Week 38: Pointees

The longest and most rambling email yet!!

Happy Friday!

Week 38 is here! Feels like this project is coming to a close soon but we still have 14 weeks!!

I had the incurable urge to design some dingbats this week. I began by sketching arrows and getting all the little normie arrows out of my system. Then I focused on making arrows that belong to other fonts that I’ve designed. After I exhausted the arrow ideas I could think of, I pulled out one of my favorite design references. It’s called Graphic Idea Notebook by Jan V. White and it was published in 1980. I found it in a free box at my local garden store of all places! It’s definitely a pre-computers/paste-up era design book. I loooove this kind of reference because it’s just page after page of 80’s design solutions that I find really charming. There are about 5 pages of arrows in this book that are literally there to be copied. So generous of Jan!! Of course I didn’t directly copy any, but I did use some of them as a jumping off point because I can’t store all the arrow possibilities in the old dome. 

It always feels like a safer bet to rely on things of the past so that you don’t step on another designer’s toes. My main fear with this project is to accidentally copy someone’s work. Rapid-fire type design could easily go that way! Being in this little niche of an industry, I have my finger on the pulse of what’s being released. The trick is to not constantly and absently look at type design work. I try to only look in small doses and be very aware while I’m doing it.

However, I have learned through this process that there is still an infinite amount of ideas that haven’t been made yet. For me, the process for creating original work is to rely solely on my own brain and never reference any modern type designer’s work. I don’t make mood boards or try to make anything too trendy. If I absolutely need a reference: I scour books, classic type faces, or online archives/museums.

Some advice for making original work: 

• Rely on what has come before. Iterate on the classics. Put your own personal spin on it. (This one has to be done respectfully. Make sure you know where your sources come from and who/what they represent.)

• Create something that is personal for you. If you like vintage cars, make a chrome font! If you like boats, name a type foundry after your favorite one. ;) 

• Don’t ever tell yourself everything worthwhile already exists — it’s not true! You’re stopping before you even get started. 

• Remember to play! Art is fun. Paint letters with your eyelashes or draw comic sans from memory. There are no rules and the world is your frickin’ oyster!!

Okay, I gotta stop before I get too yelly. I hope it’s not lost on anyone that I wrote that for myself as much as I did for you! I hope you enjoy Pointees and the fact that I can’t stop making dingbats. Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts this week! I’ll see you next Friday!

5 Things I’m Into This Week:

1. My friend and former instructor, Kel Troughton, is teaching another 10 week Intro to Type Design class again! There are only a couple spots left!! Sign up here: https://letterformarchive.org/events/view/public-workshop-introduction-to-modern-type-design (P.s. — Tommi [queen of Taters] is going to be the TA!)

2. More old school design books that I might have recommended before: Graphic Design Manual by Armin Hofmann and any books by Dan X. Solo.

3. This week I sketched with an Molotow Twin Pump Marker filled with black Sumi ink and it might be my new fave?? It was recommended by Cyrus Highsmith in a talk he gave a while back. I forgot about it until this week!

4. I’m randomly into Smashing Pumpkins right now!! I have no explanation — just listen to the song Luna or Disarm.

5. My mom got me these North Face Slippers for Christmas this year and I haven’t taken them off since I got them!!

Best and brightest,
Libbie