February 29 2024
These are the photos I took as reference while I was visiting my family in Oak Bay, Victoria. The intention for the assignment was to create a typeface designed after Medicine Hat, but when I was in Oak Bay I was struck with inspiration and decided to create a typeface based on the local signage. The two circled signs are what the font is based on becuase they are most unique to Oak Bay. I decided to do lowercase letters only to keep the casual feeling that some of the hand-carved signs had.
I started by importing the letters straight from the Police and Fire Departments sign and transforming them into other letters that were composed of simple circles and straight lines. These letters didn’t need significant invention of the form, but gave me enough visual information to start creating other letterforms. March 6 2024
I tried multiple ways of editing the letterforms. I tired drawing it on paper, scanning it, and tracing it in illustrator, as well as trying to adjust it with the pen tool. I liked parts of both ways before I decided to screen mirror my tablet to my laptop. It was the first time trying that method and it worked amazingly.
March 9 2024
These are some sketches for the type specimen poster I made to go along with the first iteration of the design. I came up with the name “Quercus” because it’s the genus name for Oak Trees and I thought it was really fun to say and write. Oak Bay is full of nature, and I wanted the poster to convey that.
March 10 2024
My initial reflection after finishing the project was:
I am glad this assignment is over, but I really enjoyed it. I've never done anything like this before and the process was really enjoyable. Also, relating the font to something I'm interested in really helped my motivation to work on it. We were initially tasked to create a local-type specimen to expand on our first assignment. My font obviously isn't based on Medicine Hat, but there was influence from it. I was in Victoria for family week to visit family. My Mom moved here from Oak Bay, so the connection between the two places is clear to me. The Mindset I wrote about in the first assignment of slowing down to appreciate where you are, helped me to notice the interesting type in Victoria. Also, as a class, we talked a bit about how it's hard to notice the special things in Medicine Hat when you have lived there forever, but people newer to Medicine Hat are more likely to notice these things. I was newer to Victoria, so I was more likely to notice the "zeitgeist" of the area. In terms of the font, I am happy with it. I think it captures the mood of the area. The letters are definitely not perfect but it's ok. A lot of the signs are weathered, imperfect, or carved from wood. My instructor also pointed out that it has a Celtic sort of vibe to it, and I can see it. There has definitely been a Celtic influence in the area. If anything, I would spend some more time on the c, e, and f. I was never fully happy with them. But the font is done.
After finishing the second iteration I think I could have made it more different from the original signs I found. I also didn’t create a font file, I was manually kerning and copy pasting every time I needed to use a letter. Overall, I think it was a good first attempt and helped me gain understanding of how form works to convey feelings
November 30 2024
This is the first update I made to the font after reflecting on it for a few months. I wanted it to be more unique from the original signage, while also capturing the feeling of Oak Bay. I connected my tablet to my computer and used the pencil tool to make the forms more angular and woodsy. I really liked the changes to a, b, m, and f, but I still needed the font to feel cohesive. I also wanted the letters to be more narrow. I love the changes and the feeling of the typeface. I started to balance them from here by putting them into words and adjusting the weight and rythym.
December 5 2024
After narrowing and simplifing the letterforms, I brought it into FontLab to kern. I kerned all letters against all of the other letters which took about five hours. The kerning wasn’t perfect but due to the hand- drawn and woodsy character I think it works. After kerning I decided to call the new and improved typeface “Garryana”, which is the species name of the Garry Oak Tree (the tree Oak Bay is named after).