Thick by Alexis Demetriou

Ed Benguiat, A man of letters - 30 Under 30 Sean McCabe

SEAN MCABE It all started with hand lettering. But that’s a long story (you can scroll down to read the extended version). The short version is I spent 9,000 hours practicing a skill, got to the point where I was working with large clients, charging five-figure rates, and selling physical products with my own designs and shipping out orders every single day. As well as this was going, the vast majority of my audience wanted to learn how to do what I did! I launched a course teaching people how to make a living as a hand lettering artist. It made six figures in the first three days. The next year, I did it again: Learn Lettering 2.0 also made six figures—this time in 26 hours. I’ve gone on to teach many different courses on varying topics related to business and repeatedly achieving five and six-figure launches again and again with my systematized approach. As much as I enjoyed design, what I’ve found I enjoy most is helping other people make a living from work that fulfills them.

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A Tale of Too Many Passions Narrowing my focus led to the greatest increase in exposure I’d ever experienced. Now that I’ve learned firsthand what works, I’m on a mission to teach as many people as possible how to find what they love to do and make a living from it. I have a lot of passions. Maybe you can relate. You’re good at a lot of things, you have many skills and a plethora of interests. So did I. I’ve done everything from fixing and reselling PDAs on eBay as a 12-year-old, to running a profitable computer repair business with residential and commercial clients and contracts in my later teens, to running a partnership web firm, and even playing piano and guitar full time in a band.

I wasn’t getting anywhere. My exposure wasn’t increasing, my audience wasn’t growing, and I wasn’t getting recognition for any of my work. I was working extremely hard and putting in long hours and it felt like I was just spinning my wheels. It felt like I was running in place, going nowhere fast. I had shiny object syndrome. I had it bad. But how could you fault me when I so thoroughly enjoyed doing all of those things? Not only that, but I was good at every single one of them. Darn good. http://seanwes.com/about/

You Are More Than What You Do Screen Print 18x24 )Sean McCabe)

I wanted to do everything. I did do everything. I did logo design, user interface, animation, videography, illustration, icon design, screencasts, audio production, coding, and I shared it all. I was good at all of it too. Not just good, but I was obsessed with being the best at whatever I did.But there was a problem.

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Show Up Every Day for Two Years A dormant passion of mine was hand lettering. I used to draw letters in middle school before I even knew what the word “typography” was. I’d spend more time writing “Lesson 32” at the top of my schoolwork than I did on the actual lesson. It wasn’t that I got bad grades (I actually got really good grades), but just that I was so obsessed with how the letters looked. Years later, I found out lettering was a real thing, and typography a respected trade. I started practicing. I was obsessed. At the time, I was in the web firm my business partner and I started. We were regularly working 10 hours a day, trying to get traction with our new firm. After work, I spent between 6–8 hours a night, every single night, 7 days a week practicing lettering. I did this for two years.

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I shared my work publicly for two years and only a few people cared. No one really noticed. Then they did. When it was happening, it didn’t exactly feel like it changed overnight, but in retrospect it seems like it did.

“I’ve made it my goal to demystify the path to building a sustainable, profitable, audience-driven business.”

-Sean McCabe

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Type Tips Avoid bad punctuation and typecrimes at your new job, who needs that type of attention?

13 Typographic Faux Pas Bad

line breaks

in headlines

and body text.

Strokes which encroach upon letterforms. Large AMOUNT OF BODY COPY IN UPPERCASE letters. Failing to use accent marks. Rivers in justified

text.

Negative letter spacing.

Indenting the first paragraph.

Stacking lowercase

l e t t e r s Incorrectly abbreviating . am and pm ( a.m or am).

Indenting a paragrpah too Far.

Underlining titles instead of Italicizing them. Inconsistent leading.

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Heros

Ed Benguait

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Edward Benguiat got acquainted with design and showcard lettering when he was nine years old. His father was display director at Bloomingdale’s and he had all the drawing tools a little boy could want. Edward would play with his father’s pens, brushes, and drafting sets, and learned about sign painting, showcard and speedball lettering.

Typefaces: ITC Barcelona ITC AVANT GARDE GOTHIC® FONT FAMILY (ITC LIBRARY) ITC Avant Garde Gothic ITC BENGUIAT® FONT FAMILY (ITC LIBRARY) ITC Benguiat ITC BOOKMAN® FONT FAMILY (ITC LIBRARY) ITC Bookman ITC CASLON NO. 224™ FONT FAMILY (ITC LIBRARY) ITC Caslon No. 224

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Ed received the usual education. During World War II, he wasn’t old enough to enter the armed service, so with a forged photostat of his birth certificate, he enlisted in the Army. After his stint in the Air Corps he traded his airplane control stick for drumsticks and continued the burgeoning percussionist career he had started before the war. Ed became established as a talented progressive Jazz musician under the name Eddie Benart, and played with numerous big bands such as Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill and Woody Herman, but preferred the New York gigs on 52nd Street, particularly at The Three Deuces. “It kept me in town; going on the road with big bands was a drag, and tough.” During that time a Metronome magazine poll picked Ed as the number three sideman/ drummer in America. At the School of Visual Arts—where about thirty years ago Silas Rhodes gave him a job—Ed compares graphic design and typography to the rhythm and balance of a musical composition. While playing on 52nd Street, Ed made use of the G.I. Bill and enrolled at the Workshop School of Advertising Art. He wanted to draw nudes like some of the well-known illustrators. His drawing teacher advised him to quit. Benguiat persisted. His first job as an illustrator was as a cleavage retoucher for a movie magazine. “You might think I was adding to the bust. No way! I was taking the cleavage

away,” he said, indicating the reaction of the motion picture industry to the crackdown on obscenity in movies. It was obvious that Ed couldn’t draw too well, so he went in the direction of layout, design, typography, and calligraphy. He became Paul Standard’s prodigy. Once out of school, Ed established an impressive career as a designer and art director at a number of large and small publishing houses, studios, and ad agencies. Opening his own firm did not take too long. Enter Photo-Lettering Inc. and Ed Ronthaler. They saved Ed’s life financially by making him art director. One way or another, just about everyone in the graphic community has had some contact with Ed. He’s a neighborhood guy. Admittedly, most know him as the guy who sat in his cramped, cluttered office on 45th Street that had just enough room to swing his pen or brush. Benguiat’s impact on the type community involves more than just design. He played a critical role in establishing The International Typeface Corporation, the first independent licensing company for type designers. Ed and ITC jump-started the type industry in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Founded in 1971 by designers Herb Lubalin, Aaron Burns, and Ed Ronthaler, ITC was formed to market type to the industry. Lubalin and Burns contacted Benguiat, whose first ITC project was working on Souvenir. Originally a singleweight face designed by Morris Fuller Benton in the 1920s, Benguiat redrew it with additional weights and italics. Now, Souvenir is the face everybody loves to hate. It was lTC’s best seller, and Ed did a beautiful job. It’s not his fault it’s become a cliché. -Elisa Halperin http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/ edward-benguiat/

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One way or another, just about everyone in the graphic community has had some contact with Ed. He’s a neighborhood guy. Admittedly, most know him as the guy who sat in his cramped, cluttered office on 45th Street that had just enough room to swing his pen or brush.

designs or redesigns of the logotypes for Esquire, The New York Times, McCall’s, Reader’s Digest, Photography, Look, Sports Illustrated, The Star Ledger, The San Diego Tribune, Garamond AT&T, A&E, Estée Lauder, U&lc…the list goes on and on. You name it, he’s done it.

Benguiat’s impact on the type community involves more than just design. He played a critical role in establishing The International Typeface Corporation, the first independent licensing company for type designers. Ed and ITC jump-started the type industry in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Founded in 1971 by designers Herb Lubalin, Aaron Burns, and Ed Ronthaler, ITC was formed to market type to the industry. Lubalin and Burns contacted Benguiat, whose first ITC project was working on Souvenir. Originally a singleweight face designed by Morris Fuller Benton in the 1920s, Benguiat redrew it with additional weights and italics. Now, Souvenir is the face everybody loves to hate. It was lTC’s best seller, and Ed did a beautiful job. It’s not his fault it’s become a cliché.

Benguiat has a beef. It’s that too many young designers substitute technology for talent. “Too many people think that they’ve got a Mac and they can draw a logo or a typeface. You have to learn to draw first. The computer won’t do it for you”. Although he laments that student designers show more interest in learning the computer than mastering the art of designing letterforms, Benguiat is growing optimistic about the technology behind computer-assisted type design.

Ed became a partner with Lubalin in the development of U&lc, lTC’s award-winning magazine, and the creation of new typefaces such as Tiffany, Benguiat, Benguiat Gothic, Korinna, Panache, Modern No. 216, Bookman, Caslon No. 225, Barcelona, Avant Garde Condensed, and many more. This added to the more than 400 faces he’d already created for Photo-Lettering. With Herb Lubalin Ed eventually became vice president of ITC until its sale to Esselte Ltd. Ed continues to design faces for lTC, including, most recently, Edwardian Script. He is also known for his

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Professor Benguiat is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a past president of the Type Directors Club. In 1990, he received the gold medal for excellence from the New York Type Directors Club, and won the prestigious Fredric W. Goudy Award. Benguiat continues a busy lecture and exhibit circuit that takes him to Paris, Berlin, Brazil, Slovenia, London, Chicago, Washington, and New York, where he is an instructor at The School of Visual Arts. In 1995, SVA honored him with Teacher of the Year. -Elisa Halperin http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/ edward-benguiat/

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30 30 I started drawing when I was about 3 years old. Ever since I could pick up a pencil, there was no stopping me from my creativity. I started then taking actual art classes in elementary school all the way to highschool, taking the most art classes I could take. When I graduated High School, I earned an art diploma of taking the most art classes possible and that’s when I knew I needed more art in my life. I decided to join Farmingdale Sate College’s Visual Communication Program for the 4 years I would be at college. With my major I eventually want to join a company. I have done many internships in the graphic design field and know exactly thats what I wanna do.

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Top Young Graphic Designers to watch out for Alexis Demetriou

My dream job would be to work in the city for a big Advertising Agency and make my mark in the world. Sometimes I have my doubts about being an artist because this world is a cruel, cruel world. But I hold my head high and work my butt off to get where I am today. I love art and I wouldn’t want to do anything else for the rest of my life. There is always a sense of magic when I create a piece that inspires others or blows them away. MY favorite thing in the world is when someone says to me “Did you sriously do this?’” and thats when I completly fell in love with art and knew I had to do it for life.

Open your

Swiss Type Design Poster: “Open Your Mind Before Your Mouth” Created: Alexis Demetriou Dimensions: 11x17 in

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Type Specimen: “Be a Pop of Color in a Wolrd of Black and White” Created: Alexis Demetriou Dimensions: 11x17 in

a pop of

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Typefaces or fonts

New Type

Some new designs with an old twist.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE MONOSPACE UNICASE TYPE FONT AND FACE

THE OLD WEST ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890 abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz !?,."" DESIGNED BY ALEXIS DEMETRIOU

MONOSPACED FONT A monospaced font, also called a fxed-pitch width or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts to variable-width fonts, where the letters differ in size to one another. The frst monospaced typefaces were designed for typewriters, which could only move the same distance forward with each letter typed.

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Typefaces or fonts

New Type

Some new designs with an old twist.

UNICASE FONT A unicase font is one that has no case, the glyps from upper and lower case are combined to form one alphabet. It is believed that all alphabets were once unicase. Bradbury Thompson’s plan for simplifying and improving our alphabet was, “Alphabet 26”, his project to combine upper and lowercase letters into one consistent set of letters, eradicated most of the lowercases, except for a, e, m and n.

altes blut my monospaced uicase type face and font.

uN solveD my moNospaceD unicAse ty pe Face and foNT

a k t 4

b l u 5

c d e f g h i j m n o p q r s v w x y z 1 2 3 6 7 8 9 ! ? Designed by Sean McDermott

ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 desiGneD By ChRistiNa OkuLA

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