Type - 3D

I've rediscovered my love of typography again, the shapes of letters and words. The curve of an a, the crossing of a t. This has happened for three reasons.

Reason 1. I've been teaching and getting the children at Ballygarrett art studio kids class on a Tuesday to work on a four week type project. It's a project I have done before and kids of all ages love it.

I kicked of the project by asking the kids to have a look at magazines, the newspaper, books and look for their name or their initials. This bring their awareness to printed type. With older children I sometimes get them to go through magazines and make a montage with the text. Then I showed techniques for creating hand drawn typefaces. The kids also drew and coloured in their name in different sizes and styles. Following on from that they drew their first initial large and we cut it out twice.
This Tuesday was spent constructing these two 2D initials into a 3D initial to act as a piece of sculpture in the kids bedrooms. They work really well as stand alone items but they can also be hung from the door or the ceiling. I particularly like them on shelves. These 3D shapes will be decorated in next weeks class. Really looking forward to seeing what these kids do with these shapes.
This project can be done with recycled materials, tape and glue are needed also.

Reason 2. A recent commission for painting room names in a healing centre. It was a lovely job to get. Raphael was painted in red with copper on the elaborate 'R'. The small 'R' was matt varnished to stand out from other letter which were gloss varnished. Painted on to wooden four panel doors.

Reason 3. Designing a type based logo for a new company,

...and I have discovered fontspace.com! Gone for ever are the days of the letraset book. I wonder does anyone have a copy lying around?