Brand by Name
— 36 Days of Type challenge
36 days of Type was a challenge that instantly appealed. The project invites designers and illustrators from across the globe to create a unique letter and number every day from February 21 to March 28 2017.
Inspiration
I decided on a loose theme of childhood toys, hobbies and games. This gave the collection cohesion, but retained plenty of scope for creative thinking. At the onset of the challenge I brainstormed potential themes. Tetris! Trivial Pursuit! Dominoes! I allocated about one third to letters that would be most suitable. The letter E lent itself well to PAC-MAN whilst the snakes and ladders was great for the S. For the remainder, I created a general list of ideas I could use for inspiration.
Process
I worked 24 hours in advance, and each day I spent two or three hours creating a letter or a number. Some ideas came easily to me – the letter G made from stars, for example. Whereas others were more laboured. The 1 comes to mind as a more difficult challenge. I could still be working on that lace.
I confess that I found the numbers more difficult than the letters, probably because the challenge was coming to an end. Nonetheless, I got plenty of positive feedback from the numbers, so I’m glad the results didn’t reflect my waning enthusiasm.
Favourite letters
Two of my favourite letters are J and K. For J, I wanted to work with a bike chain in some way, and I think it works well. I love the look of the K and it took me a bit of research to find that what I call ‘pick up sticks’ is actually called Mikado (unrelated to the opera).
In addition, I created a few letters to celebrate relevant days, such as the L for the Sydney Mardi Gras and the Y for St Patrick’s Day.
Now that it’s over…
I loved seeing the thousands of submissions from designers around the world. I was thrilled that my creations were featured in the Typism Global Community. On Instagram, I enjoyed great engagement and feedback for my daily submissions.
I enjoyed the personal challenge of 36 Days of Type, particularly the chance to hone my self-critiquing skills. Without the client to brief me and answer to, I found myself getting better at following my own instincts as the challenge continued.
There were plenty of amazing submissions, check out my favourites here:
Sara Mengual, a UK based Character designer from Barcelona
Nick Matej, an illustrator based in Cleveland, Ohio
Rosemarie.cc, an illustrator and designer from Madrid
Alexander Corrales, whose entire alphabet was inspired by movies.
