Typography
36 Days of Type
/// Overview
An alphabet I drew in 2022 for a series of space posters, rebuilt in 3D for 36 Days of Type, a one-letter-a-day challenge. Each letter got its own world, which I built and lit in Cinema 4D.
/// The Challenge
36 Days of Type is an open challenge: one letter or number a day, for 36 days. I needed a typeface for it and already had one, Ad Astra, an alphabet I drew in 2022 for a personal series of space posters. I hadn't planned the two together. The question was whether that alphabet could take a new world for each letter and still read as one family.
/// The System
Every letter is built from the same two moves: a heavy capital where straight stems meet curved strokes, and a link, a bar with a sphere at each end, cut through most letters. They all share one cap height and one stem, fall into six families by width and were drawn on the same template. The skeleton and the link never change; material, light and set change with every letter.
/// The Process
Each letter went through several versions in my Illustrator draft before it settled. Then every outline went into Cinema 4D, where I extruded it and built its own set, materials and light: a bridge over a river for the A, an inflatable for the H, a neon frame for the U. The numbers came later and share a single scene, and the series closed with a poster for my typography elective at UPB.