Howl's Moving Castle ideas and development

Over the past week, I have developed 3 title typefaces and one bonus which is unfinished to send to Jessica. I explained to her that now the rules for each face are in place adaptations and further text such as the author's name should be a quick and easy progression. 

Three of the typefaces are all in capitals which I just felt complemented the forms well, however making them with the lowercase after the initial letter would not take too long. 

I provided a mock-up using the photograph Jessica sent me and decided to keep the placement central inside the illustrated head for now so as not to take the focus away from the individual merits of each face. 

The inspiration for the faces came from research into the genre of the book, previously used typefaces for various print designs, blackletter, calligraphic forms, the moral of the story (Identity + fate + outward appearances can be deceiving) and of course from forms within Jessica's illustration. 

Looking at them again now there’s a few slightly off letters that I will continue to work on. I did my best to try and iron out some of the problematic letters before sending but there is definitely some room for improvement on that score. 

The ideas phase started with a couple of sketches, getting a rough idea for forms and scale of the type and then progressed to illustrator where most of the development took place. 

1)

This face is probably my favourite and the first one I developed. It was primarily inspired by gothic typefaces such as copperplate gothic which would have originally been engraved onto a plate of copper for letterpress typesetting. You end up with these small diagonal serifs that have a medieval robustness to them. The type is slightly inclining to the left which offsets the serif's and key shape nicely as observed on the H. There is an inherent dynamism about the face, indicating moving as a literal interpretation of the title. The diamond shaped midlines are indicative of the genre and castles in general, often offset and lowered so as to be as visible as possible on letters such as A. Also diamonds present within the O's rationalisable as 'the beauty within' from research. The curved forms were slightly more tricky to engineer with such a defined key form. The C could definitely do with more work on its relationship between the upper and lower curves but the inclination made it a bit awkward to work with.

2)

This typeface largely drew from visual inspiration found within Jessica's illustrations, taking the key form of the corner circles and applying to each character. Originally the circles were visible on top of every upright but the stylistic decision was taken to simplify as they were becoming too much of a theme meaning the O and other curved forms did not conform. The use of circles can of course also be attributed to the moral of finding the beauty within. Curved forms are then adorned with a thin line accent that is a nod to blackletter as is very popular amongst the genre. The line curve supports also relate to the border composition. There is a calligraphic element present although very much simplified, this can be observed on the upper letter endings. In contrast to the uppers fluid forms, flat bottoms, and some line endings for curved forms are given a base, providing a visual balance. This design certainly mirrors the overall illustration well, however, I do think overall it's a little clunky. 

The S along with a few other letters received further development after the email was sent. Ironing out the slight imperfection in the weighting of the middle section as well as readjusting how it sits so that the form is within a central column and upright.  

3)

This face was constructed to give a bit variety and choice after two fairly mono-width, subtle serif, capital letter configurations. The style was actually appropriated from a digital sketch I previously conducted seen above. The way each line ending doubles back on itself seemed appropriate and rationalisable as there is an element of deceit within the story. This also adds a highly decorative aesthetic which juxtaposes the fluidity the script well, adding an unnatural or unnerving element to the visual narrative. The basic proportions of the face and some of the angles from Bodoni Book italic, this made it far easier to map out each form quickly to get it off to Jessica. A number of the forms require a little polish such as the wavey line on the M and ambiguity of the a. The style is definitely in keeping with the visual language of fairytale but possibly too much so? Does it look a little too Disney? Also, it might not have enough impact for a title type but could sit better for the author name. 

Developments, working on the fluidity of form and ambiguity, made to the letters w and a (top old bottom new): 

4) 

 

This quick experiment followed the initial email as it was a quick afterthought on how to include the beautiful hair illustration within a typeface. Overall it's very much so a work in progress and doesn't have the rationale backing of the other faces but aesthetically it has potential be very beautiful. I started by making some kind of pattern with the hair that could be used decoratively or clipping masked to create adorned type. This approach was dropped in favour of a more fluid one. I went with slightly bigger and at times pointed bottoms to each character as it mirrors the original illustration. Trying to incorporate the original illustration as much as possible, I then just filled in any missing gaps with similarly illustrated forms as an extension of Jessica's illustration. 




Jessica replied with this: 

Hey Sol, 

Thank you very much for your designs, they have look fabulous! Out of all three I must say that I especially love the second design. I feel like this ties in really well with the design. 

However, all I would say is that maybe play around with the layout of it as well? 

So, for example, make some of the letters bigger than others have them move or shaped around the inside of the head a bit? 

Play around with it, I live the type within the head, but what does it look like outside of it? It would be great if I could see a version of the type almost as if its floating. I hope that makes sense. If you could do this with the second type I would be very grateful. 

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly! I really appreciate this, again, my apologies for the delay in replying. 

Kind regards, 

Jessica. 


Taking this on board I progressed with the second design, mainly focused on adjusting the composition.