Katie_Schneider_Monogram_Process_Book

Project I: 

Monogram

Katie Schneider 

Monogram 

As I learned about Sun Ra, the 

biggest parts of his personality that 

I was interested in portraying was 

his career in jazz and his obsessive 

love for space. 

TO ME: 

Jazz is: 

Flowy, irregular, and in your face, chaos 

Space is: 

Abstract, minimal, controlled, stark, cold 

I felt that these two aspects of his personality didn’t 

match up for me. I wanted to incorporate both of 

them into my monogram. 

2 

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Research & Discovery: 

As I was looking at some of the posters that were 

made for his band, the type was either sharp, 

angular and thin strokes, or thick, irregular shapes. 

I started to play with the contrast of strokes within 

the S and R. 

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Some of my 

preliminary sketches. 

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Monogram Refinement: 

The 4 monogram designs that I 

settled on for the first round: 

I focused on the simplicity that I associate 

with space. It reminded me more of a 

signature. The mark was simple, strong and 

sure. It was delicate and curved. 

I focused on the elegance of being an artist. 

I was trying to combine the contrast between 

the strokes and subtlety of space and poetry 

and music. 

This one I tried to convey the fluidity of jazz. 

This one, I tried to simplify the letters 

down into the shapes that make them and 

emphasized the contrast. 

As I started to refine my monogram, I was 

interested in abstracting the S and R, exaggerating 

the contrast between thick and thin strokes, and 

incorporating the movement of jazz into my design. 

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The monogram designs that I 

explored in round 2: 



For the second round we were supposed to add 

in color. Looking back I should have given more 

thought to how the color could enhance my 

monogram. It was very stuck in my head that it 

looked really good in black and white, so adding 

color was difficult. 

I got feedback that the leg of the R on both of my 

main designs was getting lost, and because of that 

it wasn’t reading as an R and it was getting lost 

when the monogram was 1”x1”. It needed to be 

thicker. 

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For my next round of refinement of my monogram, 

I was trying to resolve my issues with the R being 

legible while at the same time trying to simplify the 

shapes that make up the monogram. 

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Preliminary Business Card: 

These are the two designs that I focused for the business card. I had 

been very attached to the two designs on the left originally, but the 

two on the right were also intriguing because of the movement and 

the negative space in the middle between the S and R. 

I spent most of my time, and my focus, on the Monogram. So when 

it came to the business card I struggled to give up the spotlight on 

the monogram and try to incorporate it into the point of the business 

card. I also originally struggled with adding the colors to the card. 

All of my original business cards were very generic, which doesn’t 

reflect who Sun Ra was. 

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When it became available to 

change the size of the business 

card to be different from 3.5”x2”. 

I changed the size of my card 

to be 2.5”x3”, because my 

monogram was a square and I 

was struggling to pit it onto the 

card at normal size. 

I was still struggling to 

incorporate the monogram 

into something else to make 

the card work. I still wanted the 

monogram to be center stage. 

I did some more research into some of the posters 

that were made for Sun Ra’s Band and some of 

their album covers for color inspiration. As well 

as some inspiration for what typeface would 

complement my monogram. 

I tried changing small subtle 

things about the monogram to 

make the back of the card, but it 

just wasn’t working very well, it 

just looked like I had slapped the 

monogram on and made it big to 

go off the edges. 

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Refinement: 

I originally just had a common sans serif typeface 

(Neutraface 2 Text) that all of the information 

on the card was in. I knew that I wanted a sans 

serif typeface, but I was still looking for one that 

had high contrast in stroke weight to mimic my 

monogram. 

I found this typeface, Barge, on TypeKit: 

Sun Ra 

I wanted to incorporate this 

typeface into my design. I was still 

struggling to make the front of 

the card, with the information, to 

be creative, and Avant Garde, like 

Sun Ra. But my professor thought 

that The idea of putting the 

monogram within the A of RA was 

a good idea and maybe it should 

be on the back. 

So I fiddled around with Sun Ra’s 

name being on the back as well 

as the monogram. Having the 

whole name seemed as if I just 

slapped the name one and didn’t 

design it. So I attempted to put 

only the last name on it. 

Because of the verticality of my 

new design I switched back to the 

normal business card size, 3.5” 

by 2”. 

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For the front of the card, I had to completely start over because it 

was now a different size. I got feedback that the asymmetrical Sun 

Ra looked good and was sized correctly for the card, but that the 

alternating alignment of the information was making distracting 

negative shapes. 

I then edited the shape of the R and A in illustrator 

so that it would take up the full page. 

So I realigned everything to the left side and started to move the 

information around, so that Sun Ra wasn’t at the top. The size and 

color hierarchy would draw the eye to Sun Ra first. I wanted to keep it 

simple because I seemed to really be struggling to set the type well. 

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Final Touches: 

I finally settled on having the profession above of Sun Ra and the 

information underneath. When I put the back next to the front, I 

decided that I wanted to make the type line up with the top of the A. 

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Washington University in St. Louis 


Typograpy II 

2018

Katie_Schneider_Monogram_Process_Book

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