Method to the Madness

Custom hand lettered typography
Dimensions
11" x 17"
Tools
Pen & Paper
Illustrator
Services
Typography
Print Media
"Method to the Madness" is a quote I hold very dear to my heart, and so for this assignment I was thrilled to be able to illustrate the phrase in a bit of a chaotic but beautiful manner.
This custom type started out with some scribbles on the back of a receipt, bored at work. I was inspired by a deck of playing cards, and the whimsical line art you can find on some of them. I chose a standard serif font to use as my base, and actually created the piece by typing out the phrase in a few different typefaces before deciding on the infamous Times New Roman. I decided to play heavily off the diamond shape, and carried this-- along with circles-- throughout the piece. The high contrast of the sharp, blunt edges and the organic round shapes is something that is very pleasing on the eye. I played around with an "optical illusion" feel, deliberately leaving parts as strokes and others as fill, which is typically unexpected. There is a lot of negative space throughout the typography leaving room for the eye to rest. While colour was encouraged for the assignment, I chose to stick with flat black and white as the design is very intricate and eye catching as is. This project was really difficult to begin with, I just could not manage to create the feel I wanted digitally. I found the solution to this project being actually drawing out the lettering, scanning them in (including my poor, poor receipt), and tracing over digitally to work out the math.
The final print works both large and small scale, however in my opinion the bigger and more hectic the better.
Process & Variations




