UNIVERSAL TYPOGRAPHY AND DESIGN
Fall 2014
Issue #1
Abundant Rachel Blankenship
Type Casting Steven Brower
Back to Basics John D. Berry
Grooming the Font Robert Bringhurst
Thoughts on Type and Design Stephan Sagmeister
Spot the Difference Emily King
Font Embedding Erik van Blokland
Designing the World We Know Paula Scher
From Type Snob to Macaroni Art Marian Bantjes
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Fall 2014 Issue #1 36 Pages
UNIVERSAL TYPOGRAPHY AND DESIGN
Hello Letter from the Publisher
about the details of typography that are often overlooked and why this must be fixed. Robert Bringhurst outlines the anatomy of a typeface in “Grooming the Font” and gives instructions for the proper way to clean up a typeface. And in our final article “Abundant” I’ll tell you all about a typographic installation that I made with my two friends, Abbey Osley
It’s so good to see you and thank you for being here!
and Monica Stauffer, so that perhaps you can be inspired to
This magazine that you are currently reading is SPACE and
use this knowledge to create your own typographic art and
it is a publication dedicated to all things type and design.
show the world how beautiful type can be.
The goal of this publication is to inform about typography
We also have a selection of columns to inform and
and design and to inspire you to take this knowledge and
inspire you. In three of our columns some prevalent graphic
create something amazing with it. Even the title SPACE re-
designers, including Stephen Sagmeister, Paula Scher and
fers to the idea of space in typography and the way that the
Marian Bantjes, answer questions concerning typography,
graphic designer must mold the space but it also refers to a
methods of creating typographic art, how they got started,
create space, one that we hope you’ll find while reading.
what inspires them and more. Our other two columns, “Spot
To help you find this creative space we’ve provided various articles and columns ranging in topics. This magazine features four articles on various subjects relating to
the Difference” and “Font Embedding” will inform you of comma policies and the perils of publishing fonts online. It is my hope that these articles and columns will give
type. In the first, “Type Casting” Steven Brower takes us
you some new information that will entertain you, engage
through his beginnings in typography and his journey as
you, inform you and inspire you. With that, I salute you as
he learned some basic rules to design by and shares those
move forward through this plethora of type and design; I
rules with us. In “Back to Basics” John D. Barry informs us
wish you good luck and great designs!
Vicent van Gogh Editor in Cheif
Shel Silverstien Managing Editor
Mary Blair Creative Director
Leonardo Da Vinci Executive Director
Georgia O’Keefe Copy Editor
Pablo Picasso Assistant
Cover photo by Abbey Osley
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Manuscript Submission 8217 Emerald Boulevard, Big Windy, South Carolina, 29651-4849, US, (843) 023-4101
Customer Support (860) 585-3957
Thoughts on Type and Design Stephan Sagmeister
Type Casting
Column Column
Font Embedding Back to Basics Designing the World We Know
Cover Article
Column
Article
Spot the Difference
Article
Steven Brower
Column
Article
Column
table of contents
Emily King
Erik van Blokland
John D. Berry
Paula Scher
Grooming the Font Robert Bringhurst
From Type Snob to Macaroni Art Marian Bantjes
Abundant
Rachel Blankenship
4 6 14 15 16 20 22 30 32 3
Thoughts on Type and Design Stephan Sagmeister www.sagmeisterwalsh.com
Your handwriting is very distinctive. Do you consider it to be a typeface? I am not obsessed with typefaces and find the selection of just the right one a rather tedious exercise. Using my handwriting eliminates that process, personalizes the piece and can be interpreted as an anti-computer statement all in one easy move.
The series “Things I have learned in my life so far� is a typographical experiment. How does typography influence the transmission of the message? The message is always very clear and straightforward, the typography much more ambiguous and open for interpretation. I found that by utilizing an open typographic approach combined with the clear message many viewers have an easier time relating their own experience. We do employ various typographic strategies from one project to another (within the series). Some are influenced by the environment they take place in, some by an outside person, some by personal experiences.
What do you think design students should be focused on? They should concentrate to try out as many directions, possibilities and techniques as possible. Even though this can be frustrating in the short term (as few masterpieces will be developed), the freedom to be able to utilize a whole array of strategies will be incredibly helpful as a professional. While in school, I dont think its helpful to use ones time to develop an original formal language, this can all be done later on.
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How would you describe the difference between a
impractical and it can be very difficult to drink from
graphic designer and an artist? You consciously
and it might have other functions than an ordinary
try to exceed the bounds of graphic design, but
water glass, it might have a function of representation
yet you seem very hesitant to take the title of
or it might tell me something about our time, but, in
artist. Why?
the end, in order to qualify as a glass it will also have
Well, I grew up as a designer, trained as a designer,
to hold fluid. And if I design it so wildly that it doesn’t
and always wanted to be a designer. Vienna was a
hold fluid anymore, well, then it becomes a sculpture
good city in which to become a designer in because
and we would have to talk about whether it is a good
there is no real hierarchy between the different
or bad sculpture. But I think functionality is central, and
applied and fine art directions. This is probably a
all of our work has a function even if some of it is quite
holdover from the turn of the last century, when art
removed from the regular promotional or informational
deco was big and the major players consciously did
function that so much graphic design has.
both. Kokoschka made posters, Klimt did murals for commercial use, Hoffman was involved with both design and art, and all lived under the same umbrella. There is a wonderful Donald Judd quote: “Design has to work. Art does not.” Art can just be—it doesn’t really have to do anything—while design will have to function. This glass, for instance, can be extremely
All artwork by Stephen Sagmeister
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Type Casting Rules for good typography and how to break them
Steven Brower
Graphic Designer and Writer
My first job in book design was at New American
standing, in both the literary and design worlds, was
Library, a publisher of mass-market books. I was
the trade paper edition, a misnomer that does not
thrilled to be hired. It was exactly where I wanted
refer to a specific audience within an area of work,
to be. I loved the written word, and viewed this as
but, rather, to the second edition of the hardcover, or
my entrance into a world I wanted to participate in.
first edition, that sports a paperbound cover. Trade
Little did I suspect at the time that mass-market
paperbacks usually utilize the same interior printing
books, also known as “pocket” books 9they measure
as the hardcover, and are roughly the same size
approximately 4” x 7”, although I have yet to wear a
(generally, 6” x 9”).
pocket they fit comfortably into), were viewed in the
Mass-market books were not so lucky. The
design world as the tawdry stepchild of true literature
interior pages of the original edition were shrunk
and design, gaudy and unsophisticated. I came to
down, with no regard for the final type size or the
understand that this was due to the fact that mass-
eyes of the viewer. The interiors tended to be printed
market books, sold extensively in supermarkets
on cheap paper stock, prone to yellowing over time.
and convenience stores, had more in common with
The edges were often dyed to mask the different
soap detergent and cereal boxes than with their
grades of paper used. The covers were usually quite
much more dignified older brother, the hardcover first
loud, treated with a myriad of special effects (i.e.,
edition book. Indeed, the level of design of paperbacks
gold or silver foil, embossing and de-bossing, spot
was as slow to evolve as a box of Cheerios.
lamination, die cuts, metallic and Day-Glo pantone
On the other hand, hardcover books, as if dressed in evening attire, wore elegant and sophisticated jackets. Next in line in terms of
colors, thermography, and even holography), all designed to jump out at you and into your shopping cart as you walk down the aisle. The tradition of
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extend it by hand, which created less distortion but still odd-looking faces. Once, I was instructed by the art director to cut the serifs off a face, to suit his whim. It’s a good thing there is no criminal prosecution for type abuse. The art director usually commissioned the art for these titles. Therefore, the job of the designers was to find the “appropriate” type solution that worked with these illustrations to create the package. It was here that I learned my earliest lessons in the clichés of typography. Mass-market paperbacks are divided into different genres, distinct categories that define their audience and subject matter. Though they were unspoken rules, handed down from generation to generation, here is what I learned about type during my employ: Artwork by Stella Bjorg
mass-market covers had more in common with, and, perhaps, for the most part is the descendant of, pulp magazine covers of earlier decades, with their colorful titles and over-the-top illustrations, than
Typefaces
Genre
Square serif
Western
Script and cursive
Romance
LED faces
Science Fiction
Nueland
African (in spite of the fact that the typeface is of
that of its more stylish, larger, and more expensive cousins.
What I Learned So, when I made my entry into the elite world
Latin
Mystery
Fat, round serif faces Children’s Sans serif
Nonfiction
market house. I believed I would be afforded a good
Hand scrawl
Horror
opportunity to learn something about type and image.
1950s bouncy type
Humor/Teen titles
of literature, I began in the “bullpen” of a mass-
Indeed, in my short tenure there, I employed more display typefaces in a year and a half than I will in the rest of my lifetime. And, I abused type more than I ever dreamed possible. There, type was always condensed or stretched so the height would be greater in a small format. The problem was that the face itself became distorted, as if it was put on the inquisitionist rack, with the horizontals remaining “thick” and the verticals thinning out. Back then, when type was “spec’d” and sent out to a typesetter, there was a standing order at the type house to condense all type for our company 20 percent. Sometimes, we would cut the type and
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German origin)
And so it went. Every month, we were given five to six titles we were responsible for, and every month, new variations on old themes hung up on the wall. For a brief period I was assigned all romance titles, which, themselves, were divided into subgenres (historical, regency, contemporary, etc). I made the conscious decision to create the very best romance covers around. Sure, I would use script and cursive type, but I would use better script and cursive type, so distinctive, elegant, and beautiful that I, or anyone else, would recognize the difference immediately. (When, six months after I left the job, I went to view my achievements at the local K-Mart, I could not
pick out any of my designs from all the rest on the bookracks.) Soon after, I graduated to art director of a small
Eventually, my eye began to develop, and my awareness and appreciate of good typography increased. I soon learned the pitfalls that most
publishing house. The problem was, I still knew
novice designers fall into, like utilizing a quirky
little of and had little confidence in, typography.
novelty face does not equal creativity and usually
However, by this time, I knew I knew little about typography. My solution, therefore, was to create images that contained the type as an integral part of the image, in a play on vernacular design, thereby avoiding the issue entirely. Thus began a
calls attention to the wrong aspects of the solution.
series of collaborations with talented illustrators
quote Eric Gill, as much “as any sculpture or painted
and photographers, in which the typography of the
picture.” I developed an appreciation for the rules of
jacket was incorporated as part of the illustration.
typography.
Mystery books especially lent themselves well to this
The Rules
endeavor. A nice thing about this approach is that it has a certain informality and familiarity with the audience. It also made my job easier, because I did not have to paste up much type for the cover (as one had to do back in the days of t-squares and wax), since it was, for the most part, self-contained within the illustration. This may seem like laziness on my part, but hey, I was busy.
The importance of good letterspacing became paramount. Finding the right combination of a serif and sans serif face to evoke the mood of the material within was now my primary concern. The beauty of a classically rendered letterform now moved me, to
As I’ve said, it is a common mistake among young designers to think a quirky novelty face equals creativity. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If anything, for the viewer, it has the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than being the total sum of individual expression, it simply calls attention to itself, detracting from, rather than adding to, the content of the piece. It is no substitute for a wellreasoned conceptual solution to the design problem at hand.
Artwork by Olivia Steele
As a general rule, no more than two faces should be utilized in any given design, usually the combination of a serif face and a sans serif face. There are thousands to choose from, but I find I have reduced the list to five or six in each category that I have used as a body text throughout my career:
Serif Bodoni Caslon Cheltenham Garamond
Sans Serif Franklin Gothic Futura Gill Sans News Gothic Trade Gothic
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Artwork by Rylsee
You should never condense or extend type. As I stated, this leads to unwanted distortions. Much care and consideration went into the design of these faces, and they should be treated with respect. There are thousands of condensed faces to choose from without resorting to the horizontal and vertical scale functions. Do not use text type as display. Even though the computer will enlarge the top beyond the type designer’s intentions, this may result in distortions. Do not use display type as text. Often, display type that looks great large can be difficult to read when small. Do not stack type. The result is odd-looking spacing that looks as if it is about to tumble on top of itself. The thinness of the letter I is no match for the heft of an O sitting on top of it. As always, there are ways to achieve stacking successfully, but this requires care. Also, as I noted, much care should be given to letterspacing the characters of each word. This is not as simple as it seems. The computer settings for type are rife with inconsistencies that need to be corrected optically. Certain combinations of letterforms are more difficult to adjust than others. It is paramount that even optical (as opposed to actual) spacing is achieved, regardless of the openness or closeness of the kerning. It helps if you view the setting upside down, or backwards on a light box or sun-filled window, or squint at the copy to achieve satisfactory spacing. I would caution you in the judicious use of drop
10
shadows. Shadows these days can be rendered
right. Most books are set justified, while magazines
easily in programs such as Adobe’s Photoshop
are often flush left, rag right. Centered copy will
and Illustrator, and convincingly, too. The problem
appear more relaxed than asymmetrical copy. Large
is, it is so easily done that it is overdone. Thus, the
blocks of centered type can create odd-looking
wholesale usage of soft drop shadows has become
shapes that detract from the copy contained within.
the typographic equivalent of clip art. Viewers know
Another thing to consider is the point size and
they have seen it before. Rather than being evocative,
width of body copy. The tendency in recent times
it mainly evokes the program it was created in.
is to make type smaller and smaller, regardless of
Hard drop shadows, ones that are 100 percent
the intended audience. However, the whole purpose
of a color, are easily achieved in Quark and placed
of text is that it be read. A magazine covering
behind the main text. This method is generally
contemporary music is different from the magazine
employed when the main text is not reading against
for The American Association of Retired Persons.
the background, because of the neutral tone or an
It is also common today to see very wide columns
image that varies in tone from dark to light. The
of text, with the copy set at a small point size. The
handed-down wisdom is: If you need a drop shadow
problem is that a very wide column is hard to read
to make it read, the piece isn’t working. These solid
because it forces the eye to move back and forth, tiring
drop shadows always look artificial, since, in reality,
the reader. On the other hand, a very narrow measure
there is no such thing as a solid drop shadow. There
also is objectionable, because the phrases and
should be a better solution to readability. Perhaps
words are too cut up, with the eye jumping from line
the type should be paneled or outlined. There are an
to line. We, as readers, do not read letter by letter, or
infinite number of possible variations.
even word by word, but, rather, phrase by phrase. A
If you must use a solid drop shadow, it should never be a color. Have you ever seen a shadow in life that is blue, yellow, or green? It should certainly
consensus favors an average of ten to twelve words per line.1 Lastly, too much leading between lines also
never be white. Why would a shadow be 100 percent
makes the reader work too hard jumping from line to
lighter than what is, in theory, casting a shadow?
line, while too little leading makes it hard for the reader
White shadows create a hole in the background, and
to discern where one line ends and another begins.
draw the eye to the shadow, and not where you want
The audience should always be paramount in the
it to go: the text.
designer’s approach, and it is the audience – not the
Justified text looks more formal than flush left, rag
whim of the designer, or even the client – that defines
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the level of difficulty and ease with which a piece is
decade, and, again, after the advent of the Macintosh
read. As Eric Gill said in 1931, “A book is primarily a
computer. Still, Jeffery Keedy, a contemporary type
thing to be read.”2
designer whose work appears regularly in Emigre,
A final consideration is the size of type. As a rule
concurs: “Good designers can make use of almost
of thumb, mass-market books tend to be 8 point for
anything. The typeface is the point of departure, not
reasons of space. A clothbound book, magazine, or
the destination.” Note the caveat “almost.” Still, bad
newspaper usually falls into the 9.5 point to 12 point
use of the good type is much less desirable than
range. Oversized art books employ larger sizes –
good use of bad type.
generally, 14 point to 18 point or more. Choosing the right typeface for your design
When I first began publishing, a coworker decided to let me in on the “secrets” of picking
can be time-consuming. There are thousands to
the appropriate face. “If you get a book on Lincoln
choose from. Questions about. Is the face legible
to design”, he advised, “look up an appropriate
at the setting I want? Does it evoke what I want it to
typeface in the index of the type specimen book.” He
evoke? Is it appropriate to the subject matter? There
proceeded to do so. “Ah, here we go – ‘Log Cabin!’”
are no easy answers. When a student of mine used
While, on the extremely rare occasion, I have found
Clarendon in a self-promotion piece, I questioned
this to be a useful method, it’s a good general rule of
why he chose a face that has 1950s connotations,
what not to do.
mainly in connection with Reid Miles’ Blue note album covers. He answered, “Because I thought it was cool.” I lectured him profusely on selecting type simple based on its “coolness”. Later, I relayed the incident to Seymour Chwast, of the legendary Pushpin Group (formerly Pushpin Studios). He observed that
Notes 1. Eric Gill, “An Essay on Typography” (Sheed and Ward, 1931), p. 136; (Godine, 1988). 2 and 3. Richard Hendel, On Book Design (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Adapted from Publication Design (Delmar Learning, 2004).
Clarendon is actually a Victorian face, which he and his peers revived as young designers in the 1950s. When I asked him why they chose to bring this arcane face back to life, he replied, “Because we
thought it was cool.”
Breaking the Rules Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. An infinite number of faces can be used within one design, particularly when you employ a broadside-style type solution, a style that developed with the woodtype settings of the nineteenth century. Another style, utilizing a myriad of faces, is that influenced by the Futurist and Dada movements of the early twentieth century. As Robert N. Jones stated in an article in the May 1960 issue of Print magazine: “It is my belief that there has never been a typeface that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the ads of the right…designer.”3 Of course, this was before the novelty type explosion that took place later that
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Steven Brower is an American graphic designer, and writer. His work appears regularly in international and national design annuals and books on design, and he writes for several publications. Brower is currently on the faculty of Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. During his tenure as Creative Director at Print, the magazine garnered two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and a Gold and Silver award from the Society of Publication Designers. His work has been honored by AIGA, the Art Directors Club, the American Center for Design, the BRNO Biennale Association, and the Type Directors Club, among others. He has been an art director at the New York Times and The Nation, and his work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
Artworks by Steven Brower
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Spot the Difference Emily King
kingdesignoffice.com
On the left is the cover of the Air album 10 000
to the Air cover is mysterious. Designing the logo,
design group Abäke. On the right is the US version
Abäke have not chosen a font suited for skim reading.
of the same cover, still with logo design and layout by
It takes at least a couple of moments to figure out that
Abäke, but with the intrusion of an uninvited comma.
the last word says ‘legend’ and the ‘hz’ is decipherable
It’s only a little thing, barely visible really, but
only if you know it in advance. Why then make it
since when were logos subject to editing? No one
possible to take in 10,000 at a glance – to stop you
ever tried to full stops between the I, B and M of
confusing it with that other work ‘1,000 hz legend’?
Paul Rand’s famous logo, equally no one capitalised
Abäke themselves are very relaxed about the
the a of abc, another of Rand’s designs. It might
freeloading comma. Not wishing to create a rigid,
have been correct punctuation, but it would have
all-encompassing Air identity scheme and with the
had nothing to do with the workings of a large-scale
belief that meaning slips and slides between cultures
corporate identity. In Rand’s grand schemes letters
anyway, they have taken the view that legislating
are wrenched from their normal place and, through
against this pause would be pointless. But this chilled
design, taken to an alternative location where the
attitude isn’t entirely reflective of the relationship
rules of grammar and punctuation mean little and
between designers and editors. There is many a
corporate value is all. The ambitions of Air and Abäke
struggle between those who want to make meaning
are not equivalent to those of Rand and IBM, but you
clear with full stops, commas and colons and those
get the general idea.
who believe that other graphic and typographic devices
The reason that commas are inserted into
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is obligatory. But obligatory or not, to apply the style
hz legend with logo design and layout by the graphic
do the trick. Eventually it boils down to a difference
numbers is to make them easier to read. In the UK
between reading and looking. Editors may well find it
this style is optional (this magazine does) in the US it
appalling, but not all type is there to be read.
Font Embedding Erik van Blokland
fontshop.com/designers/erik-van-blokland
In 1996 Erik van Blokland relays the problems
licenses for fonts or even policing the networks with
with font embedding, which a decade later has little
font-bots is not going to keep people from taking and
success…
using the fonts they find online. The web needs good
Current proposals to include fonts in the web
graphic design and typography. The web also needs
do not address intellectual property issues properly.
ways to reassure authors of all disciplines and make
Fonts embedded in webpages can be taken out and
them confident their works do not become public
used elsewhere by anyone who wants to. OpenType
domain when published online (unless they want it
does not really change that, it just means another
themselves of course). For fonts that could mean
format that can be taken out with the same ease.
developing a smarter format. Not just another data
Although the companies involved in webfonts, such
structure with points in it, but a real application. Such
as Adobe and Microsoft, talk a lot about ‘protecting
a font can interact with users, perform typographic
intellectual property’, they do not have a clue on how
tricks that were previously unthinkable. The font
to go about it. But they seem to be willing to risk their
would also be able to protect itself and report to the
libraries anyway, by porting existing technology like
owner. When it is tampered with it dies, when it is
PDF to a networked environment. Problems with font
copied it will make its new owner register first. In the
security that might have been acceptable in the office
mean time, HTML support for some form of bitmap
world scale up exponentially on the net and become
fonts (although not perfect) will provide some time to
a threat to the type industry.
develop something better for use on webs and nets
The safety of embedded fonts in current
that satisfies both designers and users of type.
proposals relies mostly on the honesty of the client software. Browser builders are kindly urged to not take advantage of the lack of protection, but that leaves a lot of opportunity to more dubious ‘developers’ to build utilities that suck fonts from webpages and present them in some usable format. It is naive to think this will not happen. Web documents with embedded fonts will cause broadcasting of proprietary typefaces. Although it is possible to think of new structures of payment for typefaces along these lines, there are no concrete proposals in this direction. In contrast, the technology to include fonts in webpages is a reality: though perhaps not available to everybody right now, it works and can be made available to the general public. Embedding is a threat to all type
Artwork by Lauren Hom
manufacturers and type designers. Most of typeface sales are still for printing and other more conventional uses. Broadcasting the same fonts online will affect the conventional market as well. Why buy a font if you got it for free last night? Adapting end-user
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Back to Basics Stopping Sloppy Typography
John D. Berry Editor and Typographer
lookin’ at me?” The style of the letters is traditional,
To anyone with any sensitivity to the shapes of letters, whether they know the terms of typesetting or not, this straight apostrophe is like a fart in a symphony – boorish, crude, out of place, and distracting.
with serifs; it looks like a line of dialogue, which is
The normal quotation marks at the beginning and
exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Since this is a
end of the sentence just serve to make the loud
billboard, and that text is the entire message of the
“blat!” of the apostrophe stand out. If that had been
billboard, it’s a witty comment on the fact that you
the purpose of the billboard, it would have been
are looking at “me” – that is, the message on the
very effective. But unless the billboards along
billboard – as you drive past.
Highway 101 have become scene of an exercise in
There’s billboard along the freeway in San Francisco that’s entirely typographic, and very simple. Against a bright blue background, white letters spell out a single short line, set in quotation marks: “Are you
But, as my partner and I drove past and spotted
typographic irony, it’s just a big ol’ mistake. Really
this billboard for the first time, we both simultaneously
big, and right out there in plain sight.
voiced the same response: “No, I’m looking at your
The Devil is in the Details
apostrophe!” The quotation marks around the sentence are real quotation marks, which blend in with the style of the lettering – “typographers’ quotes,” as they’re sometimes called – but the apostrophe at the end of “lookin’” is, disconcertingly, a single “typewriter quote”, a straight up-and-down line with a rounded top and teardrop tail at the bottom.
Artwork by Dan Roach
This may be a particularly large-scale example, but it’s not unusual. Too much of the signage and printed matter that we read – and that we, if we’re designers or typographers, create – is riddled with mistakes like this. It seems that an amazing number of people responsible for creating graphic matter are incapable of noticing when they get the type wrong.
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This should not be so. These fine points ought to be covered in every basic class in typography, and
You see this in abbreviated dates (‘99, ‘01) and in
basic typography ought to be part of the education
colloquial spellings, like ‘em for them. The program
of every graphic designer. But clearly, this isn’t the
can turn straight quotes into typographers’ quotes
case – or else a lot of designers skipped that part of
automatically, making any quotation mark at the start
the class, or have simply forgotten what they once
of a word into an open quote, and any quotation mark
learned about type. Or, they naively believe the
at the end of a word into a closed quote, but it has no
software they use will do the job for them.
way of telling that they apostrophe at the beginning
Maybe it’s time for a nationwide – no, worldwide – program of remedial courses in using type.
Automated Errors As my own small gesture toward improvement, I’ll point out a couple of the more obvious problems – in the hope that maybe, maybe, they’ll become slightly less commonplace, at least for awhile. Typewriter quotes and straight apostrophes are
of ‘em isn’t supposed to be a single open quote, so it changes it into one. The only way to catch this is to make the correction by hand – every time.
Anemic Type The other rude noise that has become common in the symphony hall is fake small caps. Small caps are a wonderful thing, very useful and sometimes
actually on the wane, thanks to word-processing
elegant; fake small caps are a distraction and an
programs and page-layout programs that offer
abomination.
the option of automatically changing them to
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backwards, as a single open quotation mark.
Fake caps are what you get when you use a
typographers’ quotes on they fly. (I’, not sure what
program’s “small caps” command. The software
has made the phenomenon I spotted on that billboard
just shrinks the full-size capital letters down by a
so common, but I’ve noticed a lot of examples
predetermined percentage – which gives you a bunch
recently of text where the double quotation marks
of small, spindly-looking caps all huddled together in
are correct but the apostrophes are straight.) But
the middle of the text. If the design calls for caps and
those same automatic typesetting routines have
small caps – that is, small caps for the word but a
created another almost universal mistake: where
full cap for the first letter – it’s even worse, since the
an apostrophe at the beginning of a word appears
full-size caps draw attention to themselves because
they look so much heavier than the smaller caps
at least should) with a word in all caps; it makes the
next to them. (If you’re using caps and small caps to
word much more readable.
spell out an acronym, this might make sense; in that
Pay Attention, Now
case, you might want the initial caps to stand out. Otherwise, it’s silly. (And – here comes that word again – distracting.) If it weren’t for a single exception, I’d advise everyone to just forget about the “small caps” command – forget it ever existed, and never, ever, touch it again. (The exception is Adobe InDesign, which is smart enough to find the real small caps in an OpenType font that includes them, and use them when the “small caps” command is invoked. Unfortunately, InDesign isn’t smart enough, or independent enough, to say, “No, thanks,” when you invoke “small caps” in a font that doesn’t actually
There are plenty of other bits of remedial typesetting that we ought to study, but those will do for now. The obvious corollary to all this is,
to produce well-typeset words, whether in a single phrase on a billboard or several pages of text, you have to pay attention. Proofread. Proofread again. Don’t trust the defaults of any program you use. Look at good typesetting and figure out how it was done, then do it yourself. Don’t be sloppy. Aim for the best. Words to live by, I suppose. And, certainly, words to set type by.
have any. It just goes ahead and makes those familiar old fake small caps.) You don’t really need small caps at all, in most typesetting situations; small caps are a typographic refinement, not a crutch. If you’re going to use them, use a real small caps: properly designed letters with the form of caps, but usually a little wider, only as tall as the x-height or a little taller, and with stroke weights that match the weight of the lowercase and the full caps of the same typeface. Make sure you’re using a typeface that has true small caps, if you want small caps. Letterspace them a little, and set them slightly loose, the same way you would (or
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Designing the World We Know Paula Scher
www.paulaschermaps.com
How did you get to designing album covers for CBS & Atlantic in the 70s? What was the first album cover you designed? I worked at CBS Records designing small space ads for the Columbia and Epic labels. The Art Director of Atlantic Records saw them and offered me a job at Atlantic. I took the job because I would get to design record covers as well as ads. The first cover I designed was a John Coltrane album called Alternate Takes. I put type over a David Stone Martin illustration. I was told I had to use the illustration because it came from Coltrane’s management. I hated the illustration. I worked at Atlantic for one year and was then hired back to CBS Records to be East Coast Art Director of album covers.
What was one of the very first inspirational artworks or designs you remember seeing that left a lasting impression? I remember seeing the cover for the Broadway show album of South Pacific. Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza’s head shots were stripped into the shape of an anchor. I didn’t recognized it as an anchor and wondered why their heads had a funny shape. I remember it vividly to this day. I think it was designed by Alex Steinweiss.
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How did you get into editorial design? What notable photographers have you worked with? When I left CBS Records, where I worked for 10 years, I designed hundreds of album covers but I had no experience designing magazines. Time Inc. hired me to design a prototype for a new magazine they were trying to launch called Quality. They also had 4 or 5 other designers working on prototypes and I was the “out of the box” choice, because I had no magazine experience. Time Inc. retained me to design another magazine prototype, but they never launched either publication. After that I had “magazine experience”. I never worked with famous photographers designing magazines. The budgets were always too low. However, I worked with Avedon, Scavullo and Irving Penn when I art directed album covers.
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22
Grooming the Font Thoughts on tuning up type
Robert Bringhurst Poet, Typographer and Author
Writing begins with the making of meaningful
professional. If you are the editor of a magazine
marks. That is to say, leaving the traces of
or the manager of a publishing house, that is
meaningful gestures. Typography begins with arranging meaningful marks that are already made. In that respect, the practice of typography is like playing the piano – an instrument quite different from the human voice. On the piano, the notes are already fixed, although their order, duration and amplitude are not. The notes are fixed but they can be endlessly rearranged, into meaningful music or meaningless noise.
probably the best way to proceed. But devoted
Pianos, however, need to be tuned. The same
typographers, like lutenists and guitarists, often feel that they themselves must tune the instruments they play.
LEGAL CONSIDER ATIONS Check the license before tuning a digital font Digital fonts are usually licensed to the user, not sold outright, and the license terms vary. Some manufacturers claim to believe that improving a font produced by them is an infringement of their
is true of fonts. To put this in more literary terms,
rights. No one believes that tuning a piano or
fonts need to be edited just as carefully as texts
pumping up the tires of a car infringes on the rights
do – and may need to be re-edited, like texts, when
of the manufacturer – and this is true no matter
their circumstances change. The editing of fonts,
whether the car or the piano has been rented,
like the editing of texts, begins before their birth
leased or purchased. Printing type was treated the
and never ends.
same way from Bí Shēng’s time until the 1980s.
You may prefer to entrust the editing of your fonts, like the tuning of your piano, to a
Generally speaking, metal type and phototype are treated that way still. In the digital realm, where
23
the font is wholly intangible, those older notions of
the only legal way to tune it is through a software
ownership are under pressure to change.
override. For example, you can use an external
The Linotype Library’s standard font license
kerning editor to override the kerning table built
says that “You may modify the Font-Software to
into the font. This is the least elegant way to do it,
satisfy your design requirements.” FontShop’s
but a multitude of errors in fitting and kerning can
standard license has a similar provision: “You do
be masked, if need be, by this means.
have the right to modify and alter Font Software for your customary personal and business use,
ETHICAL & AESTHETIC CONSIDER ATIONS
but not for resale or further distribution.” Adobe’s
If it ain’t broke…
and Agfa Monotype’s licenses contain no such
Any part of the font can be tuned – lettershapes,
provision. Monotype’s says instead that “You may
character set, character encoding, fitting and
not alter Font Software for the purpose of adding
sidebearings, kerning table, hinting, and, in an
any functionality…You agree not to adapt, modify,
OpenType font, rules governing character substitution.
alter, translate, convert, or otherwise change the
What doesn’t need tuning or fixing shouldn’t be
Font Software….”
touched. If you want to revise the font just for the sake
If your license forbids improving the font itself,
of revising it, you might do better to design your own instead. And if you hack up someone else’s font for practice, like a biology student cutting up at frog, you might cremate or bury the results.
If the font is out of tune, fix it once and for all One way to refine the typography of a text to work your way through it line by line, putting space in here, removing it there, and repositioning errant characters one by one. But if these refinements are made to the font itself, you will never need to make them again. They are done for good.
Respect the text first of all, the letterforms second, the type designer third, the foundry fourth The needs of the text should take precedence over the layout of the font, the integrity of the letterforms over the ego of the designer, the artistic sensibility of the designer over the foundry’s desire for profit, and the founder’s craft over a good deal else.
Keep on fixing Check every text you set to see where improvements can be made. Then return to the font and make them. Little by little, you and the instrument – the font, that is – will fuse, and the type you set will start to sing. Remember, though, this process never ends. There is no such thing as the perfect font.
24
HONING THE CHAR ACTER SET If there are defective glyphs, mend them If the basic lettershapes of your font are poorly drawn, it is probably better to abandon it rather than edit it. But many fonts combine superb basic letterforms with alien or sloppy supplementary characters. Where this is the case, you can usually rest assured that the basic letterforms are the work of a real designer, whose craftsmanship merits respect, and that the supplementary characters were added by an inattentive foundry employee. The latter’s errors should be remedied at once. You may find for example that analphabetic characters such as @ + ± × = . - − © are too big or too small, too light or too dark, too high or too low, or are otherwise out of tune with the basic alphabet. You may also find that diacritics in glyphs such as å ç é ñ ô ü are poorly drawn, poorly positioned, or out of scale with the letterforms.
Artwork by Darren Booth
I+2=3 <9> 6±I 2×4 a + b = c a@b © 2007 I+2=3 <9> 6±I 2×4 a + b = c a@b © 2007 José Mendoza y Almeida’s Photina is an excellent piece of design, but in every weight and style of Monotype digital Photina, as issued by the foundry,
áèïû→ áèïû
If text figures, ligatures or other glyphs you need on a regular basis don’t reside on the base font, move them For readable text, you almost always need text
arithmetical signs and other analphabetics are out of
figures, but most digital fonts are sold with titling
scale and out of position, and the copyright symbol and
figures instead. Most digital fonts also include the
at sign are alien to the font. The raw versions are shown
ligatures fi and fl but not ff, ffi, fj or ffj. You may find at
in grey, corrected versions in black.
least some of the missing glyphs on a supplementary
éùôã → éùôã Frederic Goudy’s Kennerley is a homely but
font (an ‘expert font’), but that is not enough. Put all the basic glyphs together on the base font. If, like a good Renaissance typographer, you
quite pleasant type, useful for many purposes, but in
use only upright parentheses and brackets, copy
Lanston’s digital version, the letterforms are burdened
the upright forms from the roman to the italic font.
with some preposterous diacritics. Above left: four
Only then can they be kerned and spaced correctly
accented sorts are issued by the foundry. Above right:
without fuss.
corrected versions. All fonts are candidates for similar
If glyphs you need are missing altogether, make them.
improvement. Below left: four accented sorts from Robert
Standard ISO digital text fonts (PostScript or
Slimbach’s carefully honed Minion, as originally issued by
TrueType) have 256 slots and carry a basic set of
Adobe in 1989. Below right: the same glyphs revised by
Western European characters. Eastern European
Slimbach ten years later, while preparing the OpenType
characters such as ą ć đ ė ğ ħ ī ň ő ŗ ș ť ů are usually
version of the face.
missing. So are the Welsh sorts ŵ and ŷ, and host
25
of characters needed for African, Asian and Native American languages. The components required to make these
has as much to do with editorial style as with typographic design. Unless your fonts are custom
characters may be present on the font, and
made, neither the type designer nor the founder can
assembling the pieces is not hard, but you need
know what you need to prefer. I habitually increase
a place to put whatever characters you make. If
the left sidebearing of semicolon, colon, question
you need only a few and do not care about system
and exclamation marks, and the inner bearings of
compatibility, you can place them in wasted slots –
guillemets and parentheses, in search of a kind
e.g. the ^ < > \ | ~ ` positions, which are accessible
of Channel Island compromise: neither the tight
directly from the keyboard, or slots such as ¢
fitting preferred by most Anglophone editors nor
÷123 ™ 0/00 1/1, which can be reached through
the wide-open spacing customary in France. If
insertion utilities or by typing character codes or by
I worked in French all the time, I might increase
customizing the keyboard.
these sidebearings further.
If you need to add many such characters, you will need to make a supplementary font or, better yet, an enlarged font (TrueType or OpenType). If these are for your own use only, the extra characters can be placed wherever you wish. If the fonts are to be shared, every new glyph should be labeled with its PostScript name and Unicode number.
Check and correct the sidebearings The spacing of letters is part of the essence of their design. A well-made font should need little adjustment, except for refining the kerning. Remember, however, that kerning tables exist for the sake of problematical sequences such as f*, gy, “A, To, Va and 74. If you find that simple pairs such as oo or oe require kerning, this is a sign that the letters are poorly fitted. It is better to correct the sidebearings than to write a bloated kerning table.
26
The spacing of many analphabetics, however,
abc: def; ghx? klm! <<non>> abc: def; ghx? klm! <<hmm>> abç: déf; ghx? klm! <<oui>> Three options for the spacing of basic analphabetics in Monotype digital Centaur: foundry issue (top); French spacing (bottom); and something in between. Making such adjustments one by one by the insertion of fixed spaces can be tedious. It is easier by far, if you know what you want and you want it consistently, to incorporate your preferences into the font.
Refine the kerning table Digital type can be printed in three dimensions, suing zinc or polymer plates, and metal type can be printed flat, from photos or scans of the letterpress proofs. Usually, however, metal type is printed in
three dimensions and digital type is printed in two.
(a(s(d(f(g(h)j)k)l … )a)s)d)f)g … -1-2-3-4-5 …
Two-dimensional type can be printed more cleanly
TqTwTeTrTtTyTuTiToTp … and so on. This will take
and sharply than three-dimensional type, but the
several hours for a standard ISO font. For a full
gain in sharpness rarely equals what is lost in
pan-European font, it will take several days.
depth and texture. A digital page is therefore apt to
Class-based kerning (now a standard capability
look aenemic next to a page printed directly from
of font editing software) can be used to speed the
handset metal.
process. In class-based kerning, similar letters,
This imbalance can be addressed by going
such as a á â ä à å ā ă ä ą, are treated as one and
deeper into two dimensions. Digital type is capable
kerned alike. This is an excellent way to begin when
of refinements of spacing and kerning beyond
you are kerning a large font, but not a way to finish.
those attainable in metal, and the primary means
The combinations Ta and Tä, Ti and T ï, il and íl, i)
of achieving this refinement is the kerning table.
and ï), are likely to require different treatment.
Always check the sidebearings of figures
Kerning sequences such as Tp, Tt and f( may
and letters before you edit the kerning table.
seem to you absurd, but they can and do occur in
Sidebearings can be checked quickly for errors
legitimate text. (Tpig is the name of a town in the
by disabling kerning and setting characters, at
mountains of Dagestan, near the southern tip of
ample size, in pairs: 11223344…qqwweerrttyy….
the Russian Federation; Ttanuu is an important
If the spacing within the pairs appears to vary, or
historical site on the British Columbia coast;
if it appears consistently cramped or loose, the
sequences such as y = f(x) occur routinely in
sidebearings probably need to be changed.
mathematics.) If you know what texts you wish to
The function of a kerning table s to achieve
set with a given font, and know that combinations
what perfect sidebearings cannot. A thorough
such as these will never occur, you can certainly
check of the kerning table therefore involves
omit them from the table. But if you are preparing
checking all feasible permutations of characters:
a font for general use, even in a single language,
1213141516 … qwqeqrqtqyquqiqoqpq …
remember that it should accommodate the
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occasional foreign phrase and the names of real
glyphs: quotation marks, apostrophe, the letters
and fictional people, places and things. These
A, T, V, W, Y, and often to the numerals 1, 3, 5. It
can involve some unusual combinations. (A few
is not, however, normally kerned more than a half
additional examples: McTavish, FitzWilliam,
either to or away from a preceding lowercase f in
O’Quinn, dogfish, jack o’-lantern, Hallowe’en.)
either roman or italic.
It is also wise to check the font by running a
A cautionary example. Most of the Monotype
test file – a specially written text designed to hunt
digital revivals I have tested over the years have
out missing or malformed characters and kerning
serious flaws in the kerning tables. One problem in
pairs that are either too tight or too loose. On
particular recurs in Monotype Baskerville, Centaur
pages 204 – 205 is a short example of such a test
& Arrighi, Dante, Fournier, Gill Sans, Poliphilus
file, showing the difference between an ungroomed
& Blado, Van Dijck and other masterworks in the
font and a groomed one.
Monotype collection. These are well-tired faces
It is nothing unusual for a well-groomed ISO
of superb design – yet in defiance of tradition,
font (which might contain around two hundred
the maker’s kerning tables call for a large space
working characters) to have a kerning table listing
(as much as M/4) to be added whenever the f is
a thousands pairs. Kerning instructions for large
followed by a word space. The result is a large
OpenType fonts are usually stored in a different
white blotch after every word ending in f unless a
form, but if converted to tabular form, the kerning
mark of punctuation intervenes.
data for a pan-European Latin font may easily
Is it east of the sun
reach 30,000 pairs. For a well-groomed Latin-
and west of the moon – or
Greek-Cyrillic font, decompiling the kerning
is it west of the moon
instructions can generate a table of 150,000 pairs.
and east of the sun?
Remember, though, that the number isn’t what
Monotype digital Van Dijck, before and after
counts. What matters is the intelligence and style
editing the kerning table. As issued, the kerning
of kerning. Remember too that there is no such
table adds 127 units (thousandths of an em) in the
thing as a font whose kerning cannot be improved.
roman, and 228 in the italic, between the letter f
Check the kerning of the word space
and the word space. The corrected table adds 6
The word space – that invisible blank box – is the most common character in almost every text. It is normally kerned against sloping and undercut
units in the roman, none in the italic. Other, less drastic refinements have also been made to the kerning table used in the second two lines. Professional typographers may argue about whether the added space should be zero, or ten, or even 25 thousandths of an em. But there is no professional dispute about whether it should be on the order of an eighth of a quarter of an em. An extra space that large is a prefabricated typographic error – one that would bring snorts of disbelief and instantaneous correction from Stanley Morison, Bruce Rogers, Jan van Krimpen, Eric Gill and others on whose expertise and genius the Monotype heritage is built. But it is an easy error to fix for anyone equipped with the requisite tool: a digital font editor.
28
easier to prove than infringements of copyright. Nevertheless there are times when a typographer must tinker with the names manufacturers give to their digital fonts. Text fonts are generally sold in families, which may include a smorgasbord of weights and variations. Most editing and typesetting software takes a narrower, more stereotypical view. It recognizes only the nuclear family of roman, italic, bold, and bold italic. Keyboard shortcuts make it easy to switch from one to another of these, and switch codes employed are generic. Instead of saying “Switch to such and such a font at such and such a size,” they say, for instance, “Switch to this font’s italic counterpart, whatever that may be.” This convention makes the instructions transferable. You can change the face and size of a whole paragraph or file and the roman, italic and bold should all convert correctly. The slightest
HINTING
inconsistency in font names can prevent this trick
If the font looks poor at low resolutions, check the hinting
from working – and not all manufacturers name
Digital hints are important chiefly for the sake of how the type will look on screen. Broadly speaking, hints are of two kinds: generic hints that apply to the font as a whole and specific hints applicable only to individual characters. Many fonts are sold unhinted, and few fonts indeed are sold with hints that cannot be improved. Manual hinting is tedious in the extreme but any good font editor of recent vintage will include routines for automated hinting. These routines are usually enough to make a poorly hinted text font more legible on screen. (In the long run, the solution is high-resolution screens, making the hinting of fonts irrelevant except at tiny sizes.)
their fonts according to the same conventions. For the fonts to be linked, their family names must be identical and the font names must abide by rules known to the operating system and software in use. If, for example, you install Martin Majoor’s Scala or Scala Sans (issued by FontShop) on a PC, you will find that the italic and the roman are unlinked. These are superbly designed fonts, handsomely kerned and fully equipped with the requisite text figures and small caps – almost everything a digital font should be – but the PC versions must be placed in a font editor and renamed in order to make them work as expected.
NAMING CONVENTIONS The presumption of common law is that inherited designs, like inherited texts, belong in the public domain. New designs (or in the USA, the software in which they are enshrined) are protected for a certain term by copyright; the names of the designs are also normally protected by trademark legislation. The names are often better protected, in fact, because infringements on the rights conferred by a trademark are often much
29
From Type Snob to Macaroni Art Marian Bantjes www.bantjes.com
How did you come to typography?
When did you start experimenting?
I didn’t. I just got a job. I was 18, and I needed work,
Not until much later. I became a type snob. The
and I saw a little job posted in a bookstore for a
typesetting that I was doing before was just for books.
publishing company. And I applied for it and got it.
It was very conservative. Once I started my design
It started out mostly filing magazines; quite quickly
company, I started doing different kinds of things,
they trained me in paste-up and layout, and I became
business cards and brochures, which require more
a typesetter, and learned a lot about typography.
decisions about what you do with type. That was a
Typesetting is not a creative job, it’s basically following
new learning curve. But I wasn’t really experimenting.
a designer’s directions exactly, but you learn the do’s
When I went out on my own, I felt like I had a lot of
and don’ts of typography, and you become an expert
knowledge of type, but it’s not really a passion. I can’t
on how things are done, and some designers know
really describe it.
more than others, and you add to that. Of course, they’re not going to handle all the details, like how you balance pages, rivers and things like that. You work really closely with type. You learn all the lingo and the whole thing; so over the period of ten years, I became an expert.
A lot of your work has a childlike sense of play, like the macaroni art or the sugar art for Stefan Sagmeister. What informs this sense of wonder? What interests you outside of art and design? All sorts of things. I’m interested in science. I’m an atheist, so I’m very interested in atheists and the atheist movement, and non-religious forms of gatherings sharing information and creation. I’m interested in animals, and started scuba diving a few years ago. I don’t know if I have a problem-solving mind. Maybe I do. I’m quite good at figuring things out. I can fix my own plumbing.
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Why has there been such a resurgence of this handcrafted typography? It always goes forward and back, clean and simple, always comes back into something else. A lot of people credit me with starting some kind of design revolution. I know I contributed to it, but that pendulum was just starting to swing. People are taking interest, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a move away from the computer into handwork.
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32
Abundant A typographic installation
Rachel Blankenship
Graphic Design and Fine Art Student
Typography is a basic part of daily life from a
we chose to be something that applied universally to
logo on a box of cereal to the billboards that line
all typography and we realized that the only thing that
highways to the magazines on the newsstands. Of
all typography has in common is the amount of it that
course those are just a few examples but there are
exists in the world, thus we found our word: abundant.
millions and millions more. Because typography
We all agreed from the beginning that we wanted
is so plentiful we often overlook it and take it for granted as just another accessory of our daily lives. But in fact, type can be as beautiful as any work of art and deserves to be appreciated as such, at least sometimes.
our word to be displayed in a beautiful flowing script
In order to foster this appreciation for typography,
typeface because we wanted our word to show off the beautiful flowing forms that typography can have. Now that we had our word and a general idea of our typeface we had to decide on a material to use to create the installation. Part of the assignment was
myself and two of my piers, Abbey Osley and Monica
to use man-made materials as pixels to construct
Stauffer, were tasked with the assignment of creating
the piece. The word abundant led our brainstorming
an installation that would showcase a characteristic of
session because we wanted our word and our
typography. When brainstorming about which word to
material to work together to convey the message.
choose we ran through many ideas including words
So we started thinking about man-made objects that
like radical, serious, fundamental and limitless. But
are abundant. A few of the ideas that made it to the
while discussing these ideas we realized that none of
top of the list were plastic utensils, drinking straws,
these qualities applied to all typography; sure some
pennies, and thread. All three of us had our own
type might be serious but others might be fun or
favorites we were pushing for but overtime we started
romantic or scary or serene. We wanted the word that
eliminating options. After doing a bit more research on
All photography by Abbey Osley
33
typographic installations that already exist we realized
all very concerned about the project and didn’t know
that thread art was overdone and pennies had already
what to do now. Then our professor, Luciana Gasset,
been done by Stephen Sagmeister (see page 5) better
suggested an artisan soap shop for the location of
than we ever could have done it, also they probably
our installation because it was right in the heart of
weren’t monetarily feasible for us anyways. That left
the art district, had an enormous front window and
us with plastic utensils and drinking straws. When we
had beams on the ceiling that would be perfect for
really thought about it we realized that using the plastic
hanging something from. As soon as she mentioned
utensils would probably create a gagged looking pixel
the soap shop it all just clicked and we knew our pixel:
which would create a jagged looking installation and
cotton balls. They’re soft, light for hanging, related to
the whole point of our piece was to create something
the location, round to create a curving letterform and
soft and flowing. That left us with drinking straws as
abundant in the world, it all fit perfectly. We were back
our pixel.
on track and ecstatic. In order to hang the cotton balls
With the decision of the pixel material done we all
on strings from the ceiling we decided that the best
split up and experimented with how to use the drinking
way to attach them to the string would be to thread
straws to create a pixel. I tried several different ideas
them all then glue them into place if the wouldn’t stay.
including bending them, layering them, taping them
Again Luciana gave us some advice and told us to
together and hanging them on strings. None of the
skip the threading and go straight for the glue and that
ideas worked particularly well because they were
advise made the whole process so much easier.
either so transparent that the word wouldn’t be legible
34
Now it was time to begin assembling the
or they were too angular and wouldn’t work for a
installation. Our plan was to get 8 dowels and attack
script typeface or they took way too long to make. The
o-hooks to them that we would tie the string to. This
one that I felt looked the best out of my experiments
would give us 4 panels of string with cotton balls. We
would have involved simply gluing the straws onto a
decided to do it this way so that we could assemble
backboard, which was something we said all along
the installation in the studio and then transport it to
that we wanted to avoid doing. We agreed that gluing
the shop instead of having to assemble it there. Each
a pixel on a backboard seemed like an unoriginal
member made different contributions to this process.
answer that would create a dull installation. Our
For example, Abbey and I went out and bought the
answer to this problem was that we wanted very
materials, Monica bought and cut the string into 8
much to somehow hang our installation on strings
foot pieced, Abbey found the typeface that we used
from the ceiling but we didn’t know how to make that
for the template and printed the template, all three of
work and whether to somehow try to make drinking
us assembled the template, Abbey and Monica put
straws work or just scrap that and find something else.
together the dowels, we all tied and retied the strings
At this point, with all these problems, we were
when they weren’t the right length and hot glued the
cotton balls to the string and the template. In order
and when we said how many cotton balls, feet of
to attach the cotton balls to the string and have them
string and hours of work went into making it. Overall
dry properly we had to just glue them both onto the
the responses we got from people were very positive.
template. Later I removed the template from the back
Most people seemed impressed by the sheer size of
so that the cotton balls would appear to be floating on
the piece, it measured about 8 feet tall and 10 feet
the string. Although this step in the process was not
wide, and the amount of work we put into it. It was also
planned it actually turned out to be a happy accident
nice to see our goal achieved when people stopped
because the remnants of the template that were left
and were in awe of how beautiful this giant typographic
on the back of the installation served to reinforce the
word was. The owner of the store was so happy with
glue and increase its strength. It was a good thing they
the piece that she asked us to leave it up for another
had the extra strength because even though we were
week after the exhibition.
extremely careful with them during the transportation
This project was so much fun to make and
they still took quite a beating. After we got it installed
although it was a huge challenge it was so worth
in the window we had to go back and touch up some
all the time and work when I saw it in that window
areas that had broken apart in the move but overall it
and saw the way people reacted to it. Abundant has
transported well.
become one of my favorite projects that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever been
The night of the exhibition the three of us stood
a part of and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m am so proud of the beautiful piece
outside the window of the shop and handed out cards
that we made and the positive effect that it had on the
explaining the project, who we are and why we did it.
people who saw it, especially myself.
It was a lot of fun standing out there talking to people. It was amazing to see the look on their faces when we told them that it was actually made of cotton balls
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S PAC E Issue #1 Fall 2014 Abundant Type Casting Back to Basics Grooming the Font
â&#x20AC;&#x153;The making of letters in every form is for me the purest and the greatest pleasure, and at many stages of my life it was to me what a song is to the singer, a picture to the painter, a shout to the elated, or a sign to the oppressed. It was and is for me the most happy and perfect expression of my life.â&#x20AC;?
Rudolph Koch One of the first German type designers in the 20th century
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