Typeface definitive choice:

After editing the different typefaces in adobe Illustrator, it made me decide that I want Franklin Gothic Book to be my final choice, which I will develop further into "Tom's Typeface".

Here I have shown Franklin Gothic book font next to the 6 glyphs which will also need editing to become the final typeface font.

Printing my final typeface

After the induction to the Digital print room, I was ready to print my final typeface. 

I decided I wanted to print onto a professional, sophisticated cartridge type stock as I felt it would be very fitting for my Art Deco style typeface, and that the off white colour would fit the purpose of my font.

I was very pleased with the final print of my typeface, and the colours of the black worked very well against the texture of the stock.

My typeface looks very stern and solid in this form, as the strokes of black stand out very well and have a sense of dominance on the page.
The black border around the edge of the A2 page sets a boundary for the design and adds to the art deco style of my font.

I took photographs of my printed typeface from various angles, using different methods and then desaturated the photographs using photoshop as they didn't require saturation as they're B&W images.

I was very pleased with the final print of my typeface, and happy that I chose a more expensive stock to print the font on, as it gave it a better, more professional feel, than typical generic paper stock.

Newspaper project Crit

At a midway critique of my designs, I received plenty of Feedback on my current ideas. 

Quite a lot of the comments were that people didn't quite understand the message, which is understandable at this stage as my rough mock ups only represented the idea.

Another comment was that the person didn't like the typeface, but that isn't an issue at this stage as it was the very first crit of my designs and I didn't necessarily consider typography. 

I will use the feedback from the crit in conjunction with my designs in an attempt to develop them using the comments left by my peers. 

Blood on the hands of a newspaper reader

I am following through with the idea of news paper readers feeling like they have blood on their hands after reading the famous red top newspapers, or any British tabloid. The feel as if they have blood on their hands due to all the horror and violence reported about every day

Using photoshop, I developed this initial photograph into two layers of separate colour, one being red the other being black, and it became a valid, two colour piece of design. 

I have chosen then font Impact as I felt it was very similar to the type of font found on a newspaper cover, and also because it has a very strong presence on my design, and wasn't overshadowed by any other typography on the page.

I chose to print my final type and image design onto newsprint paper as it is based on the newspaper project, so it felt like the most fit for purpose stock to use. 

I was happy with the print outcome on newsprint, and I feel it has strayed away from the generic white background of 80gsm paper. 

Creating my partner's name badge

Using the earlier photograph of my final design drawn out, I took the image onto Adobe's photoshop and cut out each individual letter of Tom's name. 

 I then used the threshold tool to remove the photograph and make a vector looking piece where the glyphs are.

I sized the badge down to the correct size, 40mm by 90mm, and created a bounding box which was the correct size.

After printing I shall Mount the name badge onto card and it will be complete.

Partner's typeface, final creation

 Having moved on from the graphite pencil creation, I used a graphics pen to create this piece which is a more abstract, and less cluttered version of the graphite pencil piece.

The lines represent movement and also unclarity, due to the fact that Tom is 'Visually impaired', and the movement aspect comes into play because he feels he should be less trusting and move away from people.

Experimenting with a vision idea - traditional mediums

Using graphic pencils and the Franklin Gothic book typeface I smudged the graphite to the right to show blurriness, loss of vision and also movement.

I then scanned the piece in using the A2 scanner.

The contrast of the graphite reacts to the paleness of the white A2 paper, which allows the coarseness of the graphite to smudge and create a dragging effect.

Using threshold on photoshop  I have darkened the graphite lines to show the movement as a solid block colour. I feel this represents movement and also blurriness/double vision at the same time, which are two traits I have now chosen to represent Tom, Blurriness due to his need to rely on glasses, and movement due to the fact he would like to be less trusting, so he should move away from certain people.

I have an idea of how I can progress this design forward, and I feel it will make an effective piece of typography which represents Tom, and is also aesthetically pleasing.

Experimenting with a vision idea:

A part of Tom is that he wears glasses to see to his best ability. 

Myself experimenting with glasses explained to me that the aid short sighted or long sighted visual impairments. 

I have generated various experiments which focus around vision, blurred vision and blurriness. 

This experiment created on photoshop revolves around layering the images and changing each of the most forward layer to a slightly lighter tone which creates an effect of the word travelling into the background. I feel to an extent this could reflect visual impairment but more so inebriation.

Here I have created multiple experiments by adjusting the spacing between the lines of a sentence. 

As each lines comes closer to the other and they merge into one, it can become quite baffling on the brain, and create a typeface of it's own, which makes use of many lines and bowls of the letters. 

I chose to use a range of adjustable levels when editing the spacing as each quantity had a more rational/irrational effect.

This is an idea that I could carry forward as it does make a very aesthetically pleasing looking typeface, and I find it quite inventive. 

These 4 different experiments are a result of using Photoshop's blur tool on a rasterized layer of Tom's name. I love how the lines curve and bend, this adds a certain personality to the font alone. Again, this result is similar to the effects of inebriation on the eye, although I do feel it looks very unique and creative.

Franklin Gothic book research

Having chose Franklin Gothic book as my font which I shall edit to become more fitting of Tom's personality, I have chosen to research the font to ensure it has no connotations which wouldn't relate to Tom as a person. 

"Franklin Gothic and its related faces are realist sans-serif typefaces originated by Morris Fuller Benton (1872–1948) in 1902. “Gothic” is an increasingly archaic term meaning sans-serif. 

Franklin Gothic has been used in many advertisements and headlines in newspapers. 

The typeface continues to maintain a high profile, appearing in a variety of media from books to billboards. Despite a period of eclipse in the 1930s, after the introduction of European faces like Kabel and Futura, they were re-discovered by American designers in the 1940s and have remained popular ever since."

Franklin Gothic is an extra-bold sans-serif type which can be distinguished from other sans serif typefaces, as it has a more traditional double-story g and a. Other main distinguishing characteristics are the tail of the Q and the ear of the g. The tail of the Q curls down from the bottom center of the letterform in the book weight and shifts slightly to the right in the bolder fonts.

I feel that Franklin Gothic is an accurate choice of typeface for Tom as it is a body copy font which is very similar to Helvetica, and it can easily be manipulated to portray the personality traits which I desire it to.

Altering the fundamentals of type:

Using Adobe's Illustrator, I loaded up a range of my fonts which I felt suitable for Tom, and adjusted various aspects of them, including the weight, leading, tracking and kerning. 

Copper plate

Copper plate had quite a reaction when I altered the weight of the fonts, the lighter option for Copper plate made the typeface look skeletal, and rather similar to Times new roman in certain aspects. 

The bold option made the font look very heavy and weighty, almost like a slab serif, this could be quite useful as an experiment. 

By altering the tracking of the font by -200 points, it had a powerful effect on the fundamentals of this typeface, I do like how the font comes across and feel that reducing or increasing the tracking of a font vastly alters the personality of a font. 

Consolas

Similarly to editing Copper plate, adjusting the weight of Consolas makes it much more of a block typeface, which looks more sturdy and solid. 

as the tracking of the font was negated in this instance, the letters began to overlap each other which was very interesting and gave a lot of additional personality traits - something which I would like to work with further.

Massively raising the tracking resulted in the letters becoming very spaced out and looking distant from each other. 

Franklin Gothic book

Franklin gothic book had the option to make the font italic which had instants results on the personality traits of the font, I feel italic makes the font seem indecisive of it's self and 'wavey'.
The adjustment in tracking of this font has big effects due to how blocky and square it is, lowering the tracking makes the letters clash and infringe in each other's space.
I find the adjustment of tracking -200 very interesting in this font as the letters are touching and are fighting the cling onto legibility.
Consolas
I find the uppercase G in Consolas very interesting and individual in the way all of the other letters in this sequence follow an x-height and this uppercase G finds a way to descend.
Again, lowering the tracking by -200 makes for a very interesting results which I feel I will follow through to the end result.

Brittannic Bold

Due to this font already being bold, there is no bold option to adjust the weight. 

Adjusting the tracking into the negative figures makes the font rather illegible and indistinctive to read.

Raising the tracking of the font spaces the letters very far which makes it appear as if the letters are solif and standing alone.

I don't think i'll be experimenting with this font anymore as it isn't fitting the objectives I intend to achieve, or reflecting Tom's personality.  

Conclusion:
Adjusting the tracking on fonts has given me realisation of how much a font's personality can truly be altered, and I now see the broad way in which personality traits could be added to a font.
I think I will go with the lowering of the tracking which brings the characters closer together, which I feel reflects how trusting Tom can be.