For this uni project, I got to fulfil my nerd urges and design a Doctor Who inspired font from scratch. Let the geeking out begin.
Creating a new and original font is a rite of passage for all young designers. This project definitely tested my patience and design skills through the endless hours of sketching, refining and critiquing. From these efforts, my font A Friend of Who was created in all its nerdy glory.
I am what you call a ‘Whovian’ – in layman's terms, a Doctor Who nerd. When brainstorming inspiration for this font design, naturally, creating a Doctor Who themed font seemed like the only option. It is based on the form of Cybermen which are cybernetically augmented humanoids. They are scary, powerful and dominating robots in the world of Doctor Who, yet their exteriors are quite curved and smooth which contradicts their evil motives. As with most fonts, it all started with the form of the ‘O’ which is based on the Cyberman’s head. I also drew inspiration from other fonts such as Bodoni and Didot which helped establish the optics for my font.
The final product is this outline, robotic display font. These curved letterforms demonstrate the human side of a Cyberman as opposed to their menacing actions. A Friend of Who has applied to a Cyberman poster design to further demonstrate the inspiration I used for this design. This project has taught me to appreciate the effort that goes into font design and I proved to myself that I can do it too.
