Jeff Skeoch

Type and Tape!

This brief was all about typefaces and fonts, specifically creating our own typeface through the medium of tape! The brief was fairly open, it could be any style of typeface, representing anything we like and presented in any way we fancied. We broke down into smaller groups and had a little brainstorm . Our group decided that we would design our typeface for a specific theme, as if it was going to be used on a poster with a very distinct subject matter. We also had the idea to present the font in a more creative fashion, using an environment which was in keeping with the theme of the font.

We headed down to Slades Farm, a local skate park to look for inspiration. Whilst having a look around we got chatting to a young lad playing truant from school, he was bit rough round the edges to say the least and had a lot to say for himself. He gave us the idea to base the the font on decay, not just of materials and the environment but social decay. We called the font Dekline to signify the decline in the importance of community and family, by fragmenting the and distressing the characters we tried to convey the feeling of separation and erosion felt in modern society.  We used the decaying infrastructure of a council funded community park as a canvas to try and drive home the message. 

Again it was interesting to work with an open brief and to formulate an idea in a group environment rather than on our own. We used research and and the actual environment for inspiration and it was great to see how everyone interpreted the brief in such different ways. Feeding back to the group was fun, its great to answer questions and to actually test how robust the idea behind the visual work is.