Drawing an alphabet – h

Initial idea: a dinosaur

This is just a daft idea suggested by the shape of the letter.

Balance

Without a tail, it’s not going to be a very balanced dinosaur. No wonder they went extinct.

There is an emphasis on balance in a lot of creative work. Even ‘experimental’ work often keeps balance in mind while ignoring other ‘rules’. A lot of effort in creating letters goes into keeping them ‘balanced’ so it’s good to ignore that for a change.

Having said that, if I was really going for imbalance I would have made the legs of ‘h’ very different widths or made the top of ascender (sticking up bit) flare out much more. It’s not that unbalanced at all.

Subtlety

It’s tempting to remove all doubt and make this look like a dinosaur by sticking an eye and mouth on it. I prefer a design where the main idea isn’t obvious, where the viewer has ‘to get it’.

There is so much imagery trying to grab people’s attention that it’s sometimes better to step out of that crowd and do something different. Don’t shout. Don’t be obvious. Let the viewer do a bit of work.

A better, and the most famous example, is the FedEx logo.

The best thing about it is that the hidden element, once you see it, is so obvious it looks inevitable – what else could the designer have done? – although it isn’t.

When the design was first shown to the Fed Ex board, some members loved the hidden element so much they wanted it to make it stand out, obviously ruining the thing completely. Clients eh?

This is part of a project to draw the letters of the alphabet in different styles.