Design Principles, Study Task 2: Type Modification

The best thing to look at when trying to see how far i can modify the typeface Bernard Condensed was to draw it out by hand. The images below show the red original font outline and then the black thicker modified letter. At first I found this quite limiting because I wasn't too sure on what to do, however when I got into the project I began to see how far a type could be pushed. Obviously the final outcome needs to be shown as a modified type in bold, italic, light and regular. To get these four I first need some basic rules to how the type has been modified. By drawing ideas out by hand it has been a lot freer and easier to play around with and make adjustments.

Instead of drawing them all out by hand and then trying to modify them digitally I thought I would play with both as I go along. I decided to stick with the same concept of having the red original shape outline and the back modified letter.

Here was my first attempt at playing around on illustrator at manipulating text. I wanted to start with something quite simple so I removed the serifs but kept the low x height which can be seen on the cross bar because it made the font unique.

Beginning to look into some of the sketches I planned out. This one was lowing the height of the bowl as I had noticed that the font is all high up and squished together. With the lower height the letter looks easier to recognise but looks odd as the counter has a lot more space to the left of it than it previously had, this is because it has been lowered in proportion but not adjusted outwards. 

As part of the type I wanted to keep it neat and and straight by removing the clunky round end serifs. But I wanted to keep the smoothness of the letter so I have kept the rounded corners, however not too rounded with the fear of looking like comic sans.

One thing I will experiment with is whether the letters can be the same thickness the whole way round or whether the narrower part on the top of the 'a' should stay narrow or even be made more narrow.












I decided to take off the red outlines so that i could see what the letters looked like. I wanted to experiment with 'how bold can bold be?' As you can see below the letter has been brought closer together so that the letter is nearly complete. The counter has been made smaller to make the 'a' look larger rather than having to adjust the size. However the first attempt just looked odd, it didn't suit the letter. Perhaps it is the wrong shape for the new modified 'a'. I decided to look at extending the counter so that it was the same idea as the top of the 'a' being smaller