The 'B'lack Square Exercise - Tutorial

Today, we did the Black Square Exercise in class.

I found out that we were supposed to use exactly 4 squares to compose our letterform - no more, no less.

However, we can 'cheat' by hiding small squares within any of the black squares.

We were given 10 minutes to compose our letterform, finalise it (by cutting off any overlapping edges and gluing them down to the paper) and then the option to present it to the class.

This happened 3 times. 

Here are my results with the letterform 'B'. This time, I scanned them with the TinyScanner app.

For the first few tries, I just started playing around with the shapes. 

 

Experimenting with the different sizes of counters.

However, I felt like I was too rigid with this composition. So I made...

   

Something a little more varied, but to me, this looks more like an 'R' because I didn't have any leading lines to complete the bowl at the baseline. 

I managed to make a B that looks like it could be part of a proper font typeface!

Brings to mind a typeface that would be used on cheerleader boards. 

 

All the 'B's that I've made were pretty big, so I decided to experiment with smaller sizes.

I realised if you align the letterform to the left instead of the center, it makes the composition more interesting and visually pleasing because there's more negative space - the letterform doesn't stand up front and center.

I kind of liked the shape of this 'B' with no counters, so I experimented with a bigger version.

However, I do feel like some clarity is sacrificed without the counters.

After reviewing all of my compositions thus far, I felt that I was a bit too orderly and rigid with all of them. Like, they all felt very static and 'safe'. Inspired by some of my classmates' more abstract and creative letterforms, I decided to experiment one last time.

A blocky, bouldering 'B'.

I particularly like this one because although the letterform 'B' is still quite prominent and recognisable, it's not like any of the others I've made. It's a bit more dynamic because the lines are not just vertically or horizontally straight down. Instead of using the black papers to make the leading lines for the bottom bowl, the corner of the white paper was used instead to define it. 

Alternatively, if you look at the black papers, it looks like boulders falling off a rock face, which gives it a sense of movement. Maybe that's why it looks more dynamic? 

Me after presenting the work to the class. Thanks for the picture, BB!

Thoughts...?

Although it was a deceptively simple exercise, I found it quite difficult to create a composition of a 'B' that wasn't as rigid. I'm not sure if it's because it's the shape of my letterform, or because it was cause we only had to use the squares (no curves!). But it was indeed interesting to see the results that came out of it from other people. 

Tihs made me realise everybody does think differently in their mind - what ideas that come to me initially may not be what others are thinking.

Inspiration
I was particularly inspired by two of my classmates' composition - unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. One was for the letter R (dubbed the R man) by Anna, she made it look like a silhouette of a person, complete with a nose, it was quite creative. I managed to get a screenshot from the Zoom class.

And one was for the lowercase 'e', my classmate Jun managed to create the shape of it with just some hints of the black paper at the edges. It wasn't obvious at first glance - but I personally thought that was the beauty of it. Like, you had to search a little to find what you're looking for.

Well, I thought they were really interesting :) I'm looking forward to seeing what I can learn in the next class.