The Story Behind Samantha Script: Part One

After I finished up designing and publishing Liam, I sat down to figure out what my next project was going to be. I had a lot of ideas, but nothing concrete worked out. I'd come up with one concept, spend the day sketching and lettering on it, get excited about it and then wake up the next morning to have changed my mind – again! Nothing was sticking and I wasn’t feeling the love on any of my ideas. And that’s important for me. I have to be able to get behind my concepts with full fledged passion and energy. It was getting frustrating, and quite honestly, a little scary! I like having a plan!

Some examples of lettering practice while trying to come up with an idea. As you can see, I was all over the place!I decided to quit trying so hard to come up with the perfect idea, and figured I might as well loosen up and just get back to basics. Just start lettering. Something will eventually come of it. I have learned this to be true with just about everything in life. Quit thinking so much and just do something – anything! Many times it will have wonderful results further reaching than you could've imagined. I just needed to fill my brain with ideas until the right one spilled out.

So I got out my favorite lettering tool – a pointed nib dip pen. I love these things, but it's really tricky to find just the perfect one, I've been at it for years, going through different nib styles/brands/etc to find the perfect one. I have officially declared my undying love for the Brause Rose nib. It is very flexible and has a large ink reservoir.

Brause Rose Nib

I experimented and played with different lettering styles and I found myself achieving this zen like state with a high contrast upright kind of looping script. It was so simple and methodical, I was in a trance. I knew I was onto something.

I started to explore the idea further, because it was still pretty vague. Sure, I had decided on a high contrast, upright connected script, big deal. That's not a tight enough concept. From there you could have all kinds of looks to it. Is it going to be modern or old fashioned looking, geometric or smooth and flowing? Et cetera or etcetera? I had to define it further.

I like to develop a little story in my mind about my designs and I ask myself a lot of questions about it. What are the thoughts and feelings I want it to evoke? What does it say, what is its voice? How will it be useful to the designer, what purpose does it serve in the vast marketplace of fonts and what is the niche I’m filling with this design? I put together lists of descriptive words and phrases to shape it. Sometimes I like to think of it in other frames of reference, such as, if this typeface were a celebrity, who would it be? If it was a place, where would it be? If it were a song… and so on.

While this is helpful, there’s even more to it than that. The visualization process I’ve outlined goes hand in hand with, well, what your hand does on paper. It’s an organic process – they both drive each other, one idea builds upon the next and this evolution starts to take shape. And, as I worked my way through it, I focused on the overall look and feel and started shaping it by thinking about the visual impact it had and what it was lacking. For example, I might think to myself – I want this to look friendlier. What is it that makes it look so cold and uninviting and how can I make it seem more approachable? Oh, I see. It’s too sharp and angular, not round enough – round is friendly. This phase of my design process is where I make my most dramatic changes. Many times I look back at where I started and I’m surprised to see how I arrived at the current solution. It’s usually quite different than what I started with.

With Samantha, it didn’t stray as much as some of my other designs have, but it certainly had its own shape shifting qualities. I began with a very loopy, open script, thinking that it would be a fun, exuberant style. But it looked overdone and messy. So I started to tighten it up and rein it in. As I did this, I was making decisions about whether I wanted it to be an upright script or slanted. I decided to focus on the upright style and table the slanted version for the time being. I’ve always liked upright scripts, they’re economical with space and usually more legible than other script styles. I wanted it to look modern and polished, with elegance and warmth to it. I wanted the base version of it to be simple and clean, but be able to dress it up and get extravagant with the addition of swashes and flourishes. That way the designer has many more uses for it than if it were just a simple script, or a fully decked out design. I wanted to create a wide range of possibilities so there is something for all parts of the spectrum.

I decided to name it after my niece, Samantha, who is in her senior year of high school. The design was already starting to look like her in a way and reflect her personality. A typical teen, her appearance is important to her. She and I have spent many hours shopping, I act as her assistant, carrying her vast selections of clothing and accessories while she tries things on and carefully selects her new outfits. There are always lots of dresses in the mix, the fancier the better, and although she has no intention of buying any of them, she loves to try them on. For as much time as she spends picking out what she’s going to wear and how to style her hair that day, she usually ends up with a rather casual dress style. But when it comes to dressing up, like for a dance… she pulls out all the stops. This is also similar to how she lives. She is a straight ‘A’ student, well spoken and thoughtful, with the details of her life in order. However, she loves new experiences and is very adventurous and spirited. So this design represents her well. And it helped in the design process being able to put a face and personality to it all.

To be continued…
There’s more to the story than this, but alas, I am too verbose to put it all in one article/blog post. It’s been written and almost ready to go, so come back in a couple of days to read more about the process and details of how I actually went about to develop and bring this font to market!

Comments

[marie]

i adore this font and am off to buy it now - thank you so much for sharing your talent!!!