we've done in the first two exercises. Let go, look at different ways people make letter forms. It can be conceptual. It can be artistic. It can be totally expressive. Think about who you are, what represents you? What are all those different ways that you can write that letter that represent who you are in a fun way, in an expressive way? So, really try to let it go. Try to just make marks. Don't worry about what it looks like or being too caught up or being final. We're going to go through a process. This isn't something that's finished. There's going to be a lot of different styles. So, just try to let it go and put it on the paper. So, for example, these are some of the ones that students have done in some of my workshops. Look how beautiful some of these M's are. I mean some of them can be more conceptual like a bow. Some of them can just be more expressive. This student really exhausted out all the possibilities and I really love that. I think this is wood. Just like what are all the different ways you can play with an M? I don't know, is that like a teddy bear right there? That's so cool. This person was way more expressive where I felt like the person who was doing the M was more conceptual. So, there's so many different ways. I mean look at all these cool S's. This is an X. Again, these are jeans. So, going from more literal to way more expressive, really trying on all different things. Some of them work, some of them maybe aren't as successful, and that's what it's about. It's really trying out. Look at all these beautiful C's. I really love it. Again, you also don't have to be this neat. These students were very neat in putting them in lines, but you can do them any way you want. You can make some big, some small. I just like to get as many as possible on a page to really try to see all the possibilities that you can work with. So okay. So, now I'm going to start the first letter of my first name which is T, of course. I'm also going to use a Sharpie brush tip marker, which is my favorite, because as you can see, you can get very thick lines and you can get very thin lines all in one stroke. So, it really brings out different possibilities with your mark making. So, this is just a quick example of a bunch of different T's I could do. I would really advise you to do more pages, three, four, more pages. Generally, then once I've exhausted all the possibilities of this letter. It's fun to just look at them, hang them above on the wall. When we do workshops, all the students hang them up, and they're just so beautiful to look at and so expressive, and so boundless on what you can do. So, I think we're going to do our name next. So, we're going to pick one style and then do your name. For me, I look at this, like this, maybe this is basic, I don't know if I'm doing my name like that will be that exciting. If I did this melting thing, that could be really interesting. I mean I would have to push this more, really melting, but I could see all of my whole name melting together, which would be fun. So, think about the totality of what you're doing and how you can push it. I was trying this like champagne burst here. I mean this is very rough, but I think I'm going to pick this melting thing. I'm into the melting, I was doing that with the hot. I want to see how that can all start to work together.
6. Exercise 4: Explore One Style: So, hopefully, you've exhausted all the possibilities of the first letter of your first name. Hopefully, many different kinds of sheets like this. Then, again, I want you to pick one, or two, or three if you're ambitious enough, but at least pick one that you feel is interesting, a little unexpected, maybe something that'd be a little more memorable, maybe one that pushes you out of your comfort zone more. Pick one and then I want you to do your entire name in that same style. So, you pick what you did for that letter and then how does that translate to the other letterforms of your name. This stuff, I really want you to try tracing paper as well. So, once you start trying your name in different ways, put a piece of tracing paper over it, and go over it, refine it and try. So, you never just bounce it out that piece of paper, you can always keep. Again, this is my secret weapon. So, I feel really free with tracing paper because I can keep going over, I can throw away a piece that I don't like. There's really no expectations with it. Just to give you guys some examples, I was showing you these before, some of the letters some of the students did in my last workshop which was in China, in Shanghai. So, for instance, this person picked this X for their name, and then they blew it out to that. Here's some of the M's I was showing you before, remember the bow tie and stuff. She ended up picking one up. She picked this one. You can actually see my little X mark there during our critic. She picked that one and she ended up doing that. Here's a bunch of beautiful Y's. She picked one of these I think. Yeah, and she blew it out to that. So, you have to start thinking about this as an identity, almost. You're picking a style with one letter form, you have to think about how that translates to all the other forms. So, it's really important to think about it in terms of that. Here's a bunch of C's, really great C's. She actually did four different versions as you can see. So, with all these examples, like for instance, this one, I don't want you guys to think that she just picked this and then boom, did this in 10 minutes. She kept refining and refining again. We're going to go through it by putting a tracing paper over, recrafting, redrawing, redefining it. So, this is probably her fifth or sixth version of this before she got to this. So, again, I'm going to pick this melty T. I'm going to give myself a little smiley face here. Yah! So, now I'm going to try to attempt to do my name in that similar style. Now, it's also important guys to remember, we're not making a font here. Each letter can have its own version or expression. I like to think of this more as an identity, because it's an expressive alphabet. That's why I don't call it, we're not making a typeface, for instance. I mean, you can certainly turn this into a typeface if you're so dare, and so that will let you not be so concerned with each one being "perfect" to some expectation you have. Now, I'm going to just keep trying. I don't love that I, for instance. I might put some tracing paper over this, the next time and fix that a little bit differently. There's more steps, we're going to think about how we bring this onto the computer, how can we make this digital, how we can refine it in vector. Again, this is just a chance for you to try out ideas and see what the opportunities and possibilities you have with just the marker. So, say I like this version or I like parts of this version, I might then attempt to, for instance, I don't like this I. Maybe I want this to stand out a little more. I want to get more liquid feel here that I don't think I captured enough. Maybe I like this T, I want on Tim. But again, I think that I keep trying. You might find that your letterforms take on something different than maybe you had intended and that's okay too. I like now. Like what if I didn't want this to be melting, what if I wanted it to be a more straight up version of my name here. But, then I kept these pieces that were like glaze coming down. All of a sudden, that feels so much different in a way than this was. This was some weird melting candle thing, but then this becomes maybe, like I'm certain I like how this one looks a little bit. That's some sort of like, is it ice? Is it water? Is it melting down? So you're taking more traditional letterform here and then you're adding this layer. So, there's a lot of different ways you can keep playing and seeing that, attempting of what looks good and what doesn't. Again, sometimes, you start playing and new things come out of it. So, that's really what this is all about. I'll just keep going. So this is where I'm at now. Obviously, we started with this letterform, which was completely different. I was just like melting candle type thing and I've tried that. That's where I was, and then I kept refining it and refining it with tracing paper. I'm not afraid to make marks and screw up because I know I'm just going to put another piece of tracing paper over it. I stumbled on this idea of making the letterforms a little bit more basic and then having this dripping thing come from it. So it's almost like ice or something or melts in water coming from it. So, obviously, I can keep going and going and going. But this is all the setup where we're going to go in the next step. Hopefully, you're at a place now where you're happy with your letterforms. If you're not, it doesn't matter. Just keep going, keep refining, trying new things. But once you're done with your name and you're ready to move on, we're going to now go on to the next step where we're going to be taking that same style and we're going to be applying it to the entire alphabet.
7. Exercise 5: Create Your Alphabet: So, now you've done your name, and we're going to move on to doing the entire alphabet in the same style. Now you have a couple of different options. You can definitely keep going by hand making the rest of the alphabet. It depends on your style. It depends on the style that you picked for your name. So, if you're doing something with like brush strokes or something, you might want to continue doing the entire alphabet with the brush strokes, and then you can later bring it on the computer and refine it. Now, your second option is, you can obviously take your name if you think what you've done is going to lend itself to more vectorization and tracing, where you can play more in the computer, then you definitely bring your name right on the computer and then you can do your alphabet like in Photoshop or in Vector or whatever you feel comfortable with. So, for me, this's pretty simple, I don't think I'm going to continue to do it by hand. Generally, what I do is that I'll just take a picture of this, and just text myself on the computer or email myself the file. I always like to bring things in Photoshop first, even if I'm going to turn the vector, I like to turn it and I bring it into Photoshop and clean it up. I'm just going to make a new layer, I usually like to desaturate it, and make it black and white first, and then I usually bring it in levels and I'll just work on the levels to get rid of all of the clutter and the stuff, just to make it a pure black and white contour. So, I'll do that and then I'll get rid of all this other stuff. Just to have it cleaned up, I never know what I'm going to do. Sometimes I like to bring it in Photoshop first and just maybe even get the brush, get a brush going. If I want to clean up any of the lines, for instance, I might do that in Photoshop first, there's really no right or wrong way with any of this stuff. You really find your own- I never even took a Photoshop tutorial, I just learned on my own what I like. So, maybe if I don't like this, I just kind of clean that up a little bit right there. Maybe if I want to- I could even add drips, it doesn't matter. I'm not some purist where it's like, "Oh, it all has to be done by hand", like I cheat anything all day. I always do stuff by hand and bring it in Photoshop and cheat it, especially my lettering. So, generally I just take, I save that file out from Photoshop and I'll just drag it in Illustrator. Now, there's obviously a lot of different ways you can do this. I'm not some Photoshop Illustrator wiz, this isn't a tutorial on this, so you really find the way that you feel comfortable with. Obviously, you can image-trace this and try different kinds of ways to expand it, and then, if you want to do it that way. What I want this to be, I'm more interested in tracing over this. So, I'm just going to make a new layer, lock this layer and make a new layer, turn my stroke to read. Because I really want to capture this in a more traditional form, I want to just trace it my own way like the letter forms. There's a lot of different ways you can do this obviously. Maybe I don't like the way, maybe some of my drawing was a little off, off is good but sometimes maybe I want it to be a little different. So, I might just start tracing this over and over again, and then working out how I want this to work. As you can see some of my drips, I just start drawing. Really just thinking about this in layers and in steps and as a process. Then I start tracing over, I might try different ways. Obviously, as I said, red was just a way for me to differentiate my drawing from the previous drawings. So I can choose any color and start playing with these. As you can see, I started the process of what I might start doing, whether it's filled in or whether these are strokes, then I'll keep going. I might want to change some of the shapes of the letter forms a little bit. You can see here I had this little drip but now I like the idea of making this a little longer. So, I really like this two tone thing, I have going on here and I like some of the drips that I've made. So, I'm really going to use this as like my catalyst, my hero letter and obviously finish out my name, but just start going with the ABCD. Again, I think of this as an identity and how each one really corresponds to the next one. So, don't forget that, but still have fun and explore and bring new personality to each letter that you're doing. So, quickly guys, I just want to show you a couple examples. I showed you this C before for instance, and then she did these four versions for her name. So then, that became this all of a sudden, which is so beautiful. You can see how obviously making it a poster, playing with composition, playing with color, refining it in vector really became this beautiful alphabet poster. For instance. I showed you this these M's before, remember the bow tie, and then she did her name like this, it's the one we picked. Hers became a super rad poster which is, I love this whole like 80s vibe, really weird and off is like all these big kind of blocky letters jumbled together, it's really beautiful. So, it just really comes to life the more you keep working and refining it and playing with color and scale, and all these kind of things and letting the personality of the letters really show through. Now, I'm going to show you a bunch of other posters that students did in my last workshop, which is in Shanghai at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. So, again these students that I work with in China, this was over the course of two or three days. We did the same series of exercises that we just did in this class, but then they obviously took time to create their letters and their poster. So, don't worry, take your time, try a lot of different things, there's so many different ways this can go. If you look at this one, this is like literally iPhone's and hands making letter forms. So, as you can see guys, there's so many different ways to keep pushing and playing with this, this has got this old Paul Rand vibe. This one for instance, I really love, it's not even so much that the letter forms themselves are amazing by themselves, but just the way she did this poster with colors and composition, like I would totally hang this in my apartment, and that's how I know something's really cool.
8. Final Thoughts: So hopefully, you're well on your way working on your alphabet poster. But just to show you that I practice what I preach. I'm going to take you through some of my professional work and show you the kind of the process of how I do, what I do and why I've been, what we've been talking about. So this is a book jacket for Eddie Huang, Double Cup Love. I just started with a rough idea of the size and working with the author and our director at the publishing house. Just really kind of talking about all the things that we want to get on the cover and all these different sayings that are in the book. So, I just start freestyling really I just think about this is jazz in craft, freestyling with a pencil. Just started roughing this stuff in what I want. Now, I did a couple of different other options for them, but this is the start of this one. So again, you know, it's not worrying too much about what it looks. It's more like a blueprint of where I want everything to go. So I just start working with pencil on that. Then again I'll put tracing paper over it. This I actually used with like a skinny, sharpie marker or more like a pen and just really start roughing this in. You can see I'm kind of refining things, trying, doing and going over the things. You don't want the material to push you around. You want to push the material around. So it's like how do you kind of get a hold of all that. I'll just keep refining and refining over and over again. Start getting to places where I think it's more interesting. Then actually I did the cup separate because I wasn't in love with where it was before. So I was just trying. You can see this still like some space here that's not working out, that I have to refine digitally. This is the final cover. So, this is actually a mural that I did and you can see it's not very big. It's only five or six inches. Again, I do this with tracing paper to get it where I want. I take a picture of it. I send it to myself. I bring it in Photoshop, clean it up. Bring in the vector, you'll going to be changing on the scale of the words, get it more refined and then I actually take a picture of the space. I get a blank picture of the space and I'll do it like a Photoshop render of it, just to make sure. Then I really set it high rise to the actual size of the space and I go there and I project it right on the screen and trace it with a pencil and you can see in this time-lapse. You can see some of the pencil marks and I'm tracing over it. With this one I traced over it with a paint marker and then filled it in with paint. In closing guys, again, this isn't about your final alphabet poster being perfect in any way. You know that it's always a process. I always say to my students at SVA, it's really about, a graphic design to me, it is always about a practice. Think about it as a practice not as a profession. If you get too worried about being professional or being perfect and you're just going to drive yourself nuts. So think about it as a process of practice, get used to that, get used to the questions and asking questions a lot and trying different things, making a lot of stuff and keep asking the question, "Why? " Whatever I do, no matter what project I'm working on, especially a lot of my personal projects that I've done, a lot of the big murals I've done, it's that question of, "Why" comes up first. Why does this need to happen? Why does this need to be in the world? How am I going to make someone smile or make someone happy or make someone think differently about something with the kind of work I'm doing? Now obviously, that's an ambitious ask for alphabet poster, but I'm just saying that think bigger picture too with yourself as a communicator in this industry, as you go forward. It's really important to start thinking about how your work has consequences and where your work fits in, in the culture. Guys, don't forget to share your work in the Project Gallery. I definitely want to see all your alphabet posters. I want to see your letterforms. You show your process too. Let us all see the tracing paper mockups you did. Let's see the page of scribbles that you did early on. Let's see the letters that you are creating early on. I want to see a whole process. Share it with everyone. Let's start a community critique. Let's share with the fellow people in the class with us. I think it would be really awesome to see so much amazing work and to see the breadth of kind of work as you'll see. You'll get inspired by what other people are doing as well and what other people's perspectives on, just letterforms. It's boundless, it goes on forever. So, it's really great to share it.
9. What's Next?: way.
Timothy Goodman, Designer & Illustrator
