Character Creation - Critical Analysis

The creation of a new character required a commonly used phrase or word that could be abbreviated and then re-designed into a single character. It was necessary to consider the negative spacing that could be created, the silhouettes and the shapes that could represent the phrase that was being considered. The research of commonly used phrases and abbreviations lead to a long list, but ‘what the hell’ was the chosen phrase to use in this project as a character for this phrase would be useful when wanting to express this feeling efficiently and quickly.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows the slides from the powerpoint we presented to the group.The idea behind the design was that each of the letters would be represented in someway within the symbol. The ‘w’ is resting on the baseline and from the left it form the ’t’ and from the right it forms the ‘h’. The ’t’ is found in the left ascender and the two horizontal lines represent the stroke in a lowercase ’t’. The ‘h’ is essentially the main form of this character and is fairly obvious to see when looking at this character. 

The most successful element of this design is that all three letterforms have been incorporated into the character, but it does venture away from their obvious forms enough to make it unique and interesting. This is similar to the ampersand which is made up of the letter ‘e’ and ’t’. It is not initially that obvious, but after explanation and taking it apart slightly, it leads to the understanding that those were the two letters that it is made up of. The concept of this letter overlapping and slight distortion is a concept which I think has been used within the of the character for the phrase ‘what the hell’.

Figure 2

The personality that the symbol expresses is important. Figure 2 shows the steps taken to get to the final decision of the symbol showing anger and passion. Figure 3, 4 and 5 illustrate how the characters would look if they were to appear next to normal letters in the alphabet and how it would rest on the baseline and where the x-height would be. Despite this, it was decided that the least successful element of this character design was the personality thought to have been illustrated, as it was actually seen to be different to what peers would consider it to have been trying to express.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

The main point that was raised in the interim crit session was that the character appeared to be elegant. This was a problem because the phrase suggests that the personality of the character should be fairly bold and aggressive. The elegance could be removed by straightening the ascender and also making the top of it a straight line and not a dipped curve. The section resembling a ‘h’ could also be made more squared and less rounded so that the aggression and speed in which the character would have been written would be shown in the way the character is constructed. Figure 6 shows the sketchbook page responses to the critical feedback showing how the idea could be developed if it was to be improved in the future.

Figure 6

In future projects the research would be a larger focus point to help to improve the meaning that the final design could hold. The etymology of a word is something to consider as it could lead to the use of different letter anatomies as they would have developed over time. The research could also help to develop further understanding of how to express different personalities within a character. This is something that needed to be improved with this character, as the personality wasn't exactly as clear as first anticipated.