Personal Alphabet Research Part 1

After our first workshop, where we took our partners interview answers and transformed them into a set of 5 key words we felt described them, I felt like I wanted to begin to develop a few of the ones I felt were the most important, which were Old School Tattoos, Urban and Simple.

One person Ste mentioned in his interview was the person he most admires, Mark Machado, who is a successful tattoo artist and street art designer. 

Mark Machado, also known as Mister Cartoon, is based in downtown LA. His work is based on the tattoo designs favoured by the inmates of Californian prison system, where there is no access to coloured inks, so the 'fine line' style is employed as an alternative, using watered down inks to create the shading. 

The details created in his work are one of the most interesting elements of his work, but what I am most interested in is the font that he uses, as I am trying to create an alphabet.  As mentioned in this article , the font style he uses is Old English, which is 'a symbol of authority and credibility.'

The Old English typeface is not one that I would personally want emblazoned on my arm, as I feel in it's simple black and white presentation it looks quite dated and tacky, however, on some of these designs it does work well. 

The intricacy of his work is something I would like to explore within my design possibilities, but I think from what I have gathered from Ste, that style of typeface is not something I will necessarily be looking at. 

Following on from exploring his favourite tattoo designer, I began to look at the Old School style of tattoo Ste has said interests him and is looking at getting for himself. 

The style employed by Old School designs is very simple and bold, which was due to the fact that often tattoo artists from the beginning of the movement had not been educated in an artistic background, and the tools of the tattoo artist, the ink and the machine, were not of the best quality back then, so simplicity and boldness were key for legibility so that the tattoo would wear well over time. Boldness and legibility is something I must become very aware of during this brief. as whatever I create needs to create a legitimate typeface. 

I love the typeface used in these tattoos, as they look classic and evoke a sense of nostalgia, whilst also being very bold and readable.