Week 5: Whole Alphabet Using Geometric and Organic Lines

Craft: In our class this week, we had to make the remaining letters from the alphabet using the pen tool in Adobe illustrator.  In my last blog post, I included all the straight letters.  This time, I had to create all the 11 curved letters using the Pen tool with the help of the Anchor Point tool.  For each letter, I originally started out with the pen tool to make a straight line.  I would click on the point where I wanted it to stop then dragged the line to produce a curve.  Some letters such as R and B consisted of this repetitive technique.  For most of the other curvy letters, I would just use the Anchor Point tool after making a straight line.  In the middle of the straight line, I would just click on the point where I wanted a curve, and it appeared.  This was used for letters such as C and U.  S and G were harder to make since I had to make a lot of modifications to them once I had a rough outline of them.  If the letters didn't look right, I would add anchor points using the Add Anchor Point tool and fix the curves using multiple points.  This was done with the help of the white pointer tool.  It allowed me to make any modifications I wanted to on any letters.  The zig zag font was also created using the pen tool and the Add Anchor Point tool.  I would add many anchor points to the left side of each letter and then modify them.  For every other anchor point, I brought the point into the letter so that the end results looked like zig zags all the way through.
Composition: With the whole alphabet on the artboard, the font makes the letters look complete.  The viewers see the zig zags first since they're located in every letter besides the blue fill.  The letters follow immediately since the zig zag font is placed with the letters.  As the previous artworks, the background is white, directing the focus towards the letters and their unique font. The letters' fonts are only located on the left side of each letter and not on the inside.  If zig zags were located on the inside of the letters, then the letters would appear too busy.  The zig zags would overshadow the original alphabet.   The letters are viewed from left to right since people read left to right. Only six are on each line so that the letters don't appear to be overcrowding with each other.  This makes the composition appear even and neutral.  The letters gain equal attention from the viewers because of their placement.
Concept: The letters appear as individual pieces, yet are collectively a whole because of the font that is applied to all them.  The font makes the letters consistent in relation to one another along with the height and size that is similar between the letters.  The zig zags portray a Jaws theme within the letters.  They look like shark teeth and can appear scary towards some viewers.  The sharp points exaggerate shark teeth since shark teeth are pointy and numerous.  The blue fill adds to the theme of sharks because they live in a blue ocean.  The dark hue of blue adds suspense to the idea because oceans are not that dark.  The dark blue elicits a night feeling.  The combination of the zig zags with the color convey a scary feeling.  If the letters were in a different shade or color, viewers might not experience the same feelings and thoughts when first viewing the letters.  While the letters might appear to be just letters with a personalized design and font added to them, they create a whole new meaning underneath that makes the letters stand out even more.