Designer Sean McCabe

 

I chose to look at the designer Sean McCabe who does a lot of designs dealing with hand lettering. The work I found on his page was so intriguing to me because I had not really thought about the process of hand lettering. His work has such strategic details that, at first glance, I would have assumed it was printed off the computer. The attention to detail that is required to create such professional pieces is apparent in the finished product.

The typography illustrations that he creates has different emotions portrayed within them. Sean experiments with bold and thin types and pays close attention to the spacing between each of the words so they are precise. I saw on his page that he begins with guiding lines to keep the type separated, then when the details are added, he removes the lines to come up with his finished products. They ensure punctual spacing.

Similar to each of the pictures above, he utilizes lines to create a distinction and separation between words, or boxes around texts. Some letters are thin depending on their purpose within the illustrations and others are bolded to attract the eye. Shaded shapes, as shown in the second image, emphasizes pieces of the creations. He consistently uses contrast in order to make his work more interesting.

I think Sean's designs have a lot to teach about typography. Their diversity in nature and the contrasting qualities of each of his creations seem to tell a different story. When I first looked at them I thought of them in a way where the words could be translated with voices and tones depending on if they had serifs or if they were bold. For example, the first creation puts "life" in cursive. This makes a simple word appear to be more thoughtful just because of the type. Also, the way Sean makes the third project appear to be a machine or science experiment makes the illustration more appealing.

His work is detail-oriented and even the smallest shaded corners complete the designs. Sean McCabe is an extremely talented designer that has experimented a great amount with typography.