The best time is now

Posted on January 25, 2014 by jackstandbridge

Still on catch-up mode here, so this one was done a while ago, but it’s not too old. This one wasn’t a piece for a client, just one that I decided to do on my own steam, just like in the good old days of Thing a Day.

After a few variations, I settled on going for the old words-within-words style. I did something similar for Tomorrow is a Dream, but this one is a little different. I think that when you first see it you read the word “now”, of course, because it’s so big. Then comes the rest of the sentence, which is finished by the word “now” again. So in a way, it reads “Now. The best time is now.” It has more impact and helps the message, I think.

This piece also has an element that I’ve wanted to try out for a while in it. Imagine that the words “the best time is” simply make everything behind them turn the opposite colour, creating what looks almost like a checker board pattern. The challenge with it is that if you were to simply follow along the guidelines in the picture below, you wouldn’t execute the design successfully.

The problem arises when you consider following along the pencil lines with a fineliner. In fact, when you look at a pencil outline like this one, you only see the line. But when you look at the finished piece, you don’t so much see the line as you see what is contained or excluded by the line. Because of this, you need to think about the thickness of the stroke that is created when you draw along a line. In fact, it’s drawing ON the line that is the mistake. To allow the negative space, or the white spaces, be the same proportion as their black counterparts, you must always make sure to draw around the surrounding edge, and never on the line itself, unless you want the white parts to become too small. Take a look at the picture from a silly angle to see what I mean:

I’m working on a big logo design project at the moment, but luckily I’m having the time to post bits and pieces here and there to try to catch up with myself, but it might take a little longer to get a post done about this logo, though when it arrives, there will be a lot to talk about, as it’s my most detailed piece yet, by far.

The Urban Orb

Posted on January 24, 2014 by jackstandbridge

Second in my series of “What was going on a month ago” is a post about the a bigger project that I did. The client wanted 3 things: first, a logo for a series of youtube videos consisting of the words “The Urban Orb”, second, the text “Next Episode” to be shown at the end of each episode during the preview of what will happen next time, and third, a large number of quotations and phrases to be edited into the videos, but to be done in calligraphy, not lettering.

The Urban Orb is a streamer who usually broadcasts himself through streaming websites like twitch.tv, but in this case, he wanted to have a series consisting of a challenge run through of the game Dark Souls uploaded to youtube. Though he was unsure exactly which colouring/texture was going to work out best once the videos were edited, we settled on the outline of the project, and I started work. In the end, the client received several different versions to test out on the final videos, allowing for legibility, unobtrusiveness, and thematic consistency. The logo was designed to be easily read, unique in its ligatures, and styled to match the feel of the game it is used to watermark. In the end, to blend unobtrusiveness and legibility against all backgrounds, the final version consisted of a solid black outline with a semi-transparent white fill, allowing the logo to be constantly visible, but never stand out harshly in the way that a solid colour would do.

The Next Episode text was done in a similar style to The Urban Orb logo, but was designed to fit a much larger space. The text was originally intended to be in a calligraphic style that would interact with the ornamentation around it, and though it was sad to leave some of the calligraphic designs by the wayside, I think that the increased legibility and thematic consistency is worth more than the ornamentation’s interaction with the text. As it stands, the text is nested within the ornamentation, which also continues up to surround the in-game interface, thereby integrating the text with the aspects of the game.

Executing the calligraphy was a very different task to the design and execution of the lettering. To start with, calligraphy is more of an all-or-nothing process, where one mistake in a quotation can mean that you must start again. Some quotations were much longer than these three, so a mistakes could mean that double or triple the time would be needed to get it correct. I used traditional dip nibs and ink to write these – black ink on white paper. Once they were completed, I scanned them into the computer and colourised them digitally, though they are not vectorised, of course, which would take more than one man’s patience worth, I think.

In all, this project was wonderful to work on, not least because I was exposed to so many inspiring quotations, some of which I had read before, but many of which were new to me. Most were on the topic of perseverance, success and failure, which certainly helped me continue past making a mistake towards the end of a long quotation!

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.

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: