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Lavinia Lascaris
Phone: (323) 304 6480Email: [email protected]
Course: Typography 1 ACN 125-01
Term: Fall 2015Instructor: Adele BassProject: Letter Transformation
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PROJECTINFORMATION
Project Prompt
Solution
Transform a word or a letterform into an entirely new idea. Present it in a way that is best suited foryour theme.
I have taken the word selshand used it to explore the meaning of the word and how peopleinterpret it. I broke the word down into two parts, selfand sh. I have used the self in the form of atyped word and gradually transformed it into a sh. The sh is then faced with a shing hook, whichit may or may not get caught by. The positive or negative connotations of the word selshare leftopen to interpretation: whether being selsh is a trap our insecurities lead us to, a necessity forself-preservation, or both. The project is presented in the form of a 33x13 poster.
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INITIAL IDEAS
Bite me
Selsh
Anagram
My rst idea was to present the entire project on a real apple. On one side it would look likesomeone took a bite from the apple. The bite would then gradually split in two, so there would becarved stages of transformation on either side of the apple. The right side would morph in to anmand the left into an e. The two letters would joing on the opposte side of the apple forming theword me. Bite on one side and meon the other would represent the phrase Bite me.
When I was little and learning english, I thought the word selshwas a combination of selfplus sh.I could not understand why shwas associated with a word whose meaning had no connection tosh. My idea was to use this personal thought from so long ago to address the meaning of selsh.
I chose this idea because it is based on a pesronal experience and because it offers a variety ofapproaches that I was excited to experiment with.
I researched some anagrams, such as listen/silent, rescue/secure, art/rat, lemon/melon, present/ser-pent, insult/sunlit, staple/petals. I thought that I could come up with a system where starting withone word in type, I could rearrange the letters to build the form of the other.
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Denitions of selfsh
Psychological Egoism
Rational Selshness
Quotes
Selsh is a person, action or motive lacking consideration for others or concerning chiey with oneowns personal prot or pleasure.
Caring supremely or unduly for ones self; regarding ones own comfort, advantage, etc., in disre-gard, or at the expense, of those of others.
Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self.
All behaviours are and must be motivated by self-interest.All motivations are, ultimately, selsh. It is univeral.
An action is rational only if it maximizes self-interest.Selshness is the root of social progress Ayn Rand, The virtue of selshness
Selfsih people are weak and are haunted by the fear of loss of control.
Selsh people have a lot of unmet needs.
Selshness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. Oscal Wilde
Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selshness. Listen to it carefully. Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
RESEARCH
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INSPIRATION
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INSPIRATION
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BRAINSTORM/INITIAL
SKETCHES
Initially, I drew a
mind map withelements that are
associated to my pro-ject, so that I would
make myself a libraryof imagery to help me
get started.
I then brainstormedideas of how selfand
shcould interractwith each other, via
type or imagery.
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I exeperimented with
turning the finto ashing rod to catch
a sh.
I tried to represent theselfas insecure and
scared, but aban-doned that idea be-cause I did not want
to give a negativeconnotation to the
word selsh.
I thought about how
I could represent thechildlike/innocent
origin of the idea andif that could also be
transformed into amore serious rep-
resentation, or viceversa.
I also experimentedwith paper and triedto nd creative ways
one could interract
with the project. Oneidea was a paperfortune teller. Anoth-
er was to create ananimation ip book
with the transforma-tion being animatedthrough the pages.
BRAINSTORM/INITIAL
SKETCHES
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IDEADEVELOPMENT
1. The selfstarts dis-
integrating and getssmaller and smallerwhile turning into a
little sh.
2. Selfis in the centerof the page. The shstarts coming in, eats
the selfas it continuesto move across thepage until it disap-
pears leaving the lastpage blank.
3. Selfis shing. The fis a shing rod and itcatches a sh. As the
sh is being pulled upit grows and grows
and at the end placesitself in front of the f,replacing the shingrod, and forming the
word selshwith typeand image combined.
4. The sh approachesthe self as it gradu-ally transforms intolower case, smaller,
squished together andshivering letters.
1. 2.
3. 4.
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All my ideas so far
had elements that Ithought were success-
ful, so I tried to com-bine them. I liked the
fturning into a shingrod and I liked the sh
eating the self, whileits letters lost theircomposure. I also
liked the sh swim-ming off the page. I
wanted to design it ina way that the sh is
transparent so that thestate of the selfwould
still be visible insidethe sh.
I also made a quicksketch of what itmight look like if
the sh came frombehind, giving somedepth to the design.
IDEADEVELOPMENT
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IDEADEVELOPMENT
On the rst page, self
is the only thing onthe page. Then thefstarts turning intoa shing rod which
catches a sh. The shis then pulled up and
grows bigger as theselftransforms into
lower case and getssquished together.
The sh eats the selfand swims up dis-
appearing from thepage.
There are varioustransformations
occurring throughoutthe stages: the f into
a shing rod and backto a lower case f, thesh growing (maybechanges shape too),
and the selffrom capsto lower case.
The elongatedrectangle the project
is based on ispurposeful. Since the
whole movement isvertical I thought thatit would enhance the
feeling and amount ofmovement.
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IDEADEVELOPMENT
I went back to brain-
storming because mylast idea was slow andwas not as interesting
throughout all thestages. It looked morelike a storyboard than
a transformation. Ineeded to give theaudience a reason
to care about what ishappening.
I experimented with
various ideas, such aslittle sh eating theword selshor the selfgrowing sh parts like
gills and ns, amongothers.
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IDEADEVELOPMENT
After experimenting
with various ideas, Idecided to revisit my
intial concept of trans-forming the word selfinto a sh. I sketched
out a few ways thatthis transformation
could occur: it couldstart growing sh
parts, or grow scalesand transform fromthe inside, or grad-ually have its form
change.
To do this success-fully, I rst needed todecide what the rst
and nal stages wouldlook like.
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FIELDRESEARCH
For my eld research, I
went to the Aquariumof the Pacicin LongBeach (100 AquariumWay, Long Beach, CA
90802) to observe,photograph, andsketch some sh.
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STUDIES
I sketched out various
sh that I found atthe aquarium. For
my project, I wantedto use a type of sh
that looked innocent,rather than a scary,
mean looking one, sothat the audience cansympatize and relate
to it.
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TYPOGRAPHICSTUDY
For my typographic
study I collected a fewbasic typefaces, both
serif and sans serif.
Since the beginning ofthis project I pictured
it with a serif typeface.Furthermore, the serifs
can be easily extend-ed and transformed
into ns, etc.
From my collectionhere, I chose
Baskervald ADFlower case becausethe stem and bowl
weights are balancedand it is a neutral,
classic typeface.
SELF selfAthelas
SELF selfBaskervald ADF
SELF selfBaskerville
SELF selfBaskerville Old Face
SELF self Perpetua
SELF selfBig Caslon Medium
SELF selfBodoni
SELF selfCambria
SELF selfAlte Haas Grotesk
SELF selfAvenir Roman
SELF self Calibri
SELF selfDevanagari Sangam MN
SELF selfFranklin Gothic Book
SELF selfTahoma
SELF selfOriya Sangam MN Bold
SELF self
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RESEARCH
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EXPLORATION
I chose this sh, called
Short Bigeye, becauseI thought it had an
interesting shapethat would allow for
a smooth transforma-tion from self.
However, when I drewit bigger it looked
scared, which was notthe message I wanted
to convey.
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Going back to my
eld research I foundanother type of sh
called Lyretail Anthias.It is softer in therms ofshape and expression.
EXPLORATION
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FIRST DRAFT
This was my rst
attempt on the trans-formation in 8 steps.
My main goal wasfor every stage to be
a pleasing image initself as well as con-
nect well with all otherstages.
Here, there are a fewshapes that I was not
quite happy with, par-ticularly the way the
mouth forms in stages4, 5, and 6.
For a better result, Ihad to plan before-hand which parts ofthe selfwould trans-form into which part
of the sh.
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SECOND DRAFT
This is a more detailed
approach, where thesh starts appearingfrom the inside with
the expansion of thescales. I was advised
against this effect be-cause the end result
has lost its movement.Furthermore, as in
my rst attempt theforming of the mouth
is not smooth.
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THIRD DRAFT
Here, I had solved the
mouth problem and Ithought that all stageslooked well designed
and composed. I usedthese 10 stages, witha few corrections, for
laying out the nalpiece.
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CONCEPTUALREFINEMENT
I was happy with the
transformation, butI still needed a
punchline to create aninteresting story and
make the audiencecare about the sh.
Revisiting my brain-storms from the ideadevelopment stage,
there were a few thatI reconsidered. The
sh swimming into a
larger shs mouth,or it being confront-ed by a hook are
two examples. I alsothought about thesh addressing theaudience by facing
forward while givingthe nger, thus repre-
senting selshness.
After some consid-eration, I decided
to go with the hook
because it is a simpledesign, as to not drive
attention away fromthe transformation. I
thought it would lookelegant.
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COMPOSITIONSTUDY
For this stage, I
scanned in my draw-ings and printed them
out in a smaller sizeso that I could play
around with compo-sition. Depending on
how the 10 stages arelayed out, the mes-
sage could be altered.In the rst stages, thelayout represents theswimming course of
one single sh, while
the last examples lookmore like a school
of sh all swimmingtogether.
1
3
5
2
4
6
7
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REFINEDDRAFTS
I liked both of these
drafts but decided togo with the linear onebacause the transfor-mation is clearer and
one can read throughall the stages. Fur-
thermore, selshnessrepresents the indi-
vidual and it seemedmore accurate for thisproject to depict thecourse of one sh. I
did, however, think it
was too structured,so I wanted to try a
slightly more dynamiclayout without losingthe message that this
example conveys.
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This is the nal design
printed on 33x13.I believe the use ofspace is successful
and I like the contrastbetween the move-ment of the sh and
the stillness of thehook.
Furthermore, the storyends without showingif the sh got caught,
leaving it up to theaudience to decide,
which mirrors the free-dom to interpret the
concept of selshness.
I hope that those whoencounter this projectwill always think of sh
when they hear theword selsh.