Wednesday 26 February 2014

Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 3

 New Composition


On the 3rd day I went about resetting my type in a way which looks more visually exciting whilst still being legible and readable. I first of all started by getting rid of Times and Caslon from the mix and started to have a think about what type to use for the other phrases. I wanted to have an even feel to the text so tried to split the faces up so that it differed from phrase to phrase. I also found that some of the points were too long and ruined the composition of the design. With this in mind I had to reword my phrases and switch around the fonts in order to make it look right. This was pretty confusing and I found I had to switch the phrases round quite allot until I found a combination that worked well together. I also didn't realize until after I had printed my first copy that in fact there were a few b's that should be d's and a few other small mistakes like this. Although it was pretty annoying it didnt take a massive amount of time to correct my errors.

Changes
 

Here you can see the changes I made to my manifesto in order to create a piece of type which works well together. I changed the order of the manifesto as it doesn't really matter as long as the message is clear and readable. I found it was quite an interesting task trying to figure out a new structure for my text. It was almost like a puzzle, it took a good bit of time to come up with something I was happy with. Towards the end of the day I had finally managed to set my type and print off a few versions. I still was not happy with the outcome though as it looked unfinished. After looking at my print for a while I decided that a border would make the design look more settled and would be the finishing touch needed to make the print look complete. I spent a good hour sifting through the draws to try and find some ornaments to decorate my design with. I managed to find a set of different bits I could use and decided to use a combination of 2 of the ornaments to create my border.

 The Border
 

 The border was a pain in the arse if im going to be honest, it took around 4 hours in total to set as once I had distruptyed the chase many bits of the leading became loose and fell out. I also had to try and work out how I could make an even border to fit around the edge of the type. I decided to lay the chase on a cutting mat and use the measurements as best as I could to evenly spread the ornaments out, however this was a really hard and fiddly task to get my head around. It took hours of experimenting and swapping around until I had finally got something I was happy with.


After days in the print room I had finally finished setting my type leaving a few minutes to run a print off, I inked up my chase with the roller and prepared the stock and stuck it in the vice. The moment of truth was finally here, I took the chase out of the press and was really happy with the result.
 
 The border definitly finished the piece off, it looked even and interesting. The type has a big impact and worked allot better with smaller spaces between each phrase. I decided to clear all the equipment away at this point and call it a day, leaving a full day for tomorow to print as many off as I could.

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