Thing a Day (Day 7)

Posted on October 27, 2013 by jackstandbridge

It’s here. Day 7. I feel like I should have some grand words to write. Some great insight. Instead, I’m sitting here with orange peel on my lap. The good news is that I fixed the computer, so everything should be tip top from now on! The other good news is that I designed AND inked a large piece today, which is more than I had planned, but I thought that finishing the final day with a pencil sketch would be a let down. And the best news is that it’s nearly bed time! I stayed up far too late getting this finished.

Well, anyway, let’s take a look at it.

Fortune favours the bold! Or at least, let’s hope it does. And yes, it’s the British spelling of “favour”, what can I say. As for what happened with this piece, I can say that it’s an idea that I had yesterday, and everything was going smoothly until the word “the” became unstuck in time and space and refused to settle back into normality, therefore making it impossible to fit into the design. Fortunately, I had the bright idea of placing it within a ribbon. As you can see, the dots around the edge are to keep it in. Let’s just hope it doesn’t slip out of the end.

Thing a Day. What can I say? It was pretty tough to keep up to my own standards, and it certainly used up vast chunks of time, but I would certainly say that it was worth it. Thing a Day will stop now, and I will upload on a less (but still) frequent basis. It will also give me more time to explore things that are more experimental.

Lastly, I can say that Thing a Day will be back! Sometime in the near future, there will be more things, and more days, and they will go hand in hand.

Posted on October 25, 2013 by jackstandbridge

Thing a Day! Here it is, my thing for today. Today’s thing started out as the underdog, the discarded idea, the shunned orphan of the lettering world. Fortunately, a kind man came along and lifted him from the slums of his relegation in the back of a notebook and put him into the sketchbook for inking.

I had the idea yesterday, but didn’t see how it could work out well in terms of spacing. I needed to have the word “tomorrow” very tall and thin for the proportions to fit, but it seemed lanky and weird when I first tried some sketches. Feeling discouraged, and for want of anything else to do for today’s thing, I decided to give it a proper sketch out anyway. It was . . . OK.

Here it is in vanilla form.

It didn’t seem to work all that well to me, so I knew I needed something else. What I ended up trying was something that I initially thought might ruin it, but there’s no point not trying when it’s just the work of a single day. In the end, it seems that the you can never know until you try, and fortune favours the bold.

On another note, you may notice that my header has been upgraded in image quality. I couldn’t stand how terrible it looked, so I borrowed someone else’s computer to upload some photos from my camera. It worked out great! Hooray!

Tomorrow is the last day of Thing a Day, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to come up with a good one! Come and check it out.

Thing a Day (Day 5)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by jackstandbridge

So, today, my new lead holder and leads arrived, meaning I can finally sketch with a sharp pencil again. And the lead pointer really does the trick! Now, all I need is my computer fixed, a large and wealthy customer base, and I’ll be all set for being a professional graphic designer. Well, we’ll see what we can do about the second one.

Anyway, in yesterday’s Thing a Day, I mentioned that my ideas for today’s thing would be to improve the site a little. I’m sure that you will have noticed the change already, as it’s right there at the top of the page! Well, as you can see, it’s a lettered header to replace the old boring one. Unfortunately, iPad attacks! Oh my grainy! Well, we’ll see what we can do once the computer is fixed.

This thing didn’t take much in terms of the concept of it, seeing as it’s just my signature and the word lettering, but the proportions and arranging of the letters was quite tricky.

Take a look from another angle:

Odd to think that there are only two days left of my Thing a Day challenge. It will certainly free up a lot more time for me to do ILT (Important Life Things), but it’s teaching me a thing or two about giving myself a lot to do, and how to be productive even when not in too creative a mood.

Come back tomorrow for the penultimate Thing a Day!

Thing a Day (Day 4)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by jackstandbridge

Well, I’m past half way through my thing a day week. Over yesterday and today, I was planning and inking one larger piece, the planning being yesterday’s thing and inking being today’s.

I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out having started from this:

Today’s thing is a little different from other things. It uses bolder shapes and no serifs. It’s an experiment with an unconventional shape. It is two sentences, and it’s the first piece with no hatching.

And aside from anything else, it looks taller than it is wide, yet it is wider than it is tall. Strange.

Would you believe that it’s seven inches wide, but only five and a half tall? One of my stumbling blocks in designing it was that I was trying to sketch it out in portrait, when in fact it needed to be landscape.

As for tomorrow’s thing, I have some ideas already. Something to make the site a little more appealing, hopefully. Stay tuned!

Thing a Day (Day 3)

Posted on October 22, 2013 by jackstandbridge

Wow! Day 3 is here and thing 3 is surely around here somewhere too. Yesterday’s thing was more time consuming than I had expected. I thought that it being smaller than other pieces would mean that it would be quicker to finish, but not so!

That out of the way, let’s think about today. Seeing as yesterday’s thing was so time consuming I decided that I would plan a large piece and not ink it for today’s thing. Image quality is definitely suffering, however, so please forgive the iPad’s inferior lens capabilities.

The subject matter for today’s lettering is reflective of my mood, I suppose. My computer screen being smashed is the kind of thing that would usually get me down, but I’m taking an optimistic approach, which is made easier as I am having so much fun lettering! Take a look:

Thing a Day (Day 2)

Posted on October 21, 2013 by jackstandbridge

Whew, what a day. Broke the computer, burnt my finger, and ran out of pencil lead! However, first things first: yesterday’s completed thing!

Setbacks aside, I’m on my way to having thing 2 finished. Seeing as the computer is out of action, I’m having to post from the iPad, so photos aren’t going to be so great. (Updated now!)

Today’s thing is a small design, meaning I’m aiming to have it done completely by the end of today. That’ll make two complete things in two days! How novel. Anyway, here’s proof of my homework. Let’s just hope the dog doesn’t eat it and make things worse…

It’ll be a few days (or weeks!) before my computer is back up, so site updates might be slow in general, but Thing a Day will be a priority. It might be hard, but if I take my own advice, everything will work out. Stop Hesitating!

Thing a Day (Day 1)

Posted on October 20, 2013 by jackstandbridge

So in the spirit of productivity, I’m going to try something one of my favourite musicians and comedians, Jonathan Coulton did. He set himself a challenge to produce 52 things in a year, at a rate of one a week. By things he did not mean full songs, though he did come out with some. He didn’t limit himself to making anything fantastic or polished. He just set himself to making a “thing”. Whether that “thing” was an epic story song or a piece of experimental music depended on what inspiration he managed to find in that week.

My challenge to myself will be shorter, spanning just one week (starting today). Each day I will either plan out a large design (see You will never wait longer for what I mean by large,) ink a large design, or plan and ink a small design.

Well, you say, today is the first day of the challenge, so where is the result? My answer to that is that I’m inking a large design that I planned out yesterday. Here’s my proof!

As you can tell, my poor old camera doesn’t live up to modern standards, and I certainly need to get a different bulb for my desk lamp (look at those lines it throws!) but the design is well on its way to being completed. My deadline is midnight tonight, so I have another 4 hours to whip it into shape. The finished article will be uploaded by tomorrow, or I’ll have broken my own promise on the first day! And that won’t do.