Natalie Snodgrass

On the surface, this piece examines the fad of the Mid-Atlantic accent, an acquired accent popular in the early 20th century. However, through this fad, we can see an examination of what language is and how, below the surface of a thing we all take for granted every day, there is a complex structure to how we form words and sound. This complexity is juxtaposed with the basic nature we associate with learning to speak. 

This piece was awarded acceptance into the International Society of Typographic Designers, 2017 and featured in Form Design Magazine, no. 278.

Building Modularity was created over a week-long workshop with Jessica Barness, exploring the practice of critical making. Based on ideas of modular typography, a stencil for experimenting with modular type across multiple scripts was developed, laser cut, and user tested.

Read the accompanying abstract here.

Poster series designed for the 2015 Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.

Simple graphics and flattened dimensional elements play with the idea of sculpture and three-dimensionality pivotal to Ai Weiwei's practice. 

Moloch is a serif text typeface created to communicate the expressive nature of the Beat Generation, and more specifically the writings of Allen Ginsberg. With the main purpose of being used in print for poetry and books, it aims to be honest, modern, and indicative of the Beat counterculture movement. 

Moloch receives its namesake from an ancient Canaanite deity associated with the practice of child sacrifice. The name derives from combining the consonants of the Hebrew melech (“king”) with the vowels of boshet (“shame”). Ginsberg’s proclamation of “Moloch!” in his 1956 poem Howl is a perfect representation of how the Beat Generation viewed their modern circumstances. The typeface Moloch represents their outcry.

Engage Cleveland! is a Cleveland company focused on career development for young adults. This branding reflects the youth and vibrance the company aims to bring to the employment process.

Notes on the Process is a self-reflective evaluation on the processes of designing Devanagari and Inuktitut scripts. Research on the 2 cultures, writing systems, and typographic details was conducted in the Fall of 2017, which culminated in the design of both Devanagari and Inuktitut letterforms, as well as this book.

Marbled paper created in Summer 2015 at the Morgan Conservatory of Papermaking, Cleveland, Ohio. 

Anaheim is a typeface undertaken as part of Independent Contractor work with Google Fonts in the Summer of 2017. Work completed during that time included shape correction and redesign, expansion to 5 weights, and kerning.

InOurTime.GIF is a project completed at Camberwell College of Art commenting on the program In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. The intention was that each .gif might help to explain a key concept, introduce an episode, encourage someone to listen to the episode, challenge one of the ideas within, or simply provide a poetic response to the ideas discussed in it. Episodes chosen were: The Decline and Fall of Avant-Garde in the 20th Century, Childhood, Guilt, Dante's Inferno, and Drugs.

The complete collection of classwork can be viewed here.

Featured on Grafik here.

Invigorate, an identity for TypeCon, explores creative play across the graphic design discipline. The name is about creative invigoration; learning to imbue design work with fun and play. The central theme of the identity and conference programming asks how creativity in design professions is changing, and how experimental making can play a role in creating more meaningful designed objects.

LOIS, which stands for Linguistic Operative Illustration System, is a traveling participatory workshop and exhibition. LOIS aims to show audiences that there is purpose, method, and thought behind the simple shapes, compositions, and ways of making for modern and conceptual dine artists. It tears down the stigma of "I could have made that" and repositions conceptual art in its rightful place as thoughtful, introspective, and beautiful.

LOIS works by inviting users to input a message, which is then translated into a set of symbols and printed onto a tapestry using a large scale drawing machine. The tapestries are hung in the exhibition space, where visitors may muse and even translate the work if they wish.

Brutal Estates is a digital archival collection that houses architectural photography of Brutalist UK council estates. Through its content, the website explores the history, architectural value, social significance, and political connotations of these areas.

Blackbird Baking Company is a local bakery in Lakewood, Ohio. The company's focus on artisanal and high-quality baked goods is inspiration for the visual style of this branding suite.

Ohio City Farm is a contiguous urban farm strongly connected to the local community, selling to businesses around the area and attracting community volunteers. This multi-page report uses an illustrative visual theme attracts the audience to the content and enforces the concept of the juxtaposition between rural and urban settings. 

Various letterpress works, 2015-2017

A strong conceptual illustration with a powerful connection to the story of Jane Eyre takes inspiration from the elaborate ornamentation of the Gothic era and dramatic nature of the book. Elegant features also connect further to the book's motifs and the aesthetics of the period.