Project Statement
The objectives behind the project were to learn about the history behind the letter that was chosen, to incorporate elements of that letter into the designs, and making each poster have similar elements, but be different from one another. Each of the spreads had to have similar elements, but overall had to have different designs and could not look the same as one another. For the poster spreads, the artist had to create 3 spreads that were 10” by 10” each, and all had to differ from each other.
The concept behind the project that the artist chose was to go with the letter x. The artist wanted to incorporate the history of the letter, specifically how it was used to represent something explicit or wrong, into the designs of the spreads. The artist also did not want to make the designs look too cliche with x’s everywhere, but more of a subtle design. That being said the design would still be able to tell which letter the project was focused on.
The colors used in the designs were White (C:0 Y:0 M:0 K:0; r:255 g:255 b:255; #ffffff), Black (C:0 Y:0 M:0 K:255; r:0 g:0 b:0; #000000), and Light Red (C:0 Y:62 M:73 K:20; r:205 g:55 b:65; #cd3741. The color red was chosen to symbolize something wrong or something explicit as the symbol 'x' and red are often correlated together. Black and white were then chosen to compliment this red color and make the color stand out.
The typefaces chosen to be used in the designs were "Microgramma Extd D BOLD" and "Thonburi light". "Microgramma Extd D BOLD" was chosen for the title, this is because it helped the title stand out and differentiate between the title and the body copy. "Thonburi light" was chosen for a similar reason, but also because it fit the aesthetic of the poster and the two typefaces work well together.
All of the designs used in the three panels were drawn using the pen tool and the line tool.
For the copy, the artist decided to focus on the history behind the letter and more so how the letter evolved and was used throughout history.
Research
The letter ‘x’ has a rather facinating and intruiging history behind the letter. In the article titled “Before X was X: The Dark Horse Story of The 24th Letter”, it goes into more depth of the story of the letter. The article states that the letter comes from the Pheonician letter smaekh which means fish. It was originally used by the Pheonicians to represent the s consonant, and then the Greeks borrowed it around 900 BC and changed it to Chi.
The letter stands for many different symbols and meanings such as Christ, the X in Xmas, chroomosomes, and they even show up in the way that humans text today in the XOXO.
The Romans took the x sound from the Chalcidian alphabet and combined it with the Chi symbol form the Greek alphabet to create the letter x.
The article titled “A Brief History of X” also explains more of the history behind the letter. It corresponds to the number 10 in Roman numerals, which they based off of the Etruscans.
Important documents back in time were also sometimes signed with X and sealed with a kiss, hence the origin of where the text message XOXO comes from. The X also signified blessings, as shown in a 1894 letter from Winston Churchill sending his mother an X which was the earliest known use of X as a kiss, that was used in ancient and modern times alike.
X has also been represented in various unknown mathematical quantities (also known as variables) since the 17th century which originated from the French. It’s algebreic roots are also responsible for the X in X-ray, a translation from the German X-strahlen (which means “X-beams”). They were discovered by German scientist Wilhelm Rontegen who discovered them in 1895 and named them after the algebric x because at the time he did not understand them.
X is also a prominent use in explicit topics, such as sex. Not only is it prominent in the whole sound of the word sex, but advertisers took advantage of this connection using XXX for pronographic and explicit topics.
The last article I looked at was titled “What’s So Facinating About the Letter X?” which also explained more about the fields that X is used in- such as algebra, genetics, aerospace, sex, and spirituality.
X also signifies the end of something (an entitiy whose existance is over, past, dead, and gone). This is represented by cartoonists when they would put the X over the eyes of characters who were dead throughout the drawing.
Sketches
Versions
First Versions
Second Versions
Final Version + Mock-Up
