Stream of Ideas

Grand Ampersand is a personal outlet for design. The project takes a stream of consciousness approach to design and subject matter, with illustrations and typesetting created out of spur of the moment ideas, music lyrics, or conversations with people. Ideas range from, letter patterns and whimsical illustrations to well kerned typesetting and variations on classic design.

Some of the works utilize unused or tweaked assets from previous work to speed up the process or better formulate a concrete idea. As I thought of new content or interacted with the people in my life, I would send myself a text message with the idea, then pool them into a list. From the list, I would create the illustrations as I became further inspired.

Fittingly, the title for this project came from an earlier project of mine, a series of ampersand posters.

Some works became templates for future illustrations, such as the New Band Name posts or uses of the ampersand character as a self-portrait reflection. Only a few typefaces and colors were used to keep the collection feeling more uniform as a body of work. This limited set allowed for great practice and mastery of the quarks of those typefaces.

Most of the works have typographic features, especially ampersands. The ampersand has a particularly illustrative quality apart from the main letters of the alphabet—making it an interesting subject for the project.

The project spanned from January 1, 2017 until August 4, 2018 with a total of 500 different images created. The artistic style is highly digital and many of the images were created in the same sitting as batches of ideas were explored. Images were created using vector artwork, then final touches were added to give shadow and slight texture before export.

The work is posted on social media where it can be shared with the people who often inspire the work through daily interactions.

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