The first idea was based on the section of the passage which reads: "To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine".
Based on this, it was decided to typeset the passage of text into the shape of a typical 'stone lozenge', which Dickins used to describe the shape of the tombstones. To produce this effect the text was initially left aligned then by altering each line length. In this instance, hyphenation had to be used for many words and paragraphs were discarded to produce one large passage of text. This affects the readability of the text since it is hard for the eye to track the next line and the individual hyphenated words.
The next idea was based on the section of the passage which reads: "Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea" and "To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row".
Based on this, the idea was to arrange the text into five columns, representing each of the five stone lozenges which were said to be arranged in one neat row. One variation used this idea on its own, the other then used this combined with the description of rivers and marsh country given in the passage. The text was centre aligned in order to produce what is know as 'rivers' in typography, where the white gaps in typesetting appear to run through a paragraph of text due to coincidental alignment of spaces. However, in this instance the rivers were made deliberately in order to communicate this idea of rivers described within the text.
The next ideas were based on the section of the text which reads: "The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair".
Based on this, it was decided to highlight the description of Pip's father by setting this in a bolder font weight compared to the rest of the text. This was done in order to represent the idea that this man was dark, with black hair. This section has also used justified text and has been set within a square frame to mimic the 'square' appearance of his father. The remaining text has then been left aligned and worked around this highlighted section in order to produce a slightly obscure squared shape that enhances the communication of the father's description.
In this idea, the same principles have been applied from the first, however, the remaining text which appears after the father's description has been left aligned into one wide column which continues down the page, rather than working around the highlighted section like the first. This has been done in order to represent the individual tombstone of the father lying next to his description, with the white space underneath representing 'empty space' and Pip's loss of his father which has left a gap in his family.
Giving myself this tasked has helped me put some of the researched typesetting principles into practice, showing the different effects of text alignments, spacing and shapes, for example. Ideas such as these could be transferred into work towards a final outcome in typesetting my essay in interesting ways, but ones which do not come a cross too overpowering and illegible, since the main argument of my essay was that subjective design still holds a function and purpose in communicating specific messages.
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