Building a Board Game Instructions Manual

    This week I got the chance to make another poster but for the 50th year Special Edition of any board game I like. This was a mock-up of course but it was a fun project!

    I love building posters. Every time I have the opportunity I research new techniques and tricks to push myself in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I now know that if anything is pixelated, a simple surface blur that isn't very high will soften that and make it look more appealing. I am also getting more comfortable designing my own lettering and logo designs and using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

I chose the classic and simple game called, "Guess Who?"  I love how it doesn't make my brain work too hard and I can actually sit back and enjoy it. There is no violence, it is all about guessing who your mystery character card is. And in this day and age you can even customize your character tabs on the gameboards to your liking. There is also a commercial version made in 2019 that has a wider range of diversity in their characters' features.

Here are a couple of pages from the 6 pages manual I made:

Celtic Irish Illuminated Lettering Design for my stepdad

    Kathryn Finter is a Canadian artist whose fifteenth-century materials and techniques of panel painting and manuscript illumination have earned her a place in the Medieval Academy of America, the Canadian Society of Medievalists, the Society of Tempera Painters, and the Calligraphy Society of Ottawa. She influenced this modern age. Around 1970s to now. Her fascination with medieval painting and illumination techniques has inspired an ongoing research project copying 15th century master works at the National Gallery of Canada and more recently at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. By studying how medieval miniature paintings were adapted to accommodate the differences in size, support, and medium between panel paintings, she is rediscovering how artists' styles evolved over time. Although not all artists were proficient in both mediums (such as Simon Marmion), little was known about how they adapted their painting style to suit different media until now. The techniques and methods learned over the course of this project have been applied to her own contemporary artwork. Not much is written about how Kathryn started painting or about her early life. Simon Marmion influenced her greatly though. Click here for her website.

If you’re still dreaming of French castles, monks, and luscious medieval gowns, imagine a woman artist delicately illuminating a book cover or names on birth commemoratives, or wedding invitations and diplomas by hand in this day and age. That is what Kathryn Finter has been doing most of her life. As I mentioned before she also loves replicating 15^th century paintings and has also created original miniature paintings inspired by them. 

    Kathryn has made illuminated lettering techniques accessible to everyone by hosting classes at the National Gallery of Canada in the Scotiabank Great Hall in Ottawa, Canada. And at other locations. She also has a “How To” guide on her website that explains how she goes about painting an illuminated letter. 

    Kathryn inspired me to create my stepdad’s family name, Quinn in an illuminated lettering style. I researched the Quinn family crest colors and incorporated this in my digital rendering of illuminated letters. I also made the triquetra knot the colors of the Irish flag because Quinns are originally from Ireland. I added the Pegasus because a Pegasus is also found on their family crest. The letter “i” has a Celtic Sailor’s knot cross on the top where the dot should be. I then added Celtic crosses on the border of the square. The majuscule Q is on a green square in that same Kathryn Finter style and also in a The Book of Kells style. I researched different ways to draw and paint the letter Q and the other letters in the name Quinn. I added a long tail to my Q just like how Kathryn does on her letter. I added orange dots all over the black “uinn” because each letter in the Celtic style is decorated with similar dots, knotwork, and spirals patterns. Just like the letters seen in Irish manuscripts like the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels. Kathryn Finter also adds dots but on the border of her majuscule letter in white. It is subtle. The Book of Kells is one of the most elaborate manuscripts of its kind, created in a monastery. The four gospels are compiled in this manuscript, and it has inspired not only the text but also the ornate lettering which "illuminate" inspired words. Throughout the manuscript, letters are lavishly decorated with tight and fluid Celtic knots illuminated with bright pigments and gold leaf. It is an astonishingly creative approach to letter construction for that Era. Kathryn Finter takes all these influences and keeps that illuminated lettering art style alive in her work. She is a treasure. She has made me appreciate and love illuminated typography. I learned a lot trying to make the Quinn name have that style. It’s a beautiful and dazzling look with a lot of history. Click here for a website that explains Irish Celtic symbols. 

Kathryn Finter

The Q letter made by Kathryn Finter

I drew/wrote Quinn first

Digital Typography

    My teacher adores Jessica Hische's lettering designs. Yesterday I was told to design my own letters and words and to choose a book title to revamp. I chose to re-design Laini Taylor's "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" book title. 

    The book is a fantasy novel by author Laini Taylor. The narrative follows seventeen-year-old Karou through a fantastical war between angels and monsters. It is a modern, urban fantasy spanning human cultures and monster worlds. Karou, the protagonist, perfectly balances both her roles in life; one as a normal art student and the other as an errand runner for a strange creature who she sees as her father. Her family is made up of chimera monsters and they have been with her since birth. Karou begins questioning her existence and being when she meets the fierce, serious and beautiful angel, Akiva.

My original lettering design

    I made the letters and words of the book’s title more interesting. I researched glitchy font styles and was inspired to try and recreate my own version of glitchy font. The word daughter is in my all-original designed font. The colors cyan and bright magenta around the white letters are feminine yet visually exciting because they have breaks in the letters. Broken pieces seem to hover around them as well which makes the word appear as if it’s glitching. I wanted the word daughter to have a glitchy effect because Karou, in the book, is the daughter of Brimstone, a chimera and her birth in the human world is kind of a glitch. An unexpected gesture of mercy but also an act that made some beings in the chimera world angry. The word smoke was made in photoshop. I liquified and added a smoke texture to the letters. I also distorted and skewed the letters, transforming them to my desired shape. I was inspired by smoke. Smoke is fluid and very wispy. The word bones were easy to create. I chose a bold, thick font and added white lines that I sometimes attached little white balls to the ends to make them bone like.