FUNCTION, RESTRAINT, AND SUBVERSION IN TYPOGRAPHY
J. Namdev Hardisty Princeton Architectural Press, New York
TABLE OF CONTENTS
06 A Disclaimer in Four Parts J. Namdev Hardisty
96 Zak Kyes
10 A Practice for Everyday Life
112 MGMT.
22 Blanka interview
120 Mike Mills
26 Browns
128 Rune Mortensen
38 Anthony Burrill
138 Neue
48 Daniel Eatock
146 Project Projects
56 Xavier Encinas
156 Manuel Raeder
62 Experimental Jetset
166 Research and Development
72 Graphic Thought Facility
176 Matthew Rezac
78 Hey Ho
188 SEA
86 Hudson-Powell
194 Spin
In and Out book, 2007 (Author: Jonathan Ellery; Client: Browns Editions) Designed by Browns
108 Manystuff interview
Glass CD, 2009 (Artist: Sissy Spacek; Client: Misanthropic Agenda) Designed by John Wiese
Bassline poster, 1997 (Client: Paradiso) Designed by Experimental Jetset
206 Studio Temp 220 Walker Art Center 232 John Wiese 238 YES 246 Modern Poetry, Relative Poverty and Shimmers Of Hope Experimental Jetset 250 Acknowledgments 252 Biographies
The Violence of Participation book, 2007 (Editor: Markus Miessen; Client: Sternberg Press) Designed by Zak Kyes
Songs of Love & Hate exhibition invitation, 2008 (Client: Ancient & Modern Gallery) Designed by A Practice For Everyday Life
Guy Tillim exhibition advertisement, 2008 (Client: Haunch of Venison) Designed by Spin
Experimental Jetset deal of typographic detailing in terms of hierarchy, scale changes, and color usage—which adds a “fussiness” when compared to the visual brashness that their work has articulated in recent years. The flyers for the hip-hop nightclub Bassline (1997) are where their aesthetic—the combination of form and language—really begins to emerge. ≥04 The Bassline flyers originally began as a riff on Filofax sheets, and a “cold” corporate identity was devised so that that the flyers would read as a mass-produced object. The backsides contain plays on the functions of the Filofax—ruled paper, lined paper, or other types of information holders. These pieces are the first instances of the group working with Modernist forms in a significant way. After all, both the stripped-down information design and the highly recognizable corporate identity were key developments of the International Typographic Style of the sixties and seventies. The front sides of the flyers are pitchperfect replicas of seventies corporate identity with an abstract logo that is open to interpretation. Around 1998 the Bassline flyers changed dramatically. ≥05 Through the introduction of Helvetica Neue Bold, color overlays, and found images that evoke the sixties, they became softer, brighter, and simpler. It’s at this point that they began to find an alternative Modernist form to the colder corporate Modernism they were first experimenting with. While many regarded the reductive visuals and simplified typography of high Modernism as incapable of being anything besides cold and impersonal, Experimental Jetset, like designer Mike Mills at roughly the same time in the United States (see pages 120–27), found within it something friendly and bright, a so-called soft Modernism that was certainly more human than the Postmodern ideology of the time. This work is where we see the Experimental Jetset of today come into frame. Now, rather than using words to advertise the event explicitly, the headlines are free associations—“BassLine. Lemon and Lime.” or ≥05 Bassline flyers, 1998 (Client: Paradiso)
Bassline on Tour poster, 1998 (Client: Paradiso)
Graphic THought FAcility begins with the acknowledgments and table of contents on the inside front cover and a bold title page printed directly on the exposed text block. The book then dives straight into the content with some 225 pages of images before any more text appears. The three different sections of the book—reference material, the artist’s work, and the commentary— are denoted simply by shifting paper stocks. The end result is a traditional-looking book with a radically different physicality. The book I Am A Camera by The Saatchi Gallery (2000) plays with the tension of typography and structure in a similar fashion. ≥04 The captioning system, title page, table of contents, and essay are imagined as independent ideas, unrelated to each other, and is distributed seemingly at random throughout. This becomes a structural device for organizing the book and for highlighting the “real” content—in this case, the photography. The artwork is divided into three sections and begins immediately on the front cover. The other parts of the book—front matter and essay—are printed on a heavier stock so that they function as physical and conceptual dividers. These pages of heavier stock were inserted into the book’s binding as tip-ins, which answered a practical concern—the need to continually update the sequence of the photos based on client feedback and to add new content throughout the process. By separating the dividers from the signatures of the book, reordering of the photography was possible as long as the overall page count didn’t change. GTF regularly confronts ideas about form and format. Because their solutions are so often rooted in the materiality of the piece, their typography is able to remain very traditional without appearing staid. Their radicalism lies deeper than the decision of what to do with the alphabet.
≥02 Pop Art Is ... book, 2007 (Designed with Peter Saville; Client: Gagosian Gallery)
74/75
≼03 Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton book, 2009 (Author: Laura Hoptman; Client: Phaidon)
Hey Ho Mon Heure, like much of Hey Ho’s work for Galaade Éditions, uses extremely thin papers, which allow the other side to show through. Like Experimental Jetset, they are acutely aware of the printed matter as object and work to heighten the experience of it, whether by using the weight of the paper to reveal the grid and structure or by flooding the backsides of posters with a single color. They don’t just consider the printed piece as a twodimensional plane but as three-dimensional object with a front and a backside experienced in space. The cultural journal Particules (Particles), which the firm has designed since 2006, displays much of the tendencies present in their other works. ≥02 But whereas Hey Ho uses white space to allow for visual ease in the Galaade projects, they employ thick black type densely set on text-heavy broadsheets for Particules. In the rare instance that a column isn’t completely filled with text, the show through of the newsprint eliminates any sense of emptiness. Even with the visual heaviness of the individual pages, the overall high-contrast typography still maintains the clarity that marks their design. The work of Hey Ho is a rare thing—few designers work exclusively in typography, and fewer still embark on such an elemental path where influences aren’t readily apparent. But the outcome is a singular body of work with a purity of vision that actually proves to be timeless.
≥02 Particules (Particles) newspaper, 2006 (Client: Particules) above back cover opposite front cover
Zak Kyes
AA Gallery exhibition programs, 2007–9 (Client: AA School of Architecture)