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.