University of East London: BA Hons Graphic Design: 2011

Friday 11 November 2011

Project Two - Year 2 Graphics - Quotes Poster

Poster

T-shirt Design

Billboard Mock-up (A2 sized)

Essay

Oscar Wilde was a 19^th century playwright, and author; part of the Aesthetic movement along with his friend, Aubrey Beardsley; an illustrator famed for his black and white Art Nouveau pieces. Because of Wilde’s quick-witted intellect, and philosophical insides on how he saw the world; I wanted to choose a typeface that would represent his thoughts. How, I would visualize Wilde expressing his thoughts, writing them done – which he did. The Picture of Dorian Grey is all Wilde’s ideas, and opinions. The typeface I chose for the quote was Kunstler Script.

Kunstler Script (originally spelt Kuentsler Script, and named Kunstlerschreibschrift) was designed in 1902, by the studio D Stempel Type Foundry; inspired by the 19^th century copper face scripts, and was influenced by George Bickham and George Shelley; two type stylists that worked in “round hand”. Round hand was a form of handwriting and calligraphy style that emerged in the 17^th century, most notably in 1660. When I was considering my options on how to approach this project, I was searching through the different “handwritten” typefaces such as Vivaldi, Viner Hand ITC, Palace Script MT and for whatever reason…they didn’t seem to hold the character of Wilde. Then I came to Kunstler Script and immediately thought – “perfect”. It suited his character. He was sophiscated, defined yet…there was this essence of…quirkiness in this typeface. It represented every character he ever created in the Picture of Dorian Grey.