Personal Logo

 

Just a little post to share my personal logo I've been working on recently.  

I always struggled to combine my initials – "P" and "Z" seem not to work very well together. I'm pleased with this option, but still trying to refine and improve it and finish other options.

What do you think about it? Looking forward to your feedback!

It's baking time

This time of the year means baking gingerbread biscuits. Mine are almost ready, time for icing!

Happy baking and Wesołych Świąt [Merry Christmas] everyone!

Penguin Design Award Results

And the winnners are...

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/penguin_2010winners.php

Got the 2nd Prize! :)

Judges' comments on Penguin website: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/pda2010_pzywert.php

See my earlier posts for details of my 'Perfume' book cover entry: http://patrycjazywert.blogspot.com/2010/06/little-update-to-perfume-post-my-entry.html

Penguin Design Award entry

This is my final design of 'Perfume' book cover for Penguin Design Award 2010. Full jacket:

Just front cover:

Photos of the model:

And this is my explanation of the concept:

My concept is based on creating mixed feelings. The title lettering looks nice at first sight but after taking a closer look the reader can see it is made of hair. Beautiful, long and nicely scented hair is undoubtedly a feature of a woman. If it is cut, it immediately brings the thought that something bad has happened to her. By using real hair I wanted to emphasise the human aspect in a subtle way and it links to the story, the pursuit of the perfect scent - innocence. The lettering style is inspired by eighteenth-century French alphabets.

Go to my previous post to see the development & tests: http://patrycjazywert.blogspot.com/2010/05/perfume-book-cover-development.html.

'Perfume' book cover: development

Last week I submitted my entry for Penguin Design Award. The brief was to design a new cover for "Perfume" by Patrick Süskind. The project was a part of uni assignments, so I had a lot of time to test and experiment with different concepts for the cover.

My initial idea was to focus on the concept of smell and try to express it typographically, adding a subtle image of a woman's body. This is my first sketch and a rough visual:

Then, after talking to my tutors I decided to use typography as main element, but make it more experimental. I used meat to highlight the dark and murder side of the story. I wanted the lettering to look nice at first sight, but then after inspection the viewer can see it's made of meat. These are my two tests of meat calligraphy (front & spine):

Cutting pork loin and bacon to create letters felt a bit weird...

Next stage was etching tests, to see results go to my previous post: http://patrycjazywert.blogspot.com/2010/04/etching.html.

Then, I decided to use hair as a theme for the cover. This is first sketch:

Then I thought I could use real hair. So, I had fun times putting my head on a scanner and trying to reach the keyboard :) This is my real hair version:

I'll publish the final entry for Penguin competition in my next post.

Etching

Just before Easter break we had two introduction to etching classes at uni. This was first time I was doing etching and wanted to see how it works with typographic image. I took one of the designs from the project that I was working on at that time. It's the lettering for Patrick Süskind's "Perfume" cover (Penguin Design Award). This is the original image, a hand drawn lettering that I used for my etching:

The lettering is very detailed, I wasn't sure how this would work with soft-ground etching:

I did soft-ground first:

And then hard ground (swirls and ornaments):

And after that, I added tones using aquatint. I did two prints with different amount of ink on the plate:

I didn't know how this would come out and each print was a surprise. But this was all about just learning the techniques and I really enjoyed it! Here are the shots from the making of and the plate:

I found it very interesting, but didn't use any of these for the final version of the cover. Anyway, definitely want to play with etching again!

B for Alphabattle

It's time to catch up with Alphabattle project!

So, here is my letter B submission and some of the sketches as well:

Typographic tattoo

A few days ago I was asked to create a simple Roman style lettering saying Carpe Noctem ("seize the night"). It was for a friend who was going to get this as a tattoo the next day. So I started quick sketches with slightly different styles, making them simple and a bit ornamental. Here is what I designed in my sketchbook:

This is the choice of designs I offered:

And the final version he chose:

That was a quick project! It was nice to see my lettering in the sketchbook, then in Illustrator and the next day - on the skin :)

And here is the actual tattoo!

Hope you enjoy wearing it Ross! ;)

A for Alphabattle

AlphaBattle by LetterCult is about making letters and having fun. They've started with letter A and will do a new letter every two weeks. The project will finish around February next year.

Here is my submission and some sketches of letter A I've done for it: