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TupacShakurAmaru Typeface
Posted by tc_g1 in
1 Nov 2004 — 3:08pm
1 Nov 2004 — 3:08pm
I am a design student. We are expected to design a typeface based someone with social influence. Though conrtoversial, I chose Tupac Shakur. I believe he is misuderstood by many people, specially by the older and conservative group of the society because of his unconventional approah to expressing his fears, anger, hope, and other feelings.
Now I am in the explortory phase and I am reading a lot about him. However, i might appreciate any assistance on approach that would make his believer happy and his critics more open. I am collecting words that describe him. Here are some of them:
controversy, ultra-masculinity, rough, soft, thug, activism, poverty, god, urbanism, fast/speedy, tension, contradiction, unstable, self-destructive...
Here is his site that i got most of his information from: http://www.2paclegacy.com/
any info that can help me decide on a direction or conceptualizing is really appreciated...
TC
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1 Nov 2004 — 4:23pm
Tseggai:
I don't really have anything to contribute to your character description of Tupac, but here is a link that Jared Benson posted a while back that you might enjoy
1 Nov 2004 — 5:33pm
On top of everything, he was a voice, a poet and a philosopher. So maybe a typeface that reflects his ability to express his views while balanced with some regularity to reflect his rhyme and reason. If that made any sense, what I mean is, utilizing some wild graffiti tag elements here and there (overcoming adversity), but held intact firmly by some charachteristics of a classic typeface? A bit of challenge I'm sure, anyway, I thought some input from a fan might be helpful.
Nice link Scott
1 Nov 2004 — 5:39pm
When you try to put too much "character" into something essentially utilitarian like a font, you run the strong risk of coming out with a caricature. Try instead for subtlety, of a hint of Tupac.
hhp
2 Nov 2004 — 6:39am
Glamour, wealth and beauty in the presence of death, etc... (see 'memento mori') is a theme represented in hip hop as well as in baroque. so why don't you look at baroque fonts like Adobe's Caslon...
2 Nov 2004 — 8:05am
4 Nov 2004 — 7:58am
"I am a design student. We are expected to design a typeface based someone with social influence."
Ya know, this is one of those cases where you should just design a typeface you like, then just use a pinch of 'designer speak' to justify it at the end.
4 Nov 2004 — 2:45pm
Check out Emigre's Priori for what I believe is a nice blending of character and utility.
Granted, it has many variations within it, but that may just be the point.
I assume that novelty/titling fonts are probably the aim here, rather than a true text face.
4 Nov 2004 — 3:13pm
Cool website, Scott.
4 Nov 2004 — 4:05pm
Hi everyone, it seems like i have a lot to write about for not responding ontime.Thanks everyone for your input.
Scott, thanks for the cool link. Actually, there is a small book which consists word illustrations:
http://wordsatplay.com/
Raja, I like the idea of having a mixture of a classic typface and wild graffiti characters. Would be interesting to see the expected and unxpected qualities of them, it is kind of like hinting one thing over another like Hrant says. I'm his big fan too, thus why I am taking the risk of showing it off to conservative designers, while many are doing traditionl ones.
Thomas, "Glamour, wealth and beauty in the presence of death" nice keywords. I'll look into them.
Chris, Emigre's Priori has some features that relate to tupac as well. I like how the letter "t" looks like a cross that tupac has on his back and he refers/hints it/God in a lot of his poems. That's a cool tip.
This class goes a little slow at the begining as we have to research a lot. But, I'll make sure to update u with the approaches, progress, and results.
Thanks U all!!
Tseggai