Assignment 1, 1-A and 1-B

My word for the "Letter Forms" assignment was Nope. To create this design I used several techniques.



First of all, I created a rectangle and rotated it. Using the selection tool and holding 'Alt' key, I copied the rectangle and placed it behind the first one, rotating it some more. To create the drop shadow effect I copied the rectangles again, made them half-transparent and placed them under the yellow rectangles. Of course, I could simply use "drop shadow" effect, but it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, i.e. it would make shadow at the same distance from every object and I needed it to be smaller at the point where two rectangles are crossing each-other. That is why I simply added extra anchor points on the rectangle under the yellow one and, using the direct selection tool, made the shadow shorter on the crossing point. After that, I created a path parallel to my rectangle and used it to type my word, after which I adjusted the word's kerning to make the word shorter, so I was able to copy it three more times, and also because it looked better this way. For the background I found an image of an old wall and transformed it into vector image. I intentionally tried to find an image which was heavier on the opposite corner of the composition to balance the bright yellow color.

The word itself comes from the internet culture and holds the meaning of the highest level of denial or disagreement. I chose this word because the morning before the class, I saw a shirt which only had this word printed on it, and I started to ponder about getting one, and the word sort of stuck in my head (not because that was what I thought about the assignment). I thought that the yellow tape was a good concept as both are associated with something similar. I found a font used on yellow tapes (Futura Cond Med.) and used it to type my word.

The first variant of my name became one of those projects on which no matter how long you work, you can't quite make it good enough. I spend something like over eight hours on it, making many versions and still don't like it.

The second variant of my name was an easy part. I simply picked a random "elegant" looking font, then I transformed every letter into different vector objects to change their placing and give them different color or clipping mask so it looked "pompous". And finally I did nothing else to make the design look "slapdash/negligent."