[View a large photo of the final piece by clicking here.]

Designing with Type has quickly become my favorite class this semester, as well as my new obsession.  This is largely due to 2 things: I have always had a love for type, design, and communication <and 2nd> my AMAZINGLY talented and insightful teacher Maurizio Masi. I am very lucky to have such a talented teacher who has an equally impressive amount of experience under his belt and a fresh, engaging way of teaching.  Masi is one of several teachers that I have really grown to respect and have been inspired by here in my journey at the Art Institute of New York City.

At any rate, the process photos you see above are drawn from my project called the “Quotation Project”.  Our assignment was to select a favorite quotation or poem and find a way to express the sentiment typographically.  This was the first assignment in the class where we were allowed to use color and/or an image.  Immediately I began to think of what my quote could be, and for several days I was stuck.  I wanted to chose something that really represented me and where I was in my life right now, but I also wanted it to be open enough that other people would also be able to appreciate it.

After a lot of thinking, I remembered that one of the cool things about the kindle app on my iPhone was that I could highlight quotes and make notes while reading books.  I immediately went to check out some of the selections in a recent book that I had read and my quote jumped out at me.

Happiness is the consequence of a personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.

I had highlighted this quote about a year ago in a book called “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Around the time that I was reading the book, I was going through many changes in my life much like the main character was.  This quote has become a reminder of how I chose to live my life: happiness will always be there for me if I choose it.

I wanted to represent this quote in a visually exciting way and went through many drafts with the layout of the actual words.  I wanted the quote to have a slight resemblance to stairs, which is another reminder that there are steps to happiness, that happiness is not just on the ground floor of life.  I also wanted to create something with color and decided to paint two watercolor textures to incorporate into my design.  The first one in different shades of yellow was to be used as the fill for the word Happiness.  The second watercolor included different shades of yellows, reds, blues, representing the idea that happiness is not constant or without challenge.  There are times that anger or frustration (red) or even sadness or discomfort (blue) will come around, but as long as you continue to strive for happiness, it will manifest itself into your life.

After drawing out the letter forms and scanning everything, I began playing around with how things would look as a full composition.  One more thing resonated with me that my teacher had said in class: “Paper is a part of your design”.  When he said this I asked him if he had any paper shops that he would suggest, and he gave me two.  I knew that now was the time to visit this place and did so, picking up several different textures, finishes and types of paper to experiment with. 

Paper made a world of difference and after trying several different ones, I had a favorite.  I chose an Oriental paper similar to rice-paper but with a soft fabric feel.  After printing the composition, I LOVED it and was very pleased with how the paper absorbed the colors and brought them alive, looking almost as if I had painted the composition on the textured paper.

You can view a large photo of the final piece by clicking here.

I am very pleased with the result of this project and after presenting it in class, I was very happy with the positive feedback that I received.  Special thanks to Michael G. and Raven for their feedback and my teacher Maurizio Masi for the inspiration, info and challenge.