Type Making Workshop & Thoughts on Competitions

Hi Creative Adventurers, First of all, I'm really surprised and also very happy that my post about Fred Deakin's workshop on Monday during Design Manchester 2015 has been seen by him on twitter. Wow to social media. I thought I might never be able to say thank you to him for his workshop. But here you go, I don't know how he found it but I'm glad and hope it can help other students who are still considering to visit one of his workshops to really give it a try.

It is a nice feeling that all this effort of writing a post doesn't just merely serve my own self-reflection but can hopefully also inspire others. Good, onto the other things today ...

TYPE MAKING workshop & Competition

Back to university and "Visual Communication"-class. It came as a surprise that we were asked to participate in a (small?) competition for experimental typography. Originally we were supposed to present our Science Week Photo responses (which has kept me busy the whole week and especially yesterday) but well, it seems that this course is indeed very ... flexible. However, I'm glad that we are not just bound to a strict schedule and can respond to spontaneous opportunities like this. Thank you Salford Uni.

The purpose of the competition has been kept quite secret. I overheard that it has something to do with the Media Department but our tutors said we shouldn't be influenced by that - mysterious.

The task

Everyone was given a few A4 sheets with a word in a different font. I chose "Development", "Zoom" and "Question". You can see my experiments here.

I absolutely LOVED this exercise. Everything had to be done by the end of the session (~ 2h time) but I didn't feel pressure and everything developed quite by itself. Maybe also because I'm not so focused on the competition but more on the process of creating and experimenting.

Is it just about winning a prize?

Just my thoughts but ... isn't that what a competition should be for? To foster and develop your creativity to create awesome and different work? Competitions usually give certain restraints like time, medium, theme etc. and this can spark new creative expressions that you might have not thought about. Sometimes I feel that competitions are too much about prizes and too little about acknowledging our own development.

Of course I'd like to win (I don't even know if there is any prize in fact) but I think that's normal. Who doesn't want his or her work to be appreciated and maybe even published? However, I guess I felt so free while creating because it wasn't my focus. I wanted to try new things and it was such a good experience to see how easily you can use an existing typeface and completely manipulate it with a few easy tools.

I enjoyed it so much that I'm now considering to make another class on skillshare about experimental type making. I really believe that it helped me to switch on the right side of the brain and to release my creativity. If I do make a class, I will let you know on my blog.

Have you worked with type and ever tried Experimental Typography? What are your thoughts on competitions? Share your thoughts and links to your work in the comments below.

Have a wonderful day,

Romica :)