Wes Anderson Typeface - Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas:

Right angles to subject in film, planimetric staging.

Take 5 different fonts, create right angles in the letters.

 - 5 variations per font.

Think how does it alter the shape?

Does it add any new characteristics to the font?

Is it too literal?

Symmetry created through planimetric staging.

Take 5 fonts and make the letters have a line of symmetry.

 - 5 variations per font.

Think about where to place the line.

Does the letter already have a line of symmetry?

How do symmetry effect the visual language.

EXTENSION Words having a line of symmetry, can you still read it?

Film ratios from 1932, 1968, and 1985 are all different. 

Find common typefaces from these time periods, identify the differences and alter 3 existing typefaces to contain these elements. (Use current typefaces from list on brief).

 - 3 variations per font

Do they contain serifs?

Does the shape of the counter change? etc.

Use the aspect ratios to dictate the relationship between the height and width of the letter forms. Experiment with the ratios used in The Grand Budapest Hotel:
1.37:1, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1.

Testing Ideas:

By looking into Helvetica and it's early development the use of serifs at the time was in most typefaces, Helvetica was one of the first typefaces to be sans serif. I wanted to play around with the effect of serifs on a letter form, so I added serifs to Helvetica, the overall effect is it looks more traditional. I started to push it a bit more, repeating serif, changing stroke weight, alternating which parts of the letters were filled in, and if so what colours. These alterations did manipulate the font, but not enough to appear as its own unique typeface - it needs pushing more.

I began playing with lines of symmetry, the visuals and shapes made would be better for a logotype rather than a typeface you'd use for writing paragraphs. Wanting to push further because the designs began very basic, they didn't manipulate the typeface, but simply rearranged it to apply to a rule. 

Taking very basic shapes from Futura (as used in many of Anderson's films) creating them into letter forms and experimenting with reflection and symmetry within the shapes.

The overlapping shapes began to create other letters they didn't originally contain, the letter B was seen in the 'e' reflections, and the 'f' reflections began to resemble the letter A. It was a common theme that the lower case letters would create upper case letters when overlapped. This idea of taking something that is seen firstly one way, and then in a completely different way (relates to anderson's childlike theme and aesthetic but with a darker undertone - perceived one way but is actually another). 

I felt my ideas start to run flat so I began to push the idea of symmetry to achieve a more unique and interesting typeface to get the ball rolling a bit more. I started to overlay the letters on top of each other until they became unrecognisable and see if i could identify any letters created by the shapes.

Using tools on illustrator the letters became more and more obscure, tested the same transformations on a variety of weights to see effect on the letters. They push the typeface further, and it doesn't look as organised, however this isn't the style of Wes Anderson .

 - Is it too abstract to relate to his visual identity?

 - What techniques or rules could you apply to it to make it suit his style/aesthetic?

 - Does it need to obviously organised?