Typography Mono-printing Workshop

As an afternoon workshop, we printed abstract compositions built up of sections of letterforms. The three typefaces were Baskerville, Cooper Black and Neue Haus Grotesk, 3 distinctively different typefaces. We drew small sections of these typefaces and then cut stencils to print with. 

The exercise was very interesting to undertake, the first instinct is to draw out fairly recognisable shapes and sections and to print these very precisely and rationally, however as the process continued it was intriguing to experiment more, playing with more abstract shapes, chaotic layouts and varying levels of print thickness. 

My first composition takes curved shapes from Cooper Black and lays them out in a swirling composition, I was aware of the relationship each shape had with each other on the page. For the second composition made from Baskerville, I concentrated on circular shapes, a lot of them made from the negative spaces. With a selection of more rational self contained shapes, I experimented with creating a grid system by folding the paper. I also printed in varying thicknesses, creating a contrast in tone and graphic quality. For the final composition made from Neue Haas Grotesk, I cut out very straight geometric shapes and tried to fill the space as efficiently as possible, I then used a triangular shape and printed it lighter repeatedly on top of the geometric shapes to create a more abstract chaotic composition with s strong sense of contrast. 

Doing this workshop has defiantly made me consider using more practical and experimental methods in some of my projects. Because these methods restrict you more, its almost more intuitive because you have less choices of what to do.