Letter Focus

During these tutorials you will discover that individual letters can become the star of the (design) show! Or at least elevate an ordinary typographic arrangement into something unusual, creative and fun! You will also learn that typography should not be secondary in any of your design choices. It should be at the forefront of you ideas when you are creating effective media products. Aim to complete all tutorials within 100 minutes.

Transparent Letters

1. Firstly, do a Google image search for Swiss Style Posters and get a feel this style of graphic design that places typography at the forefront of the design process.

2. Choose a random word by Googling 'random word generator'. Whichever word you get you must use.

3. Use Photopea to type your word.

4. Now choose one of the letters in the word. Make this letter the focus of your design. You can rotate, scale, duplicate and distort this letter. But you must also make this letter transparent.

5. Create a simple yet bold poster using the word and the focus letter. Keep referring back to the Swiss style posters as inspiration for your colour choices, layout etc.

WAGOLL

Below is an example of the type of typographic poster you will be able to create following this tutorial:

Abstract Type

• Use a variety of fonts in different sizes and styles and create an abstract image using only letterforms. You can use the letters in your names or the name of a loved one.

• You could add consistency to you design by choosing one style of font and simply vary the size and layout of each letter.

• You will need to type each letter in its own text box so you can rotate and scale them separately from each other.

WAGOLL

Below is an example of the type of abstract image you will be able to create following this tutorial:

Credit to Amanda Kramer of the Facebook group graphic design and digital media teachers for the lesson idea and WAGOLL images.

positive and negative space relationship

Create letterform design that use one letter as a positive shape and another letter as a negative space. If done correctly, each letterform is readable.

• It is important to plan this one first. Create a series of thumbnail sketches that show that show your experimentation of different typefaces, styles, letterforms (uppercase and lowercase), serif and sans serif fonts and numbers. Each design should only use 2 characters.

• Always keep the letters true to form and letter perfect.

• Do not distort their basic shapes, curves or angles.

• You can extend the edge of the letterform, overlap shapes and hide edges.

• Don't use overly fancy style typefaces.

WAGOLL

Below is an example of the type of graphic image you will be able to create following this tutorial: