T is for Tapir

Seeing the nose of this animal got me wondering if there wasn’t a way to use the base of a lower case ‘t’ to create this part.  Not sure it needs the eye, but it does help people get it.

The Tapir belongs to the family of equids which includes horses, rhinos, asses and zebras. However, the tapir was the first of the family and yet they are amongst the most primitive of all the world’s mammals. They hardly changed since they evolved 55 millions years ago. The most threatened species of Tapir are the Mountain Tapir and the Baird Tapir, due to hunting and dwindling habitat by logging. The only hope for these ancient mammals is to be in large nature reserve to be able to survive.

Big thanks to Vince Frost for this Emu design.  The original broke the rules by using more than just the first letter, but the simpler redesign with the larger body feels truer to the shape of the Emu and also only uses two typefaces.  Simple is best.

Big thanks to Vince Frost for this Emu design.  The original broke the rules by using more than just the first letter, but the simpler redesign with the larger body feels truer to the shape of the Emu and would also only use two typefaces.  Simple is best.

A is for Ant

Y is for Yak

Chatting to Guy he thinks we could do Yak in two letters.  There were lots of versions with eyes, but not sure you need them.  Was also some debate about how low the mouth should sit and whether it wouldn’t be better if it wasn’t so condensed.

C is for Crocodile

Another tweet from Gustaborracho.  Nice sense of playfulness, although if push comes to shove i think i still prefer Michael Bow’s alligator.

D is for Dragonfly

Forgot to post this scribble from Gustaborracho that he tweeted.  Be great if there was a way of making it simpler, but using the same ‘D’ for the wings would add to the graphic simplicity.

The polar bear concept was based on an old joke I can’t quite remember, about a polar bear in a snow storm. Here I thought using the white space of the page would be a good way to communicate the animals characteristics. The trick will be to find a P that can suggest the claws and nose, a small counter would be most suitable

I initially came up with an anteater concept, using a highly condensed woodblock capital A. On it’s own it’s a bit too cryptic but Tony suggested that it might be interesting to combine it with the initial ant concept which immediately gives it some context. It makes me smile, and I like that idea of two related animals using A on the same page.

B is for Bison

I’m not sure we have found the right typefaces yet, but like Alex i think this animal can be achieved using just two characters. I wonder if overprinting the head at a lower height, so that one of the eyes lines up with the larger hole in the other letter could work?  This would create more of a shoulder behind, which is a strong feature of the bison.

In the 1800′s hunting, changes in land use and government policies brought the bison near to extinction. In the early 1800′s the bison populationnumbered in the tens of millions. By the end of that century there were fewer than 1,000 left. Today thanks to breeders and conservationists there are around 300,000  bison in North America.

]]> http://almostextinct.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/b-is-for-bison-by-alexander/feed/ 0 testtypography B is for Bison