Another post, showcasing the various bits of exploration in my practice.

Firstly, a consultation I had with Rachel to create a metal type piece…

I scanned in the template from the shapes. Thought something might come to me. Nothing did. Though I did have a play around with some extra bits that I accidentally cut out. I glued them together to make a transformative ‘d’…

Before that I made a quick typeface out of the pieces. It’s quite funny using one piece and sometimes 3/4…

Theres a few letters missing but oh well. I love the variation in size. No regard for the strict type rule of a consistent x-or-cap-height haha.

I also created these speech marks in a similar fashion.

What really struck me though was when I placed these shapes back into the original sketches I did of them.

Got me thinking about the potential for the letters themselves needing construction too. If maybe, they were made and then so was the cube they then became. Double transformation…

Metal Type:

Moving on from the laser cutter, I wanted to test some metal type and also take the ‘Connect More’ typeface further. (Progress shown below)…

A quick sketch, using the ‘V’ shape from the letter collection. The top is supposed to be a sheet of metal with lumps pushed out where the letter exists and lumps pushed in where it does not.

The sketch below explores an idea that exploits the idea of transformative type laid out in my research question. Where the circular shapes or extruded to look like long bars from a side angle.

This then led me to ponder another couple of ideas:

1. Firstly an idea to create a bouldering wall typeface in 3d. This could then convey a nice message or something. I’ve attached a bunch of images below to show you (kind of) what I mean.

2. Beautiful colours and wonderful shapes. So much potential for letterforms. The transformation could occur where from distance it looks like just another bouldering wall but then up-close its not.

Another idea that led on from this was:

1. A typography playground. As I was thinking about how cool it would be to swing around letters (after pondering the bouldering thought).

2. Something like the one below, but they are all letters. Kind of similar to the slide idea I had a while ago.

Laser cutting intervention:

The laser cut shapes I produced had finally been painted. They do look quite cute and playful…

The ‘P’ especially. What I kind of had in mind for these blocks was to potentially create something similar to the image shown on the right. I mentioned this in another blog post: https://www.aalvkdotcom.com/post/experimental-practice

(I don’t know why it pasted all the way down there). But anyway, it could be quite a neat final piece. I’m glad I did a paint test though as there were a few things I noticed throughout the production:

Firstly, the yellow paint really didn’t seem to want to stick. Even after a coat of white primer (you can see this below).

You can see that close-up here. I don’t know if I rushed it, but either way that would need more careful attention next time.

I’ve got a close up here now of the ‘P’.

This is prominent on all the shapes but the paint dried lumpy and the ridges on the side are so clear.

Next time (if I continue this project) I’ll need to:

• Sand down the sides to make it very flat.

• Maybe paint them with a careful acrylic to get a flatter finish again.

• Coat them in some cleaning solution to get rid of dirt (lumps) and again garner a cleaner, flatter finish.