OUGD504 LASER CUTTING TYPE FOR EMBOSSING

After deciding which typeface to use I finally began putting it into form. I began typing my title out in my chosen font of Germanica. I played with a few different layout of the type specifically. I was trying to decide wether it should be left aligned, center aligned or perhaps follow a path of some kind. After experimenting with these variations I decided that the type should be center aligned because I wanted to subtly mimic the design and layout of the headstones. Most of the headstones I came across in my research had center aligned type to fit the form and shape of the gravestone itself, so I will also do so with my publication.

I had to carefully review the type to make sure that every detail would carefully be cut on by the laser. This was especially important with this type because there are so many features to be aware of in comparison to say a normal sans serif type. When I inverted the fill to just lines some of the lines became split or jagged due to the type not being designed for this purpose, so I rectified that carefully to achieve the cleanest finish. Another fault this type would come across in the cutting is that some of the strokes are a little bit too close and the laser cutter would chop the whole letter off making it completely useless. For instance the capital 'I' has an ascender that is touching the rest of the letterform when it should really be separate. To fix this I raised the ascender ever so slightly so it doesn't make too much of a visual difference but will still be functional when being produced.

A final problem I had with the type was that the letter 'y' didn't look like it should at all and look more like an 'n'. This was noticed by everyone who read the type and would have a major impact on the final design. By studying the type I noticed that all the letters were just made of a few similar shapes repeated over and over again in different variations. I decided to recreate the letter 'y' for this type to make it more functional for my work. I took what I thought a the letter should look like and took pieces from other letters to create the form of a 'y'. The most important part being the descender which was simply sourced from the letter 'g' in this situation.

Now my type was ready to laser cut I chose my material, which was 3mm mount board, and cut through to receive all of my individual letterforms. Hopefully this was the right weight of board to use as I would be repeating my embossing on several different materials and testing the effect on each one. I used the spare cut out of the board where the letters had been cut out and used that as a stencil to glue my type onto a perfect line so that when I went to emboss, the letters would not be jagged, randomly placed or have a difference in kerning. It would look exactly the same as it did on the digital copy. Obviously I had to set it backwards as well given the fact that embossing and debossing is a relief process, meaning when I do it the type or image would come out in reverse.