THOMAS QUINN

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

WHO IS THOMAS QUINN?• Graphic Designer

• Lives in Chicago Illinois

• Principal designer at Blank Is The New Black

• Rhode Island School of Design

• BFA, Major in Graphic Design

• Worked at Holly Hunt Enterprises, Art Director

TYPOGRAPHYOne of Thomas Quinn’s typography experiments was the creation of these fonts, He use’s bold lettering but makes the font purposely difficult to read, this challenges the reader into concentrating more on the text in order to decipher the text.

While being difficult to read would seem to be the primary point, it isn’t the primary function. The font was made to provide a fun looking, sci-fi esc~ font that follows the simplified font face block.

The HUET font face uses very smooth gradients into corners whichcreates an almost bubble like look to the letters, this font was prob-ably created for the use within advertisement’s that cater towards individuals who want to express a happy style that isn’t serious.

The NIEMI font face while resembling HUET lacks a few character-istics that make it a completely different font, the first thing that differs from the HUET font face is the lack of smooth transitionsinto corners, it keeps the smooth edges that the old font had butchanges it in such a way that it is completely different.

HOW IT WAS MADEWhen creating a font face first the specific purpose of the font must be contemplatedas without purpose the font would be vastly harder to create, this particular fontneeded to be happy, rounded, bubbly and sharp all at the same time.

The font itself was made within illustrator, the artist set up grids specifically the Muller Brockman grid and worked from basic shapes such as circles and rectangles,the main restriction would be that all corners apart from intersecting corners had tobe a smooth gradient.

Once the base shapes had been blocked out using the Brockman grid the text wasthen made more complex by adding complex cuts and intersections within the textas you can see here by looking at the “J” :-

The shape itself is a simple lowercase ‘j’ but all the smooth corners and the Intersection where the lower lip of the letter sits it makes this font all the more complex.

ANAMORPHIC TYPOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT

After looking into the artist Thomas Quinn and being inspired by his almost flawless typography I decided to take a shot at doing it myself, here’s my progress throughout the experiment.The way I planned out how to achieve this was through the use of a projector, paint, illustrator and some creative drive. I first used illustrator to come up with a design that I would be best to use, I used typography but images can be used with this technique also (it just takes more time, effort and skill).

ANAMORPHIC TYPOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT

I set up the projector so that it would project the image onto a stack of boxes arranged in a way that looked asymmetrical, the idea here is that you project the image at the height the user should be perceiving the final (for my experiment I placed the projector low so that the image could be seen without looking in an awkward angle but would seem quite distorted from above).

Once the projector is in place the image needs to be traced like a stencil.

ANAMORPHIC TYPOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT

Another thing to note is that keeping lines straight when drawing from difficult stances is extremely hard.

Nearly done

ANAMORPHIC TYPOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT

A few things I should note about the project, I really did enjoy doing this experiment but I will say that amongst the fact it looks alright as an end product I would change a few things now that I have attempted anamorphic typography.The first thing I would of changed about the way I accomplished this would be the way I projected the image, the projection was at an extreme angle but it was an observable angle (the image could still be made out because the projection was made with a high pitch angle but hardly any yaw) this resulted in an image that could be made out from the front view without having to stand (or sit) in the position intended to observe the artwork.The second thing I would change would definitely be time, this experiment was elapsed over the space of 4 hours making almost no room for error.In comparison to Thomas Quinn’s anamorphic art, my work really lacked the definition he used within his piece mainly due to the fact I had a very small amount of time but also due to the difficulty of painting over a projected image.Other than those things I would say I’m really happy with the way this turned out, I will definitely try this again taking the problems I encountered into consideration for the next try.

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETStamp Typography experiment

To start off my typography experiments I wanted to create a stamped look using things that were easily accessible, I found a piece of packing foam used to pad the inside of boxes for fragile things and cut it into square blocks the size of letters.

Because the foam was soft and pliable I was able to draw the letters straight onto the blocks, this indented that part of the foam which when dipped in ink would leave a negative area when printed.

I really liked the effect this method created, it reminds me of a kind of negative typewriter. One thing that didn’t go according to plan was the mirroring of letters, I engraved a lower case ‘a’ and when printed came out looking like the letter ‘b’.

Although this typography looks good I don’t think I want to use it for waterstone’s.

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETPaint Marker experiment

With this experiment I used a paint marker to etch into the page, I tried making a wet paint look by letting the paint drip and pool in certain parts of the type. The main style I was going for within this experiment was script typography.

The development of this experiment opened new avenues I wanted to explore for the waterstones alphabet, not because of the style but because of the medium used.

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETPaint marker drip experiment

Moving on from my previous experiment of using a paint marker to draw very fine lines which were precise and calculated, I wanted to explore the chaos of dripping paint from a graffiti marker.

I really like the way this experiment turned out as the lettering is bold, irregular which helps draw the other letters together and also stylish. The paint dripping is very urban and although may not work well for use with waterstones, it is very vibrant and flows well.

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETPaint marker drip experiment 2

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETKeeping the style but developing a theme

My earlier development using paint markers to develop something that was urban although looked good in my own eyes needed to have something different, I started making my own alphabet that would have the urban influence while not being too over the top.

With this I made the bubble alphabet aimed at children who live in urban areas, the letters are coo key and funny but it isn’t as aggressive as the original experiments.

DEVELOPING AN ALPHABETWaterstone’s final

The earlier font had different shadows but I would say that is a post effect, the final waterstones font I believe is a hybrid of everything I’ve worked on used together to create what I like to think is the best my imagination could of created for this project, I’ve used my own creative flair and others work as inspiration and this is my final work.