First thing I think you should work on is the consistancy of the thicks and thins. The D seems fat and the y skinny. It has a fun lively feel, good start.

Agreed, the D did seem a little too wide and the strokes seemed a little too thick. I see your comment about the y now too!

Update:

I’ve been lurking around for a while, and finally decided to get in on the action. This caught my eye, and begged me to post my thoughts.

The first thing I noticed was that the “ave” and the “iley” look like separate designs. The “ave” has a twisted, unconventional feel to it, while “iley” looks like more of a traditional script. Also, the curly piece at the top of the “D” looks a bit forced, I like how the “B” looks and would try and model the “D” after it. The dot on the “i” is awesome, make sure you keep it as this progresses. I would love to see this deveop into a finished piece, please continue posting your updates.

Travis

David, I think you’re on to something really unique with the a, and v in Dave. The other characters look more like traditional sign painter script. So, I agree with Travis that the characters don’t really flow well together yet, but it’s a good start.

Having said that, I’ve doodled a lot of script letters myself for fun, and they are deceptively hard to do.

Thanks guys for your posts, this is encouraging me to go back to this! I don’t have a desk at my apartment so I’ll have to get to this inbetween projects at my internship. I put it on the backburner after there seemed to be no interest in it…

Travis: I’ll get rid of the curly bit at the top of the D, because I’ve had thoughts about it feeling forced but your response confirms it. I fell in love with the dot over the “i” too…probably my favorite part of the design. It’s funny how the smallest things can become the most exciting!

Chris: So it seems as if I should try to rethink this based on the “a” and “v”?

Dave how is the intership going?

The internship is going great! I love the Art Directors at RCA, they’re both really fun, knowledgable and talented. My boss who oversees all the creative work, both print and video is awesome as well. I often find myself staying late even though I’m not getting paid. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go back to school in the spring. :-/ The lack of monetary income is the only downside. Manhattan has been a great expereience, beside the fact that I can’t freakin find another part time job….so many résumés and interviews but still nothing. It’s a good thing I had a decent savings before I got here.

I hope to make a good judgement on this city by the time I leave and then after school spend some time on the west coast (San Francisco area) since a good portion of the design industry seems to be happening out there now. That is all dependednt on me finding a job etc, still too far away to really plan for though! Thanks for asking!

Well, I just thought the a and e looked particularly unique. The way the letters narrowed down to a line where the a and e connect. I just don’t recall having seen something like that. So it almost seems like there are 2 different ideas happening there. Good luck with it, it’s a good start.

Here’s an update to “Dave”, thoughts?

I haven’t commented on this yet, but I really like the progress your making on this fun little exercise, David. I wish I had the time and ambition for stuff like this! :)

Lovin’ the ‘ave’ even more now … but the ‘D’ still seems divorced from the word somehow to me. Sharp pointy stroke ends, maybe? Verticals too swooping to the left? I can’t quite put a finger on it.

I looked at the dot over the i, and after falling in love with it’s form I developed the other characters based upon it. I’ll keep posting progress throughout the day, I agree with the pointiness becoming a contrasting problem in the design.

Here’s an update finally…not really sure where I want to go with the ‘y’ so i left it out. Thoughts?

Bueeelllerrrr?

Ok guys, I’m home so that means I officially have a desk to work at. I’d like to tune this into perfection while I’m here. What happened to all the previous posters? Just looking for some new eyes on this guys!

How’s this look?

While I like the basic shape of the characters, the joins seem forced, especially between ave. The a needs some form of stress on the righthand vertical.
I wonder if the characters are too close together for the joins to lose the forced, cramped feel.
Tim

Good point Tim, I’ll see what spacing them out does so I can give it a better/more natural flow.

How do you feel about this? I’m not really sure what to do, if anything, about adding a stress on the a.

To me the stress needs to go on the top right corner of the a on the inside of the open counter. The joins still need something to raise them, maybe you could investigate how they change if you try painting this up with a brush and ink. Load up the brush and try repeating one group of letters at a time (ave & ailey) until you get a really smooth fast movement, I suspect the joins on ave are too contrived, because those of ailey work better and that the painting exercise will give you more modulation of stroke.
Tim