Play Play Play - Type development

I wanted to simplify my previous idea of using a variety of products that are fair trade and instead focus on just one. Bananas are the first food I think of when Fairtrade is mentioned and I thought I could be creative and imaginative with adapting the shape into letterforms. I also changed the orientation of my paper from landscape to portrait as this suits my other two pieces better and I felt it would make me move away from the standard type layout of all the letters being in a row. 

Photography - making letters with bananas

I experimented with numerous ways of drawing letters using bananas, drawing around them, doing line drawings with dip pens and simplifying the shapes into solid blocks of colour. In the image on the left, I used two bananas to make the letter A but I feel this makes the letter too bulky compared to the F. I briefly researched into typography so I could consider the weight of line in each part of each letter. I feel I need to keep the thicker line on the left of the letter and use the peel of the banana to show the thinner lines towards the right. 

Typography research

I experimented with the spacing of the letters on the page using cut outs of the letters. I felt the page looked quite empty when they were more spaced out and the composition looked more interesting and connected when the letters overlapped slightly. When I asked for the opinions of my peers, they pointed out that the text is clear in the example on the right but it takes a bit longer to figure out the letters. I think this works in favour of the piece because  it makes the image more intriguing if people have to take a second glance. I was planning on incorporating the Fairtrade logo into my lettering, potentially as the dot above the 'i' but I have used capitals here so I am going to use the logo as if it were a sticker on the banana. 

There is something about the sticker on the letter I that seems to offset the balance of the image. It might be because the top of this banana is leaning away from the rest of the image and the sticker draws attention to this, whereas when it is on the letter A, it draws attention to the line directing you towards the rest of the word.