The main things that I have experimented with were textures, lines, curves and plant/ nature-inspired typefaces. Also, I have been interested in playing around with shapes and textures from plants as well as experimenting with lines, curves and curved serifs. I found the curves and lines to be quite interesting; the lines and curves from the wood-like typefaces had reminded me of fingerprints as well as the lines and curves from our brain. (This was interesting to think about.)
The concept behind my explored typeface sketches was more to do with the natural elements of my place. I had noticed that I did not really experiment with the idea of mental health for I was more intrigued with the natural elements during the process. For me, I think that surrounding yourself with nature and nature itself is quite a stress-relieving remedy for any form of stress and anxiety which is why I focused more on the natural aspects of my place. (My place is peaceful and more of a remedy a place to help reduce stress and anxiety.) But for the bottom explored typefaces, I tried to explore the connection between mind and place but don’t know if it shows this at all? I think I can try exploring more ways of how to showcase this idea more. (b,c,a,j,g order.)
More close ups of my work:
(Here were some of the typefaces I did in its sketch form before I had added colour.)
(Here are some more close-ups of the letterforms as well as inspiration tabs around each set of exploration.) I found most of my elements to be nature driven for the majority of the letterforms that I had sketched had included textures from the plants and or were nature-inspired.
Reflection: For the next step, I am going to choose the letterforms that I might want to work with and expand my idea on. Moreover, after realising and researching more about mental health, there are lots of different types of mental illnesses and disorders; mental health within itself is a broad term. But to be more specific and to clarify, I will focus more on stress and anxiety and how nature helps to reduce this. So in relation to this idea, I am going to try and show the connection between mind and place; the connection between nature and how it reduces stress and anxiety in regards to my place. Moreover, I wanted to explore the idea of movement specifically slow movements. I will try and do this by exploring kinetic letterforms and or letterforms that that reflect movement.
References: Goldberg, Joseph. “Mental Health: Types of Mental Illness.” WebMD. WebMD, April 6, 2019. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health-types-illness#1.
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