Visual Alphabet

Amanda Wallis Winter Semester 2013

Project 1 | Visual Alphabet

Introduction
The first part of this assignment was to go and find visual research for ideas. Our research would help us with inspiration for the visual alphabets. From this research and inspiration we were to think of 20 different potential alphabets created from different objects. 5 different visual experiments were then conducted from the best of our potential alphabet ideas. After choosing the best 2 visual experiments we then started refining and gathering more information for our final alphabet. Moving on to the final process, we picked the best/most successful alphabet of the two for the finished product. Finally, after editing the next step was to print and flush mount onto foamcore to create a completed composition of a visual alphabet made of the same or different objects.

Table of Contents

2 Introduction 4 Visual Research 5 Concept Sketches 6 Visual Experiments 8 Alphabet Prep 1 Learning Summary 9 Full Alphabet Visual Experiments 11 Alphabet Prep 2 Learning Summary 12 Visual Alphabet Final 13 Alphabet Final Learning Summary 14 Overall Project Learning Summary

Visaul Research

Concept Sketches

Visual Experiments

Project 1 | Alphabet Prep Part 1

Learning Summary
I found that visual research and sketching out ideas for our alphabets in the beginning was a great idea. My looking online and seeing what other people have done I found some great inspiration for my own ideas and things that I had never seen before. It was interesting to see all the different kinds of things and possibilites you could do with this alphabet project. By conducting my own visual research of five different possibilites out of our 20 potential ideas I was able eliminate ideas and explore new ones to find out what could work and what couldnt. The biggest challenge for me and probably will be throughout this project was finding ways that different objects can make letters. I learned that some are easier than others and the harder ones either really have to be tweaked and messed with or you just have to try something new.

Full Alphabet Visual Experiments

Project 1 | Alphabet Prep Part 2

Learning Summary
This part of the project was really helpful and made me think a lot. I really had to work hard to find all of the materials in my 2 different sets so that I could make a full alphabet. Some letters worked and some didnt, but I also found that some objects could work for multiple letters. One of the hardest parts about this part of the project was trying to limit myself. I kept finding that I would try and make things easier on myself by meshing object together to create a letter, almost like trying to find different aids to help me out. I learned throughout trying to find objects to try and use only one thing, or else I tried to use what I had instead of trying to create new things to help me out. I started to see the object for their natural shapes and tried to work that into my alphabet. Some of my letters were very successful this way, but others I struggled with.

Visual Alphabet Final

Project 1 | Alphabet Final

Learning Summary
For my final alphabet I chose the earrings over makeup. I think that the earrings were more successful for me because they had their own natural shape that I could find for letters rather than creating structures of shapes like I was doing with the makeup. Some of the makeup and bathroom items had alphabetic shapes of their own but I found it a lot more simple and more successful to just use the earrings. One of the hardest things for my in choosing the earring alphabet was coming up with all capital letters. At first my letters were both capitol and lowercase. It didnt look bad and in fact it could have worked with what I had going, but I decided to challenge myself and try to make them all captiol letters so that they were unified in that way. I was able to do it and although I know there are some letters that are struggling, I was able to find new earrings that better fit some of the other positions that I had before. Overall Im happy with the way that my final alphabet turned out and Ive definitely learned to use my imagination with this project.

Project 1 |

Overall Project Learning Summary

I learned so much in this little amount of time to work on this project. I started seeing letters in everything and I now realize that with a little imagination and a little coordination, it could be possible to make an alphabet out of most anything. I really learned that instead of focussing on the letter itself that it is important to focus on the object and how that object represents the letter, rather than the other way around. In this project we had to learn to eliminate the predictable ideas from the beginning so that we could dig deeper and find new and unexplored concepts that we could call our own. Another thing Ive learned from this project is that its okay to take something that has already been done and experiment with it to try and make it better. That is why we make mistakes so that we can learn from them and eventually make it better. This was a great project and really fun as well to experiment with all kinds of alphabet possibilities.