Goal

As your aware­ness of the shape and form of let­ters increases, you will notice shapes within your envi­ron­ment that will remind you of those let­ters. The visual effect cre­ated by using let­ters found in things around us is fre­quently used within the design field to pro­duce dynamic imagery when com­bined with more com­mon typo­graphic forms.

Objective

Cap­ture a series of images using a dig­i­tal cam­era that depict found objects as letterforms.

Background Reading

• Dab­ner, p 62–91
• Kane, p v‑61
• San­toro, p 151–180

Assignment

Choose six (6) con­sec­u­tive let­ters of the alpha­bet. Develop a num­ber of ‘ideas’ for each let­ter as you dis­cover their shapes within your envi­ron­ment. Look at dif­fer­ent angles, shad­ows, and posi­tions. Pro­duce a series of six designs, one for each let­ter, within six 4” squares. All let­ters should ‘read’ at around the same height.

Designs must be pro­duced pho­to­graph­i­cally, though the selec­tion of dig­i­tal or tra­di­tional print media is your choice. Pho­tos will a graded on both com­po­si­tion and qual­ity, so beware of cheap cam­eras, flash white­out and the auto-focus. Feel free to access friends or other stu­dents to assist you with your pho­tog­ra­phy. Dig­i­tal images may fade if printed on inkjet print­ers, so con­sider pho­to­graphic prints made from dig­i­tal files at your favorite photo processor.

Part One

Bring a sin­gle image, unmounted, to review for cri­tique and upload you image to the appro­pri­ate D2L drop­box for Part One.

Part Two

Com­plete set of images. Work should be mat­ted for final presentation.

Assessment

• The fol­low­ing rubric posted on D2L will deter­mine assign­ment score: Assign­ment 05.08: Let­ter­forms within the Environment

Techniques

pho­tog­ra­phy, obser­va­tion, cut­ting, mounting

Supplies

matte board, pen­cil, ruler, cut­ting tool, rub­ber cement, access to photo printer, pro­por­tion wheel

Deadlines

Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 28, 2020. Assign­ment given.
Fri­day, Octo­ber 2, 2020. Part One due.
Fri­day, Octo­ber 9, 2020. Part Two due. Mat­ted work and dig­i­tal images to appro­pri­ate D2L dropbox.