The Play Process / Introduction / 6 Steps Case Studies / Under My Bed / Rhyming Slang / Fat Type Extras / The Wall / Download / About Me |
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Rhyming Slang |
Thought Map / Finished Form / Leftovers / Added Value | |||
Curse words have a curious history and an even more interesting present. The words were hard and unbreakable. Now, they’re changing, adapting to new users, hiding among everyday speech and typography. The game is to find it among the sheep. The Seed, a screen capture of the last frame of an old movie, contains a sense of mystery and drama. Taking those cues, the Morsel smiles with its eye wide open. The thicker body of the letterform carries through with a theatrical style of noir. |
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Day One | Copy and Paste. The computer makes copying anything ridiculously easy. From the hand-lettered “e” comes a similarly constructed letterform: a lowercase "l". |
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Day Two | Content Through Evolution. Manipulating and building upon the previous character creates a word. Quick brainstorming develops several content directions. Now that I have one solid word, what happends next? |
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Day Three | After a few rounds of brainstorming,
the phrase of “elephants and castles” struck
as an idea open for experimentation. I remember reading an article about
the street use of "rhyming slang." That phrase is part of a this urban culture,
using innocent phrases in place of
naughty,
nasty
words.
For
example, the word “look” rhymes with “butcher’s hook”: “He
went to his car to have a butcher’s hook in the window.” I found a database with an insane list of popular curse words and their sneaky, ho-hum phrases used in their stead. I picked my few personal favorites and continued lettering into Day Four. |
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Day Four | 2-D to 3-D. Now that I have this idea of "one stands for the other," I feel my form needs to reflect that. So, the simple square, 2-D print just won't do to fully project that physical feeling. How about printing front and black? That seemed like an obvious solution, but curse words are aggressive and need an actual "thing" to do it justice. And I admit, it took me all of Day Four to come up with a solution (it also took about 2 showers to make the mental connections; yes, I think in the shower). |
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The kid next door, a little blonde boy with a loud huffing laugh, loved to curse. After chasing all the girls from fence to fence in the backyard, he’d smile while a garbled mouthful of harsh words puffed out and landed in little girl ears. Huff—Shit—Huff—Bitchface. Eventually, tired from being in the sun during a sweat-box summer, the words slowed, deflated under the sticky heat. The sun burned him, sweat beading along his collar, until all that was left was finally just a little boy. |
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Day Five | New Form. Toys! I think a great way to show the duality of these phrases is to physically flip something from one side to the other. And a toy block connects with the idea of innocent phrases. I skewed the blocks 35°, making it of a novelty block. |
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Day Six | The Story: Morning Glory. Duality
is key for these skewed toys. One side is fairly innocuous, containing
a single phrase. The phrases on one side rhymes with a common curse word
on the opposite side, creating a toy more for adults. The title plays on the two-sided block as a teaching tool.This toy block, however, teaches curse words and negativity. |
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