Experimental Project Progress 1

Working on the experimental type, I have had two approaches to it. The first approach was to envision what animals I could use to my advantage in order to create the alphabet. I knew that I would have a little bit of flexibility, since they are animals morphed and shaped into the letter itself. The only problem that I had was how exactly to create them? At first I dove into using the "fontographer" block as a reference mark for how big I should make each letter and where all the landmarks were in terms of footers, line height and so on.

Realizing that it was making my life harder, I decided to go ahead and find an already made font and make several layers of the entire alphabet within that block. From there I would trace over the letter with my own animal creation. 

Here is what I have so far. I'm starting to go back and really outline and bring out shapes and forms with thickened lines. It's starting to lean toward a little bit of tribal-esque, but I'm trying to correct that as best I can. I have some alternations I want to push ahead with- that being to maybe have it be colored / keep it tribal like / motif style / keep the animal form as best as possible so people don't get confused to what it is. I think for right now it's a good beginning, because each letter can easily be seen as to what they are. 

Edit Update 3/31/15:

This is where I am currently at now! 

I've been trying to keep myself along with the theme of aztec / mayan motifs, but a little bit of tribal has seemed to come into play- which isn't a bad thing! I feel some letters are stronger than others, and I want to keep trying to have a diversity of bold lines and thicknesses, compared to the photos I've provided previously. I've also tried to make sure that the animals and the differences between black and white correspond with what they actually look like and represent. 

I'm also still debating about color- but for right now I'm content with the letters and how they are so I can be prepared to dedicate myself to After Affects.