Typography

Now while I've been done drawing and graphic design for a while, I've never realized how much work goes into the typography side of things. Working on the comic is challenging enough with the art but getting the wording, the font and positioning right is really hard. Luckily I have a lots of comics and art books to reference from and it makes you appreciate the hard work and effort that goes into them. Even as simple as the panels, most times its not just square boxes next to each other but rather all different shapes and sizes to make the page interesting. The speech bubbles themselves can express emotion that help the conversation become more exciting.

I've been working on a poster recently for an upcoming concert named breakOUT, organized by the ECU Guild. I started it a few weeks ago and sent in a few different designs to them so they had a selection to choose from so I knew what direction to go in. From there I tried to improve it as I went, sending a proof in every once in a while to point me back on track. Near the end of it though I wasn't liking it that much, It was looking messy and overcomplicated when I added the text it. A poster should be readable, in a way that you know the implied message that it sends, from at least 3 meters away. Unfortunately you couldn't do that with this one, so as much as I didn't want to I had to get rough and merciless with it. I hacked away at it, added a paper texture with a colour dodge(I think that's what it was) and through what may have been luck or skill made it look a lot better. I am quite pleased with it now.

First step to making a comic

At the moment I'm trying to start a comic project where I would collaborate with different artists . A book with different stories and art styles but keeping to a theme, like summer, so it isn't too random.

The only problem is that I have started on this idea for about 7 months now. Procrastination is a bad thing and very addictive. I also have trouble with the story, its very complicated and I need it to be compressed to a 10 page to be continued layout. Lately I have started back on it and decided if I finish my 10 page comic first then I will get everyone else to commit to their comic.

When I work on my comic, I should start with rough sketchs of the whole 10 pages so I know the layout and type placement before I start putting the effort into drawing it. Unfortunately I like drawing and I spend way too much time on the roughs then even if they don't make sense I dont want to change it. Awful habit but Im trying to stop it....