For the alphabet soup brief I decided to do some basic research into 'type' and 'letterform'. I currently subscribe to 'Grafik' magazine and so decided I might find some inspiration here. There was a special feature on transparencies within Type (photographed below), which gave me my inspiration, as the transparency of the letterforms gives the impression that the type is layered upon one another. This looked really effective and so I experimented with layering type myself. I also Collected some research within the college of Art, from a previous student who created a similar design, layering different letterforms on top of one another to give a distorted appearance, (photographs below). I also researched 'layering paper' and looked into how you could fold paper into different letterforms and the layers of paper would look really effective.
Here are some of my researched images below;
Above are the images I collected from 'Grafik' edition G192, the typography research guided my main idea and was really inspirational. I think it strongly relates to my idea and the word 'layer' and so I was able to relate to the images more thoroughly.
Above are some primary photographs I collected of work by a previous Leeds College of Art student. They related well to my previous research and allowed me to take a different inside. The simple composition looks really effective and allows the audience to focus on the main central point on the design.
Above is some more research from the same project earlier research. This looks really effective, and this well focused image allows us to see the detail that has gone into each individual letter form.
I then did some online research looking more heavily at structured layers, and deepening my research into transparencies within typography. Andrew Paglinawan's work was heavily focused on Type, and so I used his designs to inspire my initial ideas and focus points.
I then furthered my research and took a different perspective to 'layers', looking at physical layers and how paper can my folded into different shapes to create typography. I decided that my in depth research into both 'transparencies within type' and 'physical layering' worked well, and I decided to combine the two to create my idea, using the physical layering of letters with the initial 'transparencies within type' idea. I used acetate to represent the layers within type, and each letter had a different 'letterform' on. When you place the sheets of acetate together you can see through to the previous letter form giving this layered effective, that is create using transparencies. Because the type had to be created using solid black and no gradients, it was difficult to use 'transparencies within type' directly and so by layering acetate I created the same appearance whilst representing the word 'Layers' more heavily.
Some further research into 'layers' and 'layering type' resulted in the discovery of the typeface which I think is really powerful, the simplicity speaks for the piece and expresses the word 'layer' effectively.
To inspire my work I decided to research the word 'layer' itself, looking into the dictionary meaning. Here is some research I collected from this investigation, and the outcomes I came up with;
LAYER [ley-er]
1. To make a layer of
2. To form or arrange in layers
3. Horticulture (to propagate by layering)
I then decided that using a thesaurus to find different words with the same meaning would also aid my research;
LAYER [ley-er]
discoid, esquamate, filmy, flaky, foliaceous, foliated, ganoid, lamellar, lamellate, lamellated, lamelliform, laminated, laminiferous, membranous, micaceous, overlayed, scaly, schistose, schistous, scutiferous, squamous, squamulose, stratified, stratiform, tabular, tegulated, slice, shave, pare, peel, delaminate, plate, coat, veneer, cover
