selfish – process book

7/25/2019 SELFISH PROCESS BOOK

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Lavinia Lascaris

Phone: (323) 304 6480Email: [email protected]

Course: Typography 1 ACN 125-01

Term: Fall 2015Instructor: Adele BassProject: Letter Transformation


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PROJECTINFORMATION

Project Prompt

Solution

Transform a word or a letterform into an entirely new idea. Present it in a way that is best suited foryour theme.

I have taken the word selshand used it to explore the meaning of the word and how peopleinterpret it. I broke the word down into two parts, selfand sh. I have used the self in the form of atyped word and gradually transformed it into a sh. The sh is then faced with a shing hook, whichit may or may not get caught by. The positive or negative connotations of the word selshare leftopen to interpretation: whether being selsh is a trap our insecurities lead us to, a necessity forself-preservation, or both. The project is presented in the form of a 33x13 poster.


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INITIAL IDEAS

Bite me

Selsh

Anagram

My rst idea was to present the entire project on a real apple. On one side it would look likesomeone took a bite from the apple. The bite would then gradually split in two, so there would becarved stages of transformation on either side of the apple. The right side would morph in to anmand the left into an e. The two letters would joing on the opposte side of the apple forming theword me. Bite on one side and meon the other would represent the phrase Bite me.

When I was little and learning english, I thought the word selshwas a combination of selfplus sh.I could not understand why shwas associated with a word whose meaning had no connection tosh. My idea was to use this personal thought from so long ago to address the meaning of selsh.

I chose this idea because it is based on a pesronal experience and because it offers a variety ofapproaches that I was excited to experiment with.

I researched some anagrams, such as listen/silent, rescue/secure, art/rat, lemon/melon, present/ser-pent, insult/sunlit, staple/petals. I thought that I could come up with a system where starting withone word in type, I could rearrange the letters to build the form of the other.


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Denitions of selfsh

Psychological Egoism

Rational Selshness

Quotes

Selsh is a person, action or motive lacking consideration for others or concerning chiey with oneowns personal prot or pleasure.

Caring supremely or unduly for ones self; regarding ones own comfort, advantage, etc., in disre-gard, or at the expense, of those of others.

Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self.

All behaviours are and must be motivated by self-interest.All motivations are, ultimately, selsh. It is univeral.

An action is rational only if it maximizes self-interest.Selshness is the root of social progress Ayn Rand, The virtue of selshness

Selfsih people are weak and are haunted by the fear of loss of control.

Selsh people have a lot of unmet needs.

Selshness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. Oscal Wilde

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selshness. Listen to it carefully. Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

RESEARCH


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INSPIRATION


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INSPIRATION


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BRAINSTORM/INITIAL

SKETCHES

Initially, I drew a

mind map withelements that are

associated to my pro-ject, so that I would

make myself a libraryof imagery to help me

get started.

I then brainstormedideas of how selfand

shcould interractwith each other, via

type or imagery.


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I exeperimented with

turning the finto ashing rod to catch

a sh.

I tried to represent theselfas insecure and

scared, but aban-doned that idea be-cause I did not want

to give a negativeconnotation to the

word selsh.

I thought about how

I could represent thechildlike/innocent

origin of the idea andif that could also be

transformed into amore serious rep-

resentation, or viceversa.

I also experimentedwith paper and triedto nd creative ways

one could interract

with the project. Oneidea was a paperfortune teller. Anoth-

er was to create ananimation ip book

with the transforma-tion being animatedthrough the pages.

BRAINSTORM/INITIAL

SKETCHES


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IDEADEVELOPMENT

1. The selfstarts dis-

integrating and getssmaller and smallerwhile turning into a

little sh.

2. Selfis in the centerof the page. The shstarts coming in, eats

the selfas it continuesto move across thepage until it disap-

pears leaving the lastpage blank.

3. Selfis shing. The fis a shing rod and itcatches a sh. As the

sh is being pulled upit grows and grows

and at the end placesitself in front of the f,replacing the shingrod, and forming the

word selshwith typeand image combined.

4. The sh approachesthe self as it gradu-ally transforms intolower case, smaller,

squished together andshivering letters.

1. 2.

3. 4.


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All my ideas so far

had elements that Ithought were success-

ful, so I tried to com-bine them. I liked the

fturning into a shingrod and I liked the sh

eating the self, whileits letters lost theircomposure. I also

liked the sh swim-ming off the page. I

wanted to design it ina way that the sh is

transparent so that thestate of the selfwould

still be visible insidethe sh.

I also made a quicksketch of what itmight look like if

the sh came frombehind, giving somedepth to the design.

IDEADEVELOPMENT


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IDEADEVELOPMENT

On the rst page, self

is the only thing onthe page. Then thefstarts turning intoa shing rod which

catches a sh. The shis then pulled up and

grows bigger as theselftransforms into

lower case and getssquished together.

The sh eats the selfand swims up dis-

appearing from thepage.

There are varioustransformations

occurring throughoutthe stages: the f into

a shing rod and backto a lower case f, thesh growing (maybechanges shape too),

and the selffrom capsto lower case.

The elongatedrectangle the project

is based on ispurposeful. Since the

whole movement isvertical I thought thatit would enhance the

feeling and amount ofmovement.


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IDEADEVELOPMENT

I went back to brain-

storming because mylast idea was slow andwas not as interesting

throughout all thestages. It looked morelike a storyboard than

a transformation. Ineeded to give theaudience a reason

to care about what ishappening.

I experimented with

various ideas, such aslittle sh eating theword selshor the selfgrowing sh parts like

gills and ns, amongothers.


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IDEADEVELOPMENT

After experimenting

with various ideas, Idecided to revisit my

intial concept of trans-forming the word selfinto a sh. I sketched

out a few ways thatthis transformation

could occur: it couldstart growing sh

parts, or grow scalesand transform fromthe inside, or grad-ually have its form

change.

To do this success-fully, I rst needed todecide what the rst

and nal stages wouldlook like.


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FIELDRESEARCH

For my eld research, I

went to the Aquariumof the Pacicin LongBeach (100 AquariumWay, Long Beach, CA

90802) to observe,photograph, andsketch some sh.


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STUDIES

I sketched out various

sh that I found atthe aquarium. For

my project, I wantedto use a type of sh

that looked innocent,rather than a scary,

mean looking one, sothat the audience cansympatize and relate

to it.


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TYPOGRAPHICSTUDY

For my typographic

study I collected a fewbasic typefaces, both

serif and sans serif.

Since the beginning ofthis project I pictured

it with a serif typeface.Furthermore, the serifs

can be easily extend-ed and transformed

into ns, etc.

From my collectionhere, I chose

Baskervald ADFlower case becausethe stem and bowl

weights are balancedand it is a neutral,

classic typeface.

SELF selfAthelas

SELF selfBaskervald ADF

SELF selfBaskerville

SELF selfBaskerville Old Face

SELF self Perpetua

SELF selfBig Caslon Medium

SELF selfBodoni

SELF selfCambria

SELF selfAlte Haas Grotesk

SELF selfAvenir Roman

SELF self Calibri

SELF selfDevanagari Sangam MN

SELF selfFranklin Gothic Book

SELF selfTahoma

SELF selfOriya Sangam MN Bold

SELF self


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RESEARCH

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EXPLORATION

I chose this sh, called

Short Bigeye, becauseI thought it had an

interesting shapethat would allow for

a smooth transforma-tion from self.

However, when I drewit bigger it looked

scared, which was notthe message I wanted

to convey.


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Going back to my

eld research I foundanother type of sh

called Lyretail Anthias.It is softer in therms ofshape and expression.

EXPLORATION


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FIRST DRAFT

This was my rst

attempt on the trans-formation in 8 steps.

My main goal wasfor every stage to be

a pleasing image initself as well as con-

nect well with all otherstages.

Here, there are a fewshapes that I was not

quite happy with, par-ticularly the way the

mouth forms in stages4, 5, and 6.

For a better result, Ihad to plan before-hand which parts ofthe selfwould trans-form into which part

of the sh.


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SECOND DRAFT

This is a more detailed

approach, where thesh starts appearingfrom the inside with

the expansion of thescales. I was advised

against this effect be-cause the end result

has lost its movement.Furthermore, as in

my rst attempt theforming of the mouth

is not smooth.


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THIRD DRAFT

Here, I had solved the

mouth problem and Ithought that all stageslooked well designed

and composed. I usedthese 10 stages, witha few corrections, for

laying out the nalpiece.


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CONCEPTUALREFINEMENT

I was happy with the

transformation, butI still needed a

punchline to create aninteresting story and

make the audiencecare about the sh.

Revisiting my brain-storms from the ideadevelopment stage,

there were a few thatI reconsidered. The

sh swimming into a

larger shs mouth,or it being confront-ed by a hook are

two examples. I alsothought about thesh addressing theaudience by facing

forward while givingthe nger, thus repre-

senting selshness.

After some consid-eration, I decided

to go with the hook

because it is a simpledesign, as to not drive

attention away fromthe transformation. I

thought it would lookelegant.


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COMPOSITIONSTUDY

For this stage, I

scanned in my draw-ings and printed them

out in a smaller sizeso that I could play

around with compo-sition. Depending on

how the 10 stages arelayed out, the mes-

sage could be altered.In the rst stages, thelayout represents theswimming course of

one single sh, while

the last examples lookmore like a school

of sh all swimmingtogether.

1

3

5

2

4

6

7


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REFINEDDRAFTS

I liked both of these

drafts but decided togo with the linear onebacause the transfor-mation is clearer and

one can read throughall the stages. Fur-

thermore, selshnessrepresents the indi-

vidual and it seemedmore accurate for thisproject to depict thecourse of one sh. I

did, however, think it

was too structured,so I wanted to try a

slightly more dynamiclayout without losingthe message that this

example conveys.


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FINAL

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This is the nal design

printed on 33x13.I believe the use ofspace is successful

and I like the contrastbetween the move-ment of the sh and

the stillness of thehook.

Furthermore, the storyends without showingif the sh got caught,

leaving it up to theaudience to decide,

which mirrors the free-dom to interpret the

concept of selshness.

I hope that those whoencounter this projectwill always think of sh

when they hear theword selsh.

selfish – process book

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