The block letters clearly indicate the word ‘Melbourne’. The text describes where the bikes belong. The font used is Glaser Stencil, designed by Milton Glaser, an American graphic designer in 1970. Glaser Stencil is a very clean, contemporary geometric sans serif. The negative space between the letters adds interest and attracts the viewers’ attention, as people naturally fill in the missing parts (grouping shapes together). The block letters are very functional and have been used on about everything from posters advertising a jazz record label to a series of art books. Similar stencil fonts have been used in the military, for directional signs, Boston Police and fire department logos. The retro font has stayed in fashion and is still a modern and stylish font. Glaser has designed a simple but bold font; all the letters are: capital, sit on the baseline, have no tails or serifs.
The word ‘Melbourne’ has been applied on the metal structure of the bike with a stencil. White and blue gloss paint has been used. The shiny, smooth format is streamlined and perfect for outdoor weather conditions. The solid blue tone is a conservative, calming eye-catching colour, which is ideal for Melbourne city environment. The solid blue seems fresh and new. The blues calming feeling relates to the experience of riding a bike and it is a great base for the white text.
The reason for the bikes is to improve transport. The bikes are aimed for commuters, residents, students, and visitors to inner Melbourne. With 51 bike stations and 600 ‘Melbourne share bikes’ situated around the Melbourne CBD these bikes can be seen just about anywhere in the city outdoors. This particular typeface example has been chosen for its stand out type and Melbourne share bikes are a great improvement to our city. Once again the designer’s typography is extremely successful as it is clear, simple, interesting and can be seen easily in its location.
Swoon, a modern day Kathe Kollwitz Swoon (real name Caledonia Dance Curry) was born in New London, Connecticut in 1978 and moved to New York aged 19. She started doing street art around 1999. She specialises in life-size wheat-paste prints and paper cutouts. She depicts people she meets, friends and family.
Kathe Kollwitz was born 1867, in
Kaliningrad, Russia. She studied art in Berlin and was appointed a female professor at the Prussian Academy in 1919. She often worked with lithographs and woodcuts to embrace the victims of poverty, hunger and war. 1 Artist profile.
Figure 1: Kathe Kollwitz 1867-1945 (sourced from www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
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ontemporary artist Swoons artwork is heavenly inspired by historical artist Kathe Kollwitz work a German Expressionist. Both Swoon and Kollwitz artwork involve print making and focus on people, Although Swoon is more interested on the beauty and culture of her subjects. Whereas Kollwitz depicts through her subjects a sadder story of human condition and the tragedy of war. Swoon stencils ordinary people, often women and children. Animals, nature, and architecture also feature in Swoons work. She explores her subject matter with patterns and colours creating an exotic style. The patterns and other components in her work also relate to the subjects heritage and culture. Kollwitz depicted similar people, but they tend to be much unhappier. As her husband was a medical professional, she had direct contact with the industrial working class, who were her husband’s patients. These people are the subjects of much of her work.
Figure 2 street artist Swoon and her instillation at the Metro Gallery, Armadale. Photo: Rodger Cummins
Swoon uses block prints and mixed media techniques. Her wheat-paste prints are large-scale reproductions of her drawings. Swoon also hand-paints each image with warm earth tones, after printing them using a linoleum block. She crafts her artwork from newspaper, tissue paper, tracing paper, paint, cardboard, plastic and remnants of abandoned furniture. She carefully considers the positive and negative space when using and arranging cut-paper and prints. Like Swoon, Kollwitz’s created prints, her principle medium is lithographs and woodcuts. She also has done painting, sculpture, drawing, etching and printmaking, however she didn’t combine different mediums like Swoon. Kollwitz preferred lithographs as it allowed her to work mainly in black and white, while also allowing her to make many prints at once. As Cassie Scerbos blogged “She appreciated the raw effect and sharp contrasts, feeling that her message was better portrayed in this way.”
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Swoons instillations have been collected by ‘The Museum of Modern Art’ and ‘The Brooklyn Museum of Art’. Major pieces have appeared at ‘Black Rat Press’. Although her artwork is mostly seen on walkways, bus shelters, subway passages, street signs, trains or uninhabited locations such as abandoned buildings, bridges, fire escapes and water towers, in the United States and abroad. She relates her artwork to its environment in which it will stand. By considering the textures, colours and size of the space, the cut paper and prints work cohesively in their location. Swoon has had much more freedom in sharing her art with the community compared to Kollwitz. Kollwitz’s first exhibition was in Soviet Union in 1924. But after Kollwitz involvement in political art, there began conflict with Germany’s harsh regulations and Kollwitz was banned by Hitler in 1936, from showing her work in Germany. During 1939 all of her works were removed from the museums and galleries. In 1943 her home was bombed by the British. Much of her artwork was destroyed. The artwork that has survived is now hung proudly in several galleries, for example ‘The Gallery of Ontario’.
and repetitive shapes. The viewer’s eye is taken around the print by the guiding lines and shapes. There are even arrow patterns to easily direct the onlookers gaze to the subjects. The intense colours and line contrasts are admirable. Kollwitz’ ‘Woman in the lap of death’ also demonstrates her ability to render with perfection. Similar to ‘Switchback sisters’ Kollwitz has purposely positioned the two figures central, but contrasting to Swoon; surrounded them with little detail. Everything in the composition is concentrated on the figures facial expressions. The biggest difference in the two artworks is their feeling and message they express. Most noticeable is their inclusion or exclusion of colour. For ‘Switchback Sisters’ the mixture of densely patterned paper gives a rich exotic flavour. Swoon often includes a lot of vibrant colours and patterns to express fun, cultural and interesting people or places. Whereas because Kollwitz has been around death and suffering of war she uses minimal colour, and uses art to express her own sadness and difficulties. In ‘Woman in the lap of death’ it is lyrical and shares a feeling of suffering. From the
Swoon and Kollwitz are well known for their advanced line work which often sculpts their subjects, giving them, expression and character. There is a wheat-paste print in East London (figure 3) which demonstrates Swoon’s line rendering. The thin lines create delicateness to the face. Kollwitz has the same technique of crosshatching and line rendering (example shown in figure 4). The difference is in the age and feeling of the subject. In figure 3 the eyes are youthful and open and in figure 4 the face is aged and the eyes seem hollow. There is also often a sense of direction in their pieces, for example in Swoons ‘Switchback Sisters’, it is full of movement because of the line variations
faces sadness, hollowness and elimination of colour we instinctively know that this is someone who has lost everything. It is interesting how both artists use such a similar technique of creating their art, focus on similar aesthetics and interest in the humanistic, but the message and reason for making the work is very different. The time period and their location affected the feelings that are portrayed. For Swoon her work expresses and shows beauty of people and for Kollwitz it was a way to deal with tragedy and to gain awareness for those in need.
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Figure 3: wheat-paste prints, located in East London, captured by Shoreditch. Figure 4: Self-portrait of Kathe Kollwitz, woodcut (1923)
bibliography • Zigrosser, C. (1969). Prints and Drawings of Käthe Kollwitz. America: Dover Publications • Swoon (2008). Swoon (Graffiti artist). New York: Deitch Projects • Scerbos, C. (2010). Kathe Kollwitz - A Political Creator. Retrieved August 19, 2012 from www.angelfire.com • The mothers (1921), poverty (1893), call of death (1924). Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Women in Art. Retrieved August 18, 2012 from www.mystudios.com/ • Exherbition visit- Curator speech and Swoon’s exhibition opening at metro gallery, Armadale (2011) Figure 5: ‘Switchback Sisters’ (2008), Photo: Lorenzo Palmeri
• Figure 1: article written by John Simkin. Spartacus Educationa- Kathe Kollwitz. Retrieved August 22, 2012 from www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk • Figure 2: Cummins, R.(2011). Fishing line, tacks and imagination. Retrieved August 19, 2012 from www.theage.com.au • Figure 3: ‘Shoreditch’ -blog name(2011) wheat-paste print, in East London. Retrieved August 20 from www.streetartlondon.co.ukblog • Figure 4: ‘Kraftgenie’ -blog name (2010). self-portrait. Retrieved August 18, 2012 from www.weimarart.blogspot.com.au • Figure 5: Lorenzo Palmeri.(2012). Swoon. Retrieved August 22, 2012 from www.hypocritedesign.com
Figure 6: Woman in the Lap of Death (1921) charcoal on laid paper, Hummer gallery
• Figure 6: Argos Etchings and Paintings gallery (2009). Käthe Kollwitz and Contemporaries. Retrieved August 18, 2012 from www.argos-gallery.com
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d o o f Slow ent m e v o m
Is life passing you by too fast?!
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he Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986, and is now an international association that promotes food and wine culture, but also defends food and agricultural biodiversity worldwide. It opposes the standardisation of taste, defends the need for consumer information and gastronomic traditions, safeguards foods and cultivation and processing techniques inherited from tradition and defend domestic and wild animal and vegetable species. Slow Food boasts 83,000 members worldwide and offices (in order of creation) in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the USA, France, Japan, and Great Britain. Local rootedness and decentralization (plus the ensuing conservation of typicality) - and without forgetting the voluntary nature of its representatives - are the most authentic characteristics of the movement, and the network of contacts it has built over the years represents without doubt its most valuable asset.
Why this sudden rush to slow down?!
I think a lot of people nowdays feel the pace at which we conduct our lives is getting out of hand. We are fortunate to have a high standard of living in Australia and we all possess a great number of time saving gadgets... but what we paradoxically seem to lack is time itself!
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Food is no exception, so when we work long hours, get home tired, pop some processed food into the microwave, eat quickly while watching TV oblivious to taste or texture, then head off to bed, we seem to be missing something from life! Better to take some time out, prepare your food from real, fresh, and healthy ingredients, then sit down and eat slowly, preferably with good company, and retire for the day feeling rested and well. This trend for slower living and a more authentic existence is becoming more and more prominent. Organic foods are gaining a foothold in supermarkets, and local markets and produce seem to be making a come back. In Manly we now have three organic stores, compared to just one a few years ago. In England microbreweries are incredibly popular with hundred’s of small beer producers making quality drink with a local and authentic flavour.
Modern life certainly places an emphasis on speed and fast living, but at what expense? The Slow Food movement encourages you to slow down, take it easy, enjoy your food and life....
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The Slow Food Manifesto Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model. We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods. To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction. A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life. May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency. Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.
Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food. In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer. That is what real culture is all about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. Slow Food guarantees a better future. Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with the little snail as its symbol. Material adapted from the Slow Food movement website. Visit Slow Food or phone Australia toll free 1800 009 684.
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