Fantastic Fonts

 

Fourth grade learned how a typographer is a type of artist that designs the way letters look and is a career for artists in the field of graphic design.  As an exploration into typography, we used a Google app called Instafont, which allowed students to draw on their tablets and create their own font which they used to write a letter to a friend.  Next, we spoke about how designers choose different fonts to convey different messages.  Students looked at a variety of fonts and described how they thought the font would be used.  Most students agreed a spooky font would not be appropriate for a report card or letter home to a parent, rather as a title on a horror book would more suitable.

To give us more  inspiration, we examined illustrations from the book The Graphic Alphabet, advertisements, and even the letters on the T shirts we were wearing that day. After looking at numerous examples of fonts, we discussed the difference between a serif and sans serif.  Students learned how “sans” is a French word for without, meaning without serif, or the shape at the end of letters that are usually rectangular. 

Finally students were ready to start their own fonts by choosing letters from their names (if time a favorite number) with black strips of paper, scissors and glue.  After creating their first letter, students thought about their visual themes they incorporated such as ( wavy lines, spikes, cut out holes)  and continued them in their next letter and/or number.  The last step was to look  at how other artists use text in their work such as Robert Indiana in his famous Love sculpture and discussed why so many artists have reused his design over the last few decades. Lastly, students  mounted their own artwork, working hard to show craftsmanship and wrote several sentences giving their font a  title, discussing the visual themes, and where they would use their font (movie premier poster, birthday invitation, or T-Shirt). A special shout out to a wonderful art blog http://wemakeartatps10.wordpress.com/ that inspired this lesson! 

                                                   Robert Indiana

"Angel Spirit"

"Archery Shooters"

"Ocean Breeze"

"Bunny"

"Cuts and Holes"

"Dinosaurs At Night"

"Eaten Fruit"

" Football on the Field"

"Green Meadows"

"Hawaiian Breeze"

"Sharp Hangs"

"Icy Mountains"

"Branches on a Tree"

"Jewels"

"Jug"

"Killer Whale"

"Crocodiles At Night"

"Mountains"

"The Barbershop"

"Nature"

"Sky High"

"Sneak"

"South Carolina"

"Teeth"

"When it Rains"