Typology Brief | Initial Ideas

In response to the brief, here are some of my ideas/thoughts/concepts for typology posters..

1. Things around North Shields

A theme centered around my hometown. I really liked this idea because of its personal quality, and that is was unique to me. It's narrative-driven which I feel strengthens the idea, and encourages sharing stories which is something I like to do. There is also an element of humour and the bizarre - with a mix of personal thoughts, historical objects, and other little observations.

However, I struggled to get an entire alphabet's worth of illustrations for this one. Another weakness of the concept was that it may create distance with the audience, as it is very likely that people from elsewhere wouldn't connect with it at all.

2. Inventors Killed by their own Inventions

This was another idea that I was really enthusiastic about, but soon realised that finding alphabetical cases for the topic would be difficult (if not impossible). Even though this theme isn't as directly personal as the above, I still think it reflects my interests and sense of humour. There is also a dark educational tone to this idea which is amusing too.

3. Strange Phenomena

In an attempt to actually have a theme that hit all 26 letters, I dropped the nature-based part of the title and sifted through articles as well as things I had already read up on/bookmarked previously. With this concept, I really like that the only common denominator is 'strange'. This gave me much more scope for ideas, and meant I could include cool things from a myriad of subjects (history, nature, medical...)

What I like about this idea is that to some it may just be a collection of gross things, but to others the titles may trigger some further reading into the strange things listed. 'Weird and wonderful' is something I aimed for, and I think the phenomena selected fall into that.

4. Geordie Slang

A more straight-forward idea that had a better chance at hitting all of the letters. This concept is simple, communicative, and gives viewers a small insight into the region. What I like about the images is that even though they are (mostly) easy to interpret, there is still a little bit of guess work required.

I am not so keen on the (cutesy?) drawings though, but with that said I don't think intricate illustrations would fit well either. I may think about incorporating this (and my North Shields idea) into future work..

4. Personal Anecdotes

This idea was based on a list of daft quotes/sayings/observations that I have. When I find or hear something funny, I write it down (and have a laugh to myself about it later). On a personal level I really liked recalling all of the anecdotes and sayings.

However I feel that it's too much of an in-joke to be shared with a wider audience, and could potentially alienate them. The letter 'J' was based on something I said about my driving instructor..