Advanced Typography: Task 3

09.06.2025 - 23.07.2025 / Week 8- Week 14

Angelique Svetlana Pekasa / 0377365

Advanced Typography / Bachelors Of Creative Media / Taylor's University

Task 3

Lectures
Instructions
Task 3
Feedback
Reflections
Further Reading

Lectures

Lecture week 1-4

Lecture week 5

Instructions

Task 1: Exercise 1

In this task we were assigned to either create a font which could solve an existing problem, explore an existing font, or experiment. We were given the opportunity to choose and explore any ideas that we want. Shown below is my proposal for the 3 ideas that I came up with.

After gaining feedback in week 9, I decide to go with the second Idea in my proposal, which is to expand the typeface that I made in Task 1. The goal of the expansion is to use this typeface for movie posters, specifically horror or thriller movies that is set in the woods or forest. Most movie poster in that genre uses simple fonts, which I think is too plain so, my goal is to make a new typeface which could express and convey the eeriness of the movies.

Originally, the letters were extracted from an image of tree branches, therefore creating more of it means that I need to extract more of the letters from the original image. However, I decided to use the existing letters "B", "R", "O", "K", and "E" and use it as a base for all other letters in order to create consistency among all letters made.

First, I use a grid in order to make my letters consistent in shape and size. Shown below is the grid that I use.

Fig 1.1, Grid, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

Then I began to make my letters, I copied my process into an artboard to make it more visible. Shown below is the screen grab of the process work. I reused a lot of strokes from existing letters and applied it to other letters to make it consistent.

Fig 1.2, Process work, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

Shown below is the letters that I made in grid.

Fig 1.3, Letters in grid, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

I realized that the height of it isn't too consistent so, I readjust it. Shown below is the screengrab of all letters after the readjustments.

Fig 1.4, Screen grab with guides, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

Fig 1.4, Screen grab without guides, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

After week 10 feedback I decide to create 5 more variants of the letter A, S, J, I, W and V. For the letter "S" I made the letter more "curvy"

Fig 1.5, Variants with grid, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

Fig 1.6, Variants, (Week 9, 10/06/2025)

After that, I continued on making my punctuations and numbers. Below is a screen grab of my process work which I compiled into one picture to make it clearer.

Fig 1.7, Numbers and punctuations process work, (Week 10, 03/07/2025)

I also make sure that the ends of the brackets are longer than my baseline.

Fig 1.8, Brackets process work, (Week 10, 03/07/2025)

Fig 1.9, Screen grab of adobe illustrator, (Week 10, 04/07/2025)

After that I began my preparations to import the letters, numbers and punctuations into Fontforge. Shown below is the process on how I do so.

Fig 1.10, Importing to FontForge, (Week 10, 05/07/2025)

Fig 1.11, All letters, punctuations, and numbers, (Week 10, 05/07/2025)

After week 12's feedback, I import all the letters, punctuation, and numbers into FontLab and began adjusting the bearings in the metrics window tab there. For the side bearings I refer to the chart that is given by Sir. Vinod, and for kerning I adjust everything based on my eyes.

Fig 1.12, Screen grab of kerning, (Week 10, 04/07/2025)

Font Presentation

For the font presentation, I first opened Illustrator, make my artboard 1024 x 1024px, and then I determine the layout of my 5 posters. I look up to Google and Pinterest to find my reference images as I want my font presentations to draw inspirations from vintage horror movie posters.

Fig 1.13, Reference Images, (Week 12, 09/07/2025)

For one of the poster I wanted to imply ASCII art into it, so I went to https://manytools.org/hacker-tools/convert-images-to-ascii-art/, I uploaded a picture there and copy the generated punctuations line by line, too avoid the laptop from lagging.

Fig 1.14, IASCII generator, (Week 12, 09/07/2025)

I readjusted the ASCII again in the poster as the kerning of my punctuations are different than the generated ones.

Fig 1.15, Illustrator process, (Week 12, 09/07/2025)

After that I went into Photoshop to further develop it by adding textures and other necessities, shown below is the process of how I do so.

Fig 1.16, Photoshop process, (Week 12, 10/07/2025)

Shown below are the final outcomes.

Fig 1.17, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.18, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.19, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.20, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.21, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Font Application

For font application, we were tasked with creating a total of 6 designs. Four of them are for the HONOR competition, while the other two required us to use the fonts we created for their intended purpose.

The font I created is intended to be used for movie posters with the specific genre of thriller/horror, which takes place in the woods or forest. Shown below is my process work on how I changed the fonts for the movie posters of "The Cabin in the Woods" and "The Witch".

Fig 1.21, Process work, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Shown below is the finished results along with the mockup posters.

Fig 1.22, Front presentation poster, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.23, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.24, Front presentation poster, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.25, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

HONOR competition

For the HONOR competition we were task to chose the Standy by category, where we are required to make a clock design template for the phone. First I download the file for the template provided and went to photoshop to further edit it by adding textures, changing blending modes, using clipping masks, and etc. Shown below is the screengrab of the photoshop layers that I finished editing on.

Fig 1.26, Screengrab photoshop, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

After that I go to after effects to animate it using effects and presets, alongside puppet tool in order to move the branches. Below is the process on how I animate it.

Fig 1.26, After effects process, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Shown below is the finished outcomes

Fig 1.28, HONORS clock design final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.29, HONORS overall theme final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.30, HONORS signature final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.31, HONORS animation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

The HONOR competition doesn't have the Stand by category to be submitted at the moment, so within the time frame of writing this blog the final outcome haven't been submitted.

FINAL SUBMISSION

Download Font: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QLUceEZgVcB9Qxeh22OFE7mjFLSuO4r2?usp=drive_link

Fig 2.1, Letterform Final PDF, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 2.2, Unicase Final, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.16, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.17, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.18, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.19, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.20, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.21, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.22, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.23, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.24, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.25, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.26, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.27, Front presentation final outcome, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Fig 1.28, Front presentation Compressed, (Week 12, 13/07/2025)

Feedback

Week 13:

Specific feedback: Ok, Upload the submissions into the HONOR competition.

Week 12:

Specific feedback: Use Font Lab instead of Font Forge so that you could kern. No need to change the uppercases into the lower cases as its a unicase, its already ok the way it is

Week 11:

General feedback: When designing the brackets make sure that the it past below the base line, it could either be as low as the descender line or stop above the descender line depending on the font that you make.
Specific feedback: Parentheses must be wider, it looks too much like a C

Week 10:

Specific feedback: Unicase could be used, you could also add variation of some letters so that when for example shift + A is pressed another kind of A will appear.

Week 9:

General feedback: When designing a font make sure that the artboard is 1000pt in height, ideally the x-height is 500pt, assign the descender and ascender, also use grids.
Specific feedback: When using the first idea(expansion of task 2), there is a problem when creating an angle, as there will be awkward spacing between the letters. The idea could still be used however there need to be further exploration, maybe the angle don't need to be used in all letters. Idea 2 (expansion of task 1) could also be used.

Reflections

Experience

Doing this task has been a bit of a challenge for me. This task requires me to make a whole new font, and I the font that I choose to make is a bit complicated, as it have a lot of unique shapes in it. So I took a lot of time making the font in Illustrator, and after exporting it to Fontlab, I experience a lot of challenges as there are missing shapes, or irregular shapes that appears because the Illustrator file isn't merged properly. So I went back and forth from Illustrator and Fontlab. However after all that, I am really satisfied with how my font turn out, as it was unique, unlike any others.

Observation

I observed how important it is to expand, outline path, and merge the shapes in Illustrator. I learned this because small mistakes, or small unmerged shapes could lead to wholes or irregular shapes in the font when its exported to Fontlab.

Findings

Doing this task reopened my mind on how to create my own font from scratch as we have did this for some letters back in semester 1. This task also makes me learned a lot on time management, as the duration of submissions is way faster than in semester 1.

Angelique Svetlana Pekasa (0377365)

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