Inspired by the IBM logo, I created an X which has lines removed in a horizontal fashion representing multiple interventions which interrupted the letter. The style has been proven to work well as a logo, however it can become quite illegible if there is too much negative space.

I started looking at letterforms which could interact with itself in an unusual way. Here the stem of the G intervenes upon the stress in an almost paradoxical fashion, as the latter stage of the letter interrupts an earlier stage. I really liked this and would like to continue it further, however I feel it would be inapplicable to many other glyphs.

Experimenting with dissecting the serifs on the E, because the slopes on the serif give a sense of motion coming to a halt.

My next idea was inspired by a poster located in Studio 4 where type is distorted by moving an image whilst it is being scanned resulting in jagged lines which intervene at different stages. I thought that having multiple distortions would be too chaotic so I draw a single plane where i would shift the bottom half of the letterform. I really liked this idea as it would be applicable to every glyph.

I then looked at letterforms with intersecting bars such as X, then decided that the smaller bar would be dominant and the wider bar would be intersected. I also played around with the idea of adding extra bars running parrallel to the dominant bar which are broken by the thicker bar to balance the letterform.

I then researched how bars have been introduced to letterforms, primarily in foreign languages like polish and russian. I had the bar cross the counter rather than the legs so it doesn't interfere too much with the main structure of the letter.

I felt that I was diving in too early with my development so I took a step back and decided to research my typeface further. I went to the library and found a book called '', where I found this information on Roman Serif typefaces.

I began as simple as possible, with the T having a diagonal cut (an intervention) across the stem. I then did a similar thing to the R, adding cuts just before each part of the letter merged with another.

I then started looking into and breaking down my word 'Intervene'. This was to try to inspire my manipulations and give me a better idea of what i could produce. I felt that my word was quite difficult, as the manipulations that are possible are quite obvious (I found it hard to be more conceptual whilst keeping the letterforms still related to Intervene.)

OUGD403 Design Skills - Alphabet Soup - Visual Thinking

With this brief, I was given a typeface to research and a word to base my manipulations on. I was given Times Roman, a serif which has become synonymous with newspapers, and the word Intervene. I began by looking into what Times Roman was created for, who commissioned it, the designers etc. I also thought about what emotions and feelings the typeface conveyed.

We produced alternative poster designs which were more friendly and appealing, but didn't match the theme of black and white photography that runs throughout the booklet. We must decide which poster design to use, and what can be done to make it as appropriate as possible. 

After holding a critique of our work we were made aware of multiple issues or possible changes we could make to our work. This included information that we had not included such as Social Networking, and the legibility of the text. We also spoke about what paper we were going to print our booklet on, whether it will be glossy or matte, and what thickness it will be; it must be as thick and durable as possible whilst being flexible enough to fold into the booklet.

This is the poster which is printed on the reverse of the booklet, which could be pinned on notice boards in flats or around the college. we liked the photograph that we used but felt that the colour we used on the vector shapes could be brighter and more attractive. The text also felt too plain and unappealing, so we have started to look into alternative designs. 

This is our first print out of our booklet. We printed a copy as soon as possible so we could see how it looked in real life. We noticed many things that we needed to change about the work, mainly about the weight of the type and the colours; which looked different on screen than on paper. The grey blocks are where we are undecided on which colours to use. 

We began editing our photos and experimenting with different shapes and colours. We struggled choosing a single colour to use, so we decided upon using a different colour for each page. We felt that this would make the booklet look more fun and create a happier mood whilst also combatting any negative moods created by the use of black and white photography. 

We all agreed that a Sans Serif font would be most appropriate as it is generally more legible than Serif fonts. We printed off our favourites to see how they looked on paper, along with a few display fonts which could be used on the poster. We started using Quaver Sans, but it only had one weight; this caused us to change to Avenir Next, which had a plethora of different weights and settings.

We chose to have a poster printed on the reverse of our booklet which would act as an attention grabber. It also gave the reader an incentive to keep the booklet (to possibly pin on their notice board) rather than to read it then bin it. We looked at many designs which used different typography, illustrations and photographs. Since we decided to use photographs earlier to save time, we were inspired by these poster designs which utilised black and white photography and selective colour.  

We collected existing work and deconstructed each piece, debating which elements we felt worked and what didn't. We compared the typography and colour schemes used on each one and discussed what sort of mood they conveyed. We drew inspiration from the ones that we felt were most effective at catching our attention and displaying information the best. 

We mocked up multiple designs in rough, experimenting with different layouts and image/text combinations. Given the timeframe of the project we decided upon using photographs rather than illustrations as they took far less time to produce. We also thought about different sizes, whether it would be a5 to a2, or a6 to a3. We decided upon the latter as we felt it would be too large and contain too much information, as well as being much more expensive to produce.

We chose to use a booklet/poster format for our project. We felt that it was the best way to display a good quantity of information whilst also being able to make it interesting and eye-catching. Here we researched booklet designs and printed the ones we thought were successful and inspiring. We then drew from them when creating our own work.

Our next step was brainstorming a list of possible content. We went over each item to see how beneficial it would be to our work and selected the most useful ones.

Here we created another spider diagram to display different ways we could present our work, looking at options such as booklets, posters, information packs etc. We also thought about where our work would be placed, which effected our decisions when it came to the style of our work. 

We began our project by creating spider diagrams to get all of our ideas and thoughts onto paper. This allowed us to look at the problem from different angles and also to give us an idea of what information we will need to display. We also planned our research, looking into resources and subjects to study; this allowed us to manage our time more efficiently.