Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Stamp Inspiration
Some of my favorite stamp designs I found while digging through the internet. All credit goes to their original owners. In all honesty, I don't think all of these stamps are officially licensed or endorsed by the United States Postal Service. I'll leave it up to the imagination to decide which.
Typography Essay
The essay about my aforementioned Frankenstein design.
In my piece I decided to use emphasis as a sort of base for all of the other design elements to rest on top of but I kept it far enough off the bottom of the design to both allow room for flow to seep through and so as not to upset the balance of the central corners. Keeping the largest and most eye drawing of the elements off of the absolute bottom of the design also helped me keep the design from being too bottom heavy, as I had always intended to rest balance on top of emphasis. I wanted to use the A in balance as the absolute center (but not the focal point) of the piece, which would allow it to equally spread itself inside the center box. I wanted to connect contrast to balance but also have another design element on the other side, tipping the scale. I decided to make contrast the "lighter" element even though it was more integral to the objective of the piece because it brought the viewer's eye back up to the top left corner before their eyes were drawn back down the piece through alignment and repetition towards flow. Alignment was placed as it was to keep the two upper right corners from being completely bare, but was also was hopefully made small enough to leave a decent bit of negative space. Repetition took control of the rest of the negative space above balance and served as to "weigh down" the opposite side of the balance. From there, flow guides the eye through the base of emphasis and gradually expands towards the end to fill in the bottom left third.
I made emphasis as big and bold as I could to…well emphasize it. It takes up the most space in the design and the thickest word of the bunch. On top of the H in emphasis I separated the A from balance to make a sort of fulcrum between the two sides of the word. It pretty literally acted like a balance, with other design elements resting on top of it to tip the scales. I made contrast a circle balanced on the tip of the A with each side letter being contrasted with each other, but with the opposite sides of the circle being the same value to keep it balanced with itself. Repetition is repeated in an inwardly spiraling design, getting smaller and smaller to make the design thicker and thicker. This along with alignment, which fits itself at a right angle into the repetition square pushes the balance scale downwards. Flow is in cursive and repeats itself, at first small, then making itself thicker and thicker as it has more space to maneuver, representing water dripping from the edge of balance.
In my piece I decided to use emphasis as a sort of base for all of the other design elements to rest on top of but I kept it far enough off the bottom of the design to both allow room for flow to seep through and so as not to upset the balance of the central corners. Keeping the largest and most eye drawing of the elements off of the absolute bottom of the design also helped me keep the design from being too bottom heavy, as I had always intended to rest balance on top of emphasis. I wanted to use the A in balance as the absolute center (but not the focal point) of the piece, which would allow it to equally spread itself inside the center box. I wanted to connect contrast to balance but also have another design element on the other side, tipping the scale. I decided to make contrast the "lighter" element even though it was more integral to the objective of the piece because it brought the viewer's eye back up to the top left corner before their eyes were drawn back down the piece through alignment and repetition towards flow. Alignment was placed as it was to keep the two upper right corners from being completely bare, but was also was hopefully made small enough to leave a decent bit of negative space. Repetition took control of the rest of the negative space above balance and served as to "weigh down" the opposite side of the balance. From there, flow guides the eye through the base of emphasis and gradually expands towards the end to fill in the bottom left third.
I made emphasis as big and bold as I could to…well emphasize it. It takes up the most space in the design and the thickest word of the bunch. On top of the H in emphasis I separated the A from balance to make a sort of fulcrum between the two sides of the word. It pretty literally acted like a balance, with other design elements resting on top of it to tip the scales. I made contrast a circle balanced on the tip of the A with each side letter being contrasted with each other, but with the opposite sides of the circle being the same value to keep it balanced with itself. Repetition is repeated in an inwardly spiraling design, getting smaller and smaller to make the design thicker and thicker. This along with alignment, which fits itself at a right angle into the repetition square pushes the balance scale downwards. Flow is in cursive and repeats itself, at first small, then making itself thicker and thicker as it has more space to maneuver, representing water dripping from the edge of balance.
Typography Final
And taking bits and pieces from those drafts I came up with this unholy Frankenstein monster of a design. Be gentle.
Design Rough Draft
Laptops finally up and running again so time to dump what I've got!
A few basic concept drafts for the typography project. A bit messy but hey, that's what rough drafts are for, right?
A few basic concept drafts for the typography project. A bit messy but hey, that's what rough drafts are for, right?
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