Emily Xuan Designs - 15 Weeks of Letters

CONSTELLATION LETTERS

Role:
Graphic Designer

Focus:
Typography

Deliverables:
26 Letters, Hand Lettering Worksheets, Animation

OVERVIEW

This project was a 15 week long project of designing letters with a theme. The goal was to create a design that could be translated into or with a letterform and legibly read on a small scale in Instagram. This helped me improved my understanding of grids and proportional systems. For my letters, I chose to design and animate my letters like constellations, some paired with planets or things found in space.

SKETCHES

Coming up with a design for the letters was the most difficult task as the choice of design needed to lend itself well for the letters.

Art is one of my passions so I came up with a few variations from art and craft supplies to yarn letters. Sanrio characters have been pretty trendy lately in pop culture and with a little bit of research there would be enough characters for the alphabet. The cats as abstract letters was a direction I considered taking but upon further consideration may result in difficulty.

Balloons, bubbles, jigsaw puzzles, and constellations were sketched as potential interests.

DESIGN PROCESS

Before settling on what design the letters were going to be, I digitized 4 of the strongest concepts to get a feel on how they would look visually on a small scale for Instagram.

I decided to settle on the constellation letters, keeping in mind the potential use of application. Since the design itself is relatively simple, I also tasked myself with animating a handful of the letters. Some letters having matching planets and stars that will rotate the letters.

By the end of designing all the letters, it came to deciding an application for the letters. I decided to go with handwriting worksheets for kids. The constellations of the letters appeared to have that tracing element often found in handwriting books used for learning to write or practice hand lettering.

Each page has a letter that is being taught to write with an accompany constellation letter and facts either about space or planets. The constellation letters will then be used as a method of handwriting practice in the rest of the page space.

FINAL DESIGN