Croc & Plover Typeface
Croc and Plover was my first typeface ever. The whole process was completely new to me, and it was quite challenging since I have never created a whole typeface by myself before. It was intriguing to learn how to create all elements from scratch, and how to maintain a certain level of legibility and readability throughout the typeface.
The typeface is inspired by the mutualistic symbiotic relationship between the crocodile and the plover, where the former would patiently open its mouth, waiting for the latter to swoop in and floss its teeth. From there, two main elements of the typeface were created and blended harmoniously: the ragness and spikiness representing the croc and the smooth, roundness of the bird.
Project
Year
04/05/2023
The Challenge
The theme of this typeface is symbiosis.
My initial thought about typography is that the majority of them brings out a sleek, clean and cohesive feeling amongst the alphabet. That is why I fully doubted my own ability since I have never created a typeface, let alone ensuring that all the glyphs are coherent while still taking legibility and readability into account.
Moreover, in order to fully establish the definition of symbiosis, at least two representative figures of the relationships have to be demonstrated throughout the glyphs. That is one big challenge that I have to handle creatively. Nevertheless, throughout the exploring and researching process, it is apparent to me that what I doubt initially turns out to be opportunities that spark interests in me.
There are countless fascinating natural symbiotic interactions between two creatures, and that is where I can potentially incorporate my creativity
along with my distinctive art style into work. Additionally, I notice that some of the letters are consisted of two parts, so there is room to further adapt expressive elements within the typeface.
Following an extensive process of researching, ideating and exploring various options, I decided to choose the image of the relationship between a crocodile and a plover. Whenever a crocodile needs flossing after eating, it will open its mouth and patiently wait for the plover to swoop in and remove all the tiny pieces that are stuck between its teeth. I like the extreme contrast between the plover and the crocodile, one is tiny and delicate; the other one is powerful, intimidating and enormous.
Because of that, I then realized that on one hand, crocodiles are best known for their fangs and scaly skin, in which the sharpness can be utilized as the stem of the typeface. On the other hand, the plover symbolises softness by possessing their long tail and wings, which can be implemented as a complementary element of the typeface. These two distinguished personalities complement each other well and resonates a perfect balance within the typeface.
The Process
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The Initial Sketch
At first, I was struggling to simplify the complexity of the typeface, since I found it to look significantly better having details of the crocodile like their eyes and smiles on each character. This turns out extremely well and lively when people take a closer look as they resonate the actual animals, but often they will most probably experience reading difficulty when standing from afar.
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The Character Sketch
With that in mind, I decided to reduce the level of detail and just keep what stands out from each of the elements, in this case, the spikes of the crocodile and the roundness of the plover.
After gathering feedback from my tutor on the lack of cohesion amongst some of the digitised characters, I also depicted the outline of each character to see the geometric shapes of them, such as square, triangles or rectangles. This helped me better visualise the skeleton of each glyph so that I can see the bigger picture to maintain the flow of the sketching process.
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The Sliced Vectors
Throughout the design process, I have also experimented with slicing and separating parts of one glyph so that I can reuse those sections into a brand-new glyph. This was extremely efficient as it is now unnecessary to redesign every new character once I was finished with the previous ones. These are the main elements of the letters in my typeface after I sliced and broke down separated parts of the letters.
