Wednesday morning’s sketches.
Following five days in Virginia, I arrived back in England on Tuesday afternoon. Having spent the morning en route in the Netherlands’ beautiful airport, I was ready for some more Dutch things. I made it to the Typography department in time for Gerard Unger’s 4pm lecture on the Didots and Wafflard. Unfortunately, I had missed the first four working hours of his second design-time visit, and while I as away, I hadn’t done any work on my typeface, either. So, I was feeling a little behind, with some jet-lag mixed in.
Nevertheless, on Wednesday morning, I went to work and spent as much of the day and evening drawing pencil sketches as I could. On Thursday morning, I drew an enlarged, clean sketch for a few hours, which I had hoped to reduce on the photocopier…the machine is broken at the moment. So, without much manual refinement, I started digitizing my idea in FontLab. A few hours later, I made my first and second text test print outs. After dinner, the third.
Wednesday evening’s sketches.
Print out from my own printer, Thursday evening. This was my third printed test in six to eight hours.
Yesterday morning (Friday) I felt much better. I still am unsure about the direction I am beginning to take my work in. I’m drawing letters that have the feeling to them that I want—at least when I can more or less faithfully reproduce what I see in my head or on sketches in FontLab—but I do wonder if I’m biting off more that I can chew with my chosen period. I’ve more or less settled on an idea for my design brief, and will load it online soon, even through it will surely change by the submission deadline during the summer!
From left to right: Mathieu, Andrew, Paul, Gerard, and Michi in the MA studio.
Close-up from print out on the Phaser 5400 in the MA studio, Friday afternoon.
Another close-up from print out on the Phaser 5400 in the MA studio, Friday afternoon.