This is very much a work in progress. I’m using one of the abstracted drawings of an ammonite to create some typographic art. I’m not entirely sure if this is going to work out, but I will persevere with it. If nothing else, it will give me plenty of practice with hand-drawn typography!
I started this yesterday, but I wasn’t feeling well, so parked it for the day as I took some self-care time.
This morning I woke feeling brighter, without a much of a headache so I wanted to return to this.
My first step was to create a kind of stylised ink density map from my drawing. I don’t know how else to describe it. Then, I started work on the areas where the lettering needs to have the greatest ink density – thick, black, bold shapes. I’ve got a fair bit of this done. and I’ve sketched in lettering for some of the remaining darkest areas.
I thought it would be cute to use stylised ammonites as spacers for the words. I like what I’ve done on the right of the artwork : black boxes with white ammonite drawings. I may very well go back and repeat this for the other sections. I may need to adjust the lettering to make enough space for me to do this. As I’m working digitally, this is easy enough to do.
My lettering style has changed too. I’m going to let it be for now. I’m still trying to work out what style my hand-drawn typography will take for work such as this.
I’m also going to have to repeat some words related to ammonites, but that’s no bad thing I think.
I must remember to use different layers for different weights of letters (that’s the term I was looking for, not ink density, duh!). That way, if I decide to colour the typography in different tones I can do so easily.
Angela Porter 