x marks the spot
typography 2 spring 2023
X Marks the Spot is a poster series that highlights the achievements of inventors Kursat Ceylan, Claudius Ptolemy, and Gladys West at a fictional exhibit in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Intentional visual systems and typography are utilized to highlight a theme of navigation shared between these innovators while still celebrating each one of their individual stories.
concept
After comprehensively researching each of the inventors, I came up with the concept statement that would guide my design process.
The concept title, “Charting Courage” unifies all three of these pioneers in their ability to use limited technology and perseverance through barriers to make monumental developments within the navigational system.
process
sketches
In my initial sketches, I primarily focused on word association to my poster’s theme, and how that may be visually communicated.
type exploration
I participated in a type manipulation workshop, where type play was done using a variety of methods, one of my personal favorites being the scanner. This allowed me to visualize how manipulated type could serve as imagery as a basis for the poster series, seeing as we were not allowed to use literal imagery.
material exploration
I was interested in the use of texture in my series to mimic that of a topographic map. I experimented with materials such as caulk, plastic, rock salt lamps, and yarn when determining how I could best represent this aspect in my poster series.
conceptual iterations
I experimented with a few different conceptual representations of my theme before I found my final design.
final iteration
For my final poster series, I chose to create a typographic cross stitching system to represent a coordinate plotting system used in navigational service. To achieve this look, I cross stitched each of the inventor’s names on tracing paper with differently colored yarn symbolizing each icon. I then digitally edited the photos of the names to make them repeat across a page.
Digitally, I combined the pages of repeated names with a series of shadowed X’s overlayed on top of the image. I edited and warped the photos to provide additional motion and texture to go hand in hand with the navigation theme.
