Explore a wide range of personal monogram options by completing at least 35 thumbnail sketches.
Project 02 Overview | Learn to combine letters to make a unique monogram that functions as a personal identity. Then create a stationery system that presents contact information in a beautiful and useful design.
This project is an introduction to using and altering multiple glyphs into one unique mark. Learning how to combine and customize letterforms provides a designer with the freedom to move beyond basic typeset fonts.
Letters are often combined together or combined with symbols. This project keeps the focus on letter glyphs to strengthen your understanding of how letter glyphs are constructed and how they may be altered.
Learning to see the nuances of letters and their traditional structure is a process that takes time and effort. Typefaces are part of our culture and have a long tradition. Designing with only the information you have in your head puts you at a great disadvantage. Many students in the past have tried to accomplish this assignment without using a type reference. Learning about traditional type glyphs is part of the assignment.
With your research in mind, begin designing your personal monogram. Sketching is a quick way to explore combining your initials. The initial sketches should explore a wide range of opportunities, not variations on one idea.
After you have completed all of the steps listed above for this lesson, you are ready to complete your process blog post. Blogposts should be structured like a presentation with a beginning, middle and end. Each step will involve it's own process and its own unique challenges and successes. Introduce the assignment, talk about what worked for you and what didn't, explain which of your solutions are working using design principles to back it up. If you have specific questions about how to move forward, you can ask them in the blogpost.
Please include the following in your blog post:
Once the Process Blog Post is complete, submit a link to the post in I-Learn. To submit the link in I-Learn, click P2S1 link in the left navigation and then click on the Open button at the bottom of the I-Learn window.
After you have submitted your assignment in I-Learn, you will need to provide feedback to your team members in WordPress. Your feedback to team members will be on the following areas:
You should list the item, your rating, and any comments you had to help your team member improve. Your feedback on process blog posts will not be used as part of their grade, but will help you teach one another to improve their work.
Find 35 professional monograms (2 or 3 letters). Only choose monograms that you think are professional.
Download exercise files: http://byuiart.com//resource_files/art230_resources/art230e_monogram-research.zip
Research the range and possibilities of current monograms by searching for and documenting 35 monograms. You will document the examples in color on a worksheet, which you will print twice: once to share with your team members and once for an Exercise.
This project will help us better understand how to combine 2 or 3 glyphs into a monogram. While your research will show many monograms based on script, do not select them as examples or design with script because that is not the point of the project. Also, many people think of monograms as something that is embroidered on shirts or towels. However, this type of monogram is usually made of individual letters placed side by side. This project requires that the glyphs be combined together, into a single glyph. Find monograms that meet these requirements in your research so that they may be useful as comparisons.
Use the Internet, but go beyond googling “monogram.” Consider other important search terms that may actually produce better results, such as “lettering,” “logotype design,” “best identity design firms,” etc. Although you will find a number of calligraphic samples that are beautiful to look at, focus your efforts on typographic monograms.