Calligram Project- Midnight Train

For my calligram project, I chose to use the song "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. This song has been a favorite of mine for years now. The lyrics talk about a boy and a girl who "take the midnight train" which is what inspired me to create a train shape. I created a simple train shape that depicts the front car of a train. The train is moving represented by the smoke coming from the car.

To make the train shape, I took ideas from a simple train drawing I saw online. I didn't want all of the words to be the same size. I wanted there to be originality in my design and have variety to it. I chose to change the font sizes in order to accomplish this goal and make the image more interesting. The smoke I made gray to represent the natural color of most smoke. I decided to make the train blue because in the song it says "midnight train" which makes me think of a dark blue night. I made the window light gray, so it would stand out from the blue and look more closely like a transparent window would. I made the tires and other parts black to stand out from the train car as well and create more variety in more design.

It was difficult at first for me to figure out how to curve the letters how I wanted to around the wheels and such. After I got the hang of manipulating the letters, it was fun to see how I could curve them and make them interesting. I have never done a project like this one before, so I really enjoyed the experience of using the words to make my image. The project took me about 3 hours to complete.