PlacardAssignment

Kelsey Rooney

Inspiration

When first learning about this assignment, my mind immediately went to inspiration/quote boards on Pinterest - which is where I drew my ispiration from. I really liked the layout of all of these images. I enjoyed the usage of different typefaces, families, and the uniformity of keeping the quote’s com-position as a shape. That is the direction that I really wanted to go in upon choosing my quote.

The BeginningSelecting a quote from the list of 17 was something that I initially thought was going to be difficult. However, one quote in particular jumped out at me right away.

“Never fall in love with an idea. They’re whores. If the one you’re with isn’t doing the job, there’s always, always, always another.” -Chip Kidd

This quote stood out to me because I thought creating a composition would actually be a little more challenging for me. It is an edgier quote, with strong language and choice of words, and I wanted to take that challenge head-on.

The Process

When first going from paper to the computer, I got to choosing a list of typefaces that I thought would work really well for this. At first, it was a pretty easy task to conquer, and then it got a little tough - especially with the word “whore.” I couldn’t decide which direction I wanted to take this - do I be snarky and have it be an elegant font? A rough font? Uneven? Bold? I was pulled in a million different directions. For our rough draft critiques, I printed about six different versions - the only different be-tween the six being how the word “whore” was presented. Based on some construc-tive feedback, I decided to go with the imperfect, handwritten look. Finding a font was a challenge, which led me to write the word out myself.

Refinement

After some more critiques and chatting with Professor Ward, I decided to go with creating my own letterforms for the word “whore.” This itself presented a whole new challenge. I was advised to write the word really fast, in a hurry. That way, I didn’t have too much time to thinkg about it. This wasn’t working as well as I had hoped considering a lot of my letterforms looked the exact same. After about 20 or so tries of just writing it fast, I decided to mix things up a bit - write it without looking, write it backwards (from s to w), and to write with my left hand. This technique eventually led me to success with finding letterforms that would fit the tone that I wanted to convey. I then scanned my sketches and went to trace them in Adobe Illustrator.

Final Placard