Type Face Project

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed your spring break. Your next project will be to create a portrait using text in place of lines. You will have to use Photoshop for this assignment as I am not aware of any free programs that have the particular feature set necessary to complete this. You will find that working with www.pixlr.com and other online image editing applications has prepared you for working with Photoshop.

Type Face: Creation of a Typographic Portrait

Create a portrait consisting of nothing but text. Portrait must be of someone you know. No images of Obama, Britney Spears, etc. I would strongly encourage you take a portrait of someone for this assignment, but I am not requiring it. You do have to have taken the photo though. If you do decide to take a new portrait, don't use the wide angle setting of your camera/phone when taking the photo. That will result in unwanted distortion. I would suggest you zoom the lens out (make things appear close up) as much as possible, then get closer until fill the frame with the head and shoulders of your subject. 

You will find that the better the quality of the photo you start with, the better the end results will be. This is because a better image will have more detail to work from. 

You are welcome to use different color text. You can do this by changing the color and/or tone of your text as you write it, or you can do some clever stuff with masks later on. I can show you both ways.

The final image should consist of nothing but text. 

Save the file as a Photoshop as you work on it. The Photoshop file extension is .PSD.

The text that you use must be relevant. It can be song lyrics, things the person says, things you think about the person, etc. 

You need to have the portrait that you are going to work from and the text that you are going to use by Wednesday so that you can work on it in class. You will have next Monday to work on it in class. It is due the following Wednesday at the beginning of class. You will have to work on this outside of class in order to complete it on time. Please plan accordingly as you will need to utilize Photoshop to complete this. FYI, you can download a 30 day trial of Photoshop from www.adobe.com if you want to work on this at home and don't have Photoshop at the moment.

 

Some great samples here:

http://abduzeedo.com/45-amazing-type-faces-typographic-portraits

Tutorials on using the pen tool in Photoshop

Excellent tutorials by Ken Hulsey, a real technical master of digital illustration
http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-pentool.html

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/pen-tool-selections/

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/photoshops-pen-tool-the-comprehensive-guide/

http://www.elated.com/articles/editing-paths-in-photoshop/

Tutorials on using text in Photoshop.

Putting text on a path in Photoshop.

A simple how to tutorial here.

The final image must be 16x20(ish) at 300ppi or larger. You don't have to use the exact aspect ratio of 16x20, but I want it to be close to that size.