THE LANGUAGE OF TWO LETTERS As understood by Vi.

THE LANGUAGE OF TWO LETTERS As understood by Vi.

To Ma, Dad and P, Thanks for trying so hard to understand all the design work I do. Your attempts make me giggle, but thats exactly what I need sometimes. Gracias!

THE LANGUAGE OF TWO LETTERS As understood by Vi.

Written and Designed by Vi Chetan. Visual Communications Design Department of Art & Design School of Visual & Performing Arts Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana
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A publication of the School of Visual & Performing Arts. ALL CONTENT Is Is COpYRIGHT IN THE NaME OF VIsHaKHa CHETaN, NOvEMBER, 2013.

LEVEl 1: INTRODUCTiON TO THE LANGUAGE OF LETTERS.

Yes, I know. The idea of letters having their own language is a little out there.. I bet youre thinking - Dont we use letters to write!? How can they have their own language! Well, yes, its true that letters are what we use to visually represent language. But trust me, they do have their own language. Through this project, I started to look at, appreciate and understand this language. The way a line curves and bends, slowly, beautifully coming together as the letterform we recognize instantly, is nothing short of being its own language. Dont you think so? This is also where I found the title of my book. The cover is representational of the process as well - hand sketches that were ne tuned on the computer. Through this book, I have tried to present my process of learning and how I have understood this very subtle language by dividing the sections into levels. As any language, the language of letters has its syntax and grammar rules too - both letters are to maintain their integrity, legibility and recognizability eventually being combined to make a unied form. Each of these two letters can only come from the ten assigned typefaces, discussed in Level 3. Now, my lovely readers, ip the page over, keep an open mind. I hope you learn this language as I have through the different levels in the coming pages.

LEVEl 2: UNDERSTANDING THE lETTERFORMS

Level 2 of The Language of Letters brought a deeper look into the two letters. Having to physically draw the two assigned letters 104 times (yes, all 104 sketches are in the upcoming section) to create the near-perfect amalgamation, made me more aware of the curves, the thicks and thins, the joints, and all of the other things I never paid attention to. You might think that this entire process is exhaustive and I thought it to be aimless at times. But then, the digital sketches rolled around, and I found ability to visualize each of the two letters in the ten assigned typefaces had been instilled in me. Thats what hand drawings do - they force you to look and observe, before making that mark with a pencil and nally rening it. In the upcoming sketches, it is easy to see a lot of variation in the line thicknesses, size, case (lower or upper) and no particular use of a typeface because for now, all I needed to learn was the letters shapes. As the sketches develop, you will notice that I start sticking to mostly sans-serif faces, because I nd them aesthetically attractive. And at this point, I was very hopeful that my nal design will use a sans-serif. Does it? Keep reading!

102: UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS THE LETTERFORMS

Through this rst stage of hand drawn sketches, the tools used were pencils, markers and ballpoint pens. I experimented with each individually or a combination of these.

UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

I started learning that a marker is great for visibly dark shapes, ballpoints for ne lines, and pencils for still ner lines.

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

I stumbled on to the idea of lling up the U, but soon abandoned it because it got very close to looking like a shape or a shield.

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

By this point, I started realizing how geometric both the letters were. It was a bitter-sweet moment as it hit me that I wont be able to twist and turn and crop them much without losing their form.

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

The sketches in this section arent in an exact chronological order, but theyre close. Nevertheless, with so much experimentation, I had a clearer picture of which directions to take, and which to forget.

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

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UNDERSTANDING THE LETTERFORMS

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LEVEl 3: APPlYING THE UNDERSTOOD

Through the weeks of hand sketches, I was very eager to get on the computer to sketch. I really wanted to skip the hand sketches, always thinking that the computer sketches would be a breeze. But nope, that wasnt the case at all. After spending so much time with paper and pens, switching over to the computer was a little..frustrating. Surprising, eh? All my excitement was very short lived as I had to get readjusted to the computer not being as precise as I was with markers and pencils. But once readjusted, the excitement returned. Now it was time to dwell into what the ten typefaces did to u and t. The ten typefaces are: Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Futura, Helvetica, Optima, and Univers. It was amazing how different the two letters looked even with a simple case change. I had a new superpower - typefaces and Illustrator. Like Uncle Ben said, With great power comes great responsibility. I felt that responsibility strongly - make that one amazing design thats going to blow minds. I know a lot of the following sketches will look the same to you, but there are subtle differences, as little as a missing serif. Just those little parts make such a huge difference! I have organized this section to showcase all the digital iterations - some new, some of old sketches. I eventually narrowed it down to two choices, and those are shown in the next section - Level 4: Mastery.

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

Some hand drawn sketches, like the ones on the facing page, translated wonderfully on to the computer. But not all ideas translated well, like the ones on this page.

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

The typefaces provided so much variety! All the sketches on this spread are variants of a concept done with different typefaces - just look at the difference!

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

The lower case letters in either serif or sans-serif faces provided a lot of variety. It allowed me to experiment more - the variations in line thickness for serif faces, stability of the same in sansserif faces really encouraged this process.

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

The computer made the process faster, though not simpler. Yes its easier to apply the typefaces, but the time spent on aligning, editing, deleting, adding, and other things made the process just as intricate as hand sketches.

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APPLYING THE UNDERSTOOD

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LEVEl 4: MASTERY

Well folks, were almost to the end. At this point, youve seen all the work, from hand sketches to digital sketches. I have tried to illustrate their development, the challenges I faced and some of my thoughts. By now, I have learned a lot about the typefaces, the alterations that come with them, what works, what doesnt and how to maintain the two letterforms when coming up with a new structure. In this section, you will see my nal selections and evolution of each of those. At the end sits the big revealmy nal design.

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Design Concept 1:

Design Concept 2:

ARE YOU REaDY FOR THE FINaL DESIGN?

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The parameters of this project require the two letterforms to be legible, maintain their integrity, have contrast in terms of size, case, typeface, etc., and that the nal design be a balance of the two letterforms. My nal design is all of these. And more! I feel its strengths lie in the way the lower case, italic, serif t wraps itself and nds form in the upper case sans-serif U. Each of the letterforms support each other structurally and visually. The elimination of the left ascender of the U and the serif on the t creates for a great positivenegative space play. The t blends into the negative space created by the middle of the U, intertwining the two letters indubitably. Furthermore, without the presence of t, the U could easily be mistaken for a J, and without the the U, the t would have lesser legibility. None of the two letters claim dominance, they both stand individually and together strongly. To me, the fact that the shapes through their subtle implied lines enforce the letterforms is a big point of intrigue. It adds to the engagement quality of the design along with the gure ground reversal. The typefaces used are Bodoni (t) and Futura (U). Both the typefaces have been edited and adjusted to better suit the design.

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BEHIND THE SCENEs: KNOWING tHE DEsIGNER.

Vishakha Vi Chetan is presently studying Visual Communications Design at Purdue University. Hailing from India and studying on the opposite end of the globe has brought all sorts of adventures and experiences to her life. Vi loves the sans-serif typefaces and nds her design aesthetic extremely inuenced by the German Bauhaus and Russian constructivist eras. The minimalist nature of both the schools have intertwined with her design sense immensely. Presently, Vi is a Graphic Deisgn intern at Purdues Marketing and Media. This experience is helping in furthering her understanding of brand identity. On an informal note, Vi has a crazy love for animals and cupcakes. Her latest peeves are acquiring a Gameboy with all the Pokemon games and collecting type-based pop up books.

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Acknowledgements Kristine J. Anderson Professor Emerita, Libraries, Purdue University Cathy Aper Manager, Purdue Printing Services & BoilerCopyMaker Scot Benham Haywood Printing Co. Inc. Lafayette, Indiana K. Lynia Coates Copyright Clearance/Class Notes, BoilerCopyMaker Barbara Mayeld Continuing Lecturer, Purdue University Sherry Swank Design Manager, Purdue Printing Services

Colophon Paper: Cougar 80# cover and 70# text Type: Futura Light (& Oblique): 11pt, 10pt & 10pt Medium: 18pt, 17pt, 10pt Book: 10pt Baskerville: 9pt Printer: Xerox DocuColor 252 Printing: Purdue Printing Services & BoilerCopymaker, West Lafayette, IN Bindery: Haywood Printing Co. Inc. Lafayette, Indiana Binding: Perfect bound Edition: 6 copies

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