Changing Perspectives
audience: General public walking by Bedford Hall at Longwood University, Farmville community
completion date: Fall 2019
objectives: Conceptualize and install meaningful environmental typography on campus or in the surrounding community.
approach: First, Haley Tebo and I traveled to some places we knew had open spaces that could provide plenty of type opportunities. We took video and photos of each location while discussing options, such as mowing type into a field or painting words on the trees using perspective. Soon, we decided on the Bedford Hall Fountain panels. We used temporary marker to establish one foot increments on the glass panels. We then took photos of the panels from our desired perspective locations and mocked up a grid in InDesign. After creating a grid, we looked online for quotes that could be split in half and read both ways so people walking from either direction could still get the same meaning from the quote. After deciding on our quote, we chose a typeface and laid it on the grid. At first, we tried to print out the letters on paper to get an idea of how much to incline the letters based on the angles of the panels and gradual increase in scale. This is because we originally planned to print out the quote on the in-house vinyl cutter. However, we had printed out a few paper mockups of the quote and couldn't get the letters' edges to line up quite right. Once we knew about how big the type should be on the panels, we projected the quote onto the panels at night and traced the outlines of the letters with grease pencils. After both halves of the quote were outlined, we cleaned the glass and installed the vinyl letter-by-letter by cutting just inside what we traced with exacto blades. When we finished installing the vinyl, we wiped the grease pencil off.
software: Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro
Photos taken by Haley Tebo
Motion graphics and video by Angeli Leong