After reviewing my ideas so far as well as looking at the Public art strategy file for Cardiff I have discovered that when creating public pieces of art certain criteria must be met to allow that art to qualify as fit for public use. One of these conditions is that the structure must not include a large amount of dangerous sharp edges and must be rounded at the corners. As my actual sculpture is a large sphere slight structure this will not be a concern in those fields, however, for the actual text perforations themselves, the typeface must be chosen carefully as to remain to be legible at a far distance as well as at several different angles, due to the existence of this conditions I think that a sans serif typeface will be necessary, A heavier set typeface will not only boost legibility but also will not the edges from being too sharp and violating any preexisting conditions. I am considering using a wide range of different typefaces within the structure as I think that this will make the sculpture and the lights surrounding it as interesting as possible to look at and interact with. A shortlist and visualization of my initial ideas for potential typefaces are as follows.
Looking through a large number of varying typefaces I have selected a smaller portion of more appropriate typefaces. While within graphics projects I normally have to reduce these options down to only one option, for this project I think that it may be appropriate to choose multiple to use for the sculpture. The different typefaces could be used to represent the different nations and the varying languages that will be cut into the work.
While I previously mentioned that the text had to be rounded in order to remain appropriate and conforming to the Cardiff Public Art Strategy, It is possible to use a sharper-edged typeface and then after perforating, I could simply sand down the edges of the text to make it safer. This could be mocked up digitally using methods found within Adobe Illustrator or potentially done within SketchUp.
Towards the end of my type explorations, I found that the bolder, heavier typefaces seem to work more effectively. Examples such as Futura were my favorite as the typeface is easily legible, nicely constructed and sans serif. However, I think that if I were to use Futura the sculpture could potentially lack a certain dynamic aspect, as the letterforms within the typeface are quite flat and predictable. However, I think that using a bold Futura font alongside a thinner font like Roboto would offer a nice degree of contrast and allow the sculpture to retain a certain degree of dynamism
I do not think that script font or decorative fonts would be appropriate as the text would already potentially become distorted by the shadows being cast out onto the floor and walls of the surrounding area, an easily legible typeface is critical and I think that the surrounding environment will be able to distort the text for me into new and interesting shapes.
I think that the font I will choose moving forward will be Futura and Roboto, these fonts are available in various different weights and styles so I am still free to experiment with varying styles once the text has been applied to the sculpture.
However, a point has been made on the surrounding environment and what effects that will have on the sculpture. I think that a photoshoot is required of St Marys Street on a busy day in order to judge where the flow of people is, what the volume of people is, as well as if there is even enough room for a large scale sculpture to exist within the center of Cardiff.
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