Final Outcome

Upon the start of my experience in London and comparing it to my origins (Portugal) I have noticed that this city is fulfilled by diversity, where the differences between people and cultures turn the city to a much complex and interesting place to be living in.

This font illustrates the diversity of people and cultures by taking use of the 23 different free typefaces I used, as the portuguese alphabet is made from these 23 letters.

Free typefaces are opened to be explored and modified, and this design consists on that. Modification and remix of different styles.

It is based on the workshop I liked the most - open type.

The remix of the different styles of fonts create a font that's dynamic because of its own consistence.

"Diversidade" is the name of the font. It means diversity, from the portuguese translation.

By using the portuguese alphabet I intended to bring my origins and apply them to the final piece, even if its context is english.

The piece shows not only a mix of data, if we observe each letter as part of a different style and consequently a different source of information and origin, and also the possibility of modification and recreation on graphic design.

Google Fonts was my starting point. As fonts are free from licenses, it means designers are free to modify them, and that was something Dave Crossland told us in the workshop, and how he started designing his own fonts, leading his career to font designing. The idea of having a typeface that could be applied to my own work as I wanted, with the changes I wanted fascinated me.

Remixing letters satisfied me not only because of the visual look but also because of what's behind. It took me to data remixing and from that workshop I got that remixed information would be interesting if working with a good concept and for a logic purpose.

So what I did was downloading several typefaces and trying to get random letters together.

I was happy with the idea of combining the typefaces and how they looked when put together.

I liked that different styles could turn into a dynamic image but still being integrated in the type campus.

As I thought of different styles (of the fonts) put together, it automatically took me to the London scenario, where cultures, origins, people and styles are all mixed and work very well together. As I thought of that, I thought of how dynamism can only be a positive fact, when constant learning happens. From this basic thought, I believed that using free type as an illustration of what happens in London would work.

Thinking of mixed cultures, and people, and believings, I found myself as being another person who is actually part of it. What I did was typing "diversidade" which means diversity, in english, and the visual result meant exacly what I was feeling. From that I departed to the illustration of my concept.

4 // The Final Outcome

Relating type design, data remix and linking it to the concept I created in my head, I was determined to illustrate it, as I designed a font to represent my feelings. Still being faithful to Portugal, I used the Portuguese alphabet to create this font. The font not designed to be used in a practical way, but to illustrate a concept and to represent not only the module, but also my thoughts.

I mainly focused of the workshop of Dave Crossland and what we've learnt from it: free type design.

From there I downloaded 23 free fonts and I created this font based on the Portuguese alphabet. It represents the freedom of cultures and remixing, under the shape of a typeface.