DIY: Prada Marfa Sign a la Gossip Girl, Part I

5:00 PM

I've never seen Gossip Girl. I know there's a Serena Something and a Blair Waldorf prancing around NYC with pretty girl problems, however, I have yet to indulge in the show. But when I saw this Prada Marfa sign from the set I was kind of obsessed. Not only do I consider Miuccia Prada one of my biggest inspirations, but Marfa is a city in Texas, my home state. Internet searches led me to various versions ranging from the horribly inauthentic typefaces via Etsy to the perfect image on stretched canvas going for $500 plus shipping.

Being the (low-income) perfectionist I am and my love for typography, I was not about to get some cheap ass Etsy print and call it a day. I took a walk down the street to Utrecht Art Supply (where they were having a sale) and $45 later I was on my way to Marfa.


 I found the largest Prada logo I could, stretched the hell out of it, printed one letter per page, and refined the pixelated edges by tracing the letters onto graphing paper. Then I took a Sharpie to contact paper and traced the outline of the letters again. I did this so when I inevitably screwed up cutting the letters with an Xacto knife I could easily go back to my original (uncut) sketches and trace a new one. I made several versions of each letter, 2 P's, 2 R's, 3 A's, and 3 D's for the logo alone. I'm not going to lie, this is a pretty intense project. It will take at least, several hours depending on your Xacto skills, level of perfectionism, materials, etc. It took two hours for me to hand cut 7 of the 10 stencils I've created for the logo.





My knees ached from cutting on the floor and my hands cramped from wielding that tiny little knife, but there was something strangely fun about it all. Typography is one of my favorite elements of design and playing with the nuances, the corners, and the curves again really got me going. It's pretty elating to be working on something I'm so innately passionate about. I'm only a few hours into this project, but follow Style Wire on Instagram (@style_wire) and Twitter  (@style_wire) to see my progress and don't forget to check back for the final result!


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