Typography
the decender
A Type House Divided Steven Heller Talks with David Senior about THE ELETRO-LIBRARY
Ed Benguiat, A man of letters
40
Biggest Influential Designs
Wim Crouwel: Architectures typographiques 1956-1976
Wim Crouwel, born in Groningen (the Netherlands) in 1928 is a remarkable and inspiring figure with an inventive spirit and vision, vigorous and always distinguished. He designed his first poster in 1952. After leaving artschool he became a painter leaning towards Expressionism, but as he designed this first poster he discovered the pleasure of organising visual information in an aesthetical context. The contrast between Crouwel as a lyrical expressionist painter and objectivating functionalist designer couldn’t be more extreme. As a designer he felt related to the Bauhaus ideas, the swiss-inspired international style. He was fascinated by the rational aspect in Bauhaus typography, which he discovered through Karl Gerstner’s and Gerard Ifert’s work.
Crouwel the Van Abbe Museum: In 1954 Crouwel designed the catalogues and posters for the Van Abbe Museum. He took the position that the design of a catalogue or poster must not be an interpretation of the artist’s ideas. The development of the programme as a whole is more important than creating the best poster for each new project. Eduard de Wilde, Director of the Van Abbe Museum at the time Crouwel was asked for this task, remembers he found himself in an ambiguous situation. “Crouwels’s position of subjecting highly different appearances of art under the
same typographic style would not be acceptable to some artists. But i also had to appreciate that transferring most different artistic trends and tem-peraments into typography might lead to a typographic chaos.” Crouwel is a modernist and impressed by a typeface like Helvetica, which was more neutral than any other typeface. “A face shouldn’t have a meaning in itself, content of the text.”It provide relevant information to the reader, without ornaments or styling as this would only lead to confusion. The catalogue should not refer to the artist at the museum. its range of activities ever foeach new. project.
Although his ideas were bauhaus-related, unlike many Crouwel was not a dogmatist. He was fascinated by the ideas about serial and mass production, as he stated “we need the machine since we have no time”. But he also believed “the machine cannot replace the precision of the human eye and human feeling”. Crouwel’s work has always consisted of these two essential elements: the emotional aspect and the rational one.
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Wim Crouwel : architectures typographiques 1956-1976 An exhibition that ran from February 10th to April 28th, 2007, at Galerie Anatome in Paris. Catalogue and invitation designed by Experimental Jetset.
Modernist, Functionalist, Purist: Crouwel is a modernist and impressed by a typeface like Helvetica, which was more neutral than any other typeface. “A face shouldn’t have a meaning in itself, the meaning should be in the content of the text.”* In his work Crouwel chose sans-serif faces that allowed numerous combinations, like Gill (Van Abbe museum) and Universe (Stedelijk). The essential information was set in one returning typeface and the title of the exhibition slightly reflected the feel of the exhibition. He looked at the work of the artist, got an impression and tried to translate it typographically. An example of this way of working is found in the exhibition about Leger. Leger’s work could be recognized by its heavy lines around the images. This influenced him to create the word Leger with thick black lines so it would dominate the poster. Crouwel always searched for the abstract, something that would strike the eye.
Wim Crouwel Crouwel’s lucid and systematic approach to design is underpinned by a grid-based methodology. His process, logical yet experimental, distils a subject down to its absolute essence and in doing so he achieves great impact and purpose in both his exhibition and print design.
Wim Crouwel: “Helvetica”
Crouwel’s Design
type for the cathode-ray tube composing system.
Together with colleagues Benno wissing, Friso Kramer and Dick & Paul Schwartz, Crouwel started a designstudio named Total Design. Total Design was to be the first bureau that managed to accept large and multidisciplinary designtasks for the government, as well as commercial clients.
Crouwel thought it would be better to design a typeface that was suitable for this machine instead of forcing it to use the typefaces we knew. He drew the New Alphabet, a highly abstract font, based on a dotmatrix system.
In 1963 Eduard de Wilde succeeded Willem Sandberg as director of the Stedelijk in Amsterdam. Crouwel (and Total Design) moved along with him as he was asked to continue their cooperation. During the next twenty years he designed catalogues, invitations, posters and brochures and created what we now recall the SM-design style: a cool, pragmatic artistry in the variation of normal and semi-bold grotesque faces on a page at once fully utilized, yet open to all sides.
New Alphabet Besides printwork Crouwel has designed several font sets, of which the New Alphabet (1967) is best known. This typefaces was developped after seeing the first digital typesetters at a print exhibition in Germany. The digital production of the Garamond, as presented on this exhibition looked horrible to him. The roundings of several sizes of a typeface were not alike, because of the small amount of pixels used, as you could see when the letters were enlarged.
Wim Crouwel The Quadrat Print in which Crouwel made his proposal for a new typeface more suitable than traditional
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Wim Crouwel: A graphic odysseyDesign Museum
With its straight lines, 90 degree anglesoundings, either big or small, it always looked exactly the same. The face was as high as it was wide, thus lining in every way so it would fit in every grid system. This typeface was merely developped as a theory, a direction of thinking. It wasn’t meant for actual use. Crouwel gave lectures on the subject and gained a lot of response. In the 90’s the New Alphabet showed up in UK pop magazines. Although it was often changed to make it more readable it was undoubtedly inspired by his original drawings. 30 years after his first experiment Crouwel was asked to digitise the original typeface. Crouwel teached at diverse academies during the 70’s, before the computer period really started and was director of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam In the years 1985-1993.
Today Crouwel still is an active member of the Dutch graphic design scene as an advisor in Total Design. Today known as Total Identity it has more than 150 designers spread among 6 cities.
http://www.iconofgraphics.com/wim-crouwel/
“The grid is like the lines on a football field. You can play a great game in the grid or a lousy game. But the goal is to play a really fine game.” -Wim Crouwel
Type Tips
13 Typographic Faux Pas AaBb 1 bad kerning
-
type so much”, she confessed.
-
much”, sheofconfessed. eo amounts uppercase
acking lowercase letters
2 too many AaBb1 bad fonts kerning
AaBb
wetyiegjgtgogth mvfddnv vfdjbvjdbnvjkdss
AaBb
unts of uppercase
g lowercase letters
wetyiegjgtgogth mvfddnv vfdjbvjdbnvjkdss
The dog jumped over the fence
2 too many fonts
bad kerning
3 indenting too far
far
2 too many fonts
4 two spaces
The dog jumped over the fence
”,
1 bad kerning
3 indenting too
wet gtgogt dndng mvfddnv vfdjbvjdb dss
”,
3
between sentences indenting too
far
5 failing to put comma
4 two spaces
between rivers in text 6 sentences
5 failing to put
comma ABCDEFG 7 large amounts of uppercase hijklmnopq 6 rivers in text wet gtgogt dndng mvfddnv vfdjbvjdb dss
d o g
8 stacking lower case
Page 6 The Decender ABCDEFG 7 large amounts too many of uppercase fonts hijklmnopq gtgogtdfdggfaafaj 9 bad leading 4 two spaces dndng hgfi mvfdv
6 rivers in text
The Body 11 thejob, body and type-crimes at yourinnew who needs that type of attention.
wet gtgogt dndng mvfddnv Avoid bad punctuation vfdjbvjdb dss
ABCDEFG 7 large amounts of uppercase hijklmnopq 6 rivers in text wet gtgogt dndng mvfddnv vfdjbvjdb dss
d o g ABCDEFG hijklmnopq
gtgogtdfdggfaafaj dndng hgfi mvfdv vfdjbvjdbvfhtdhth cdfdgrgccvfbfggng dvbfbvrdnbribrb
d o g
ΛΕΡ gtgogtdfdggfaafaj dndng hgfi mvfdv vfdjbvjdbvfhtdhth cdfdgrgccvfbfggng dvbfbvrdnbribrb
8 stacking lower case
ugly
of uppercase
9 bad leading
8 stacking lower case
10 unreadable
fonts
9 bad leading
10 unreadable
fonts 12 use of dumb quotes The Body 11 incorrect hierarcy in the body ugly
The Body 1 in the body
7 large amounts
The Body 11 incorrect hierarcy in the body
ΛΕΡ
1
13 failing to put
margins in text box 12 use of dumb
quotes
ugly
1
Heroes
Ed Benguiat:
A man of letters
Born in New York in 1927, Ed grew up in Brooklyn. He was once a very prominent jazz percussionist playing in several big bands with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, among others. He has created a large number of typefaces between 1970 and 1995. About his career, he once said: I’m really a musician, a jazz percussionist. One day I went to the musician’s union to pay dues and I saw all these old people who were playing bar mitzvahs and Greek weddings. It occurred to me that one day that’s going to be me, so I decided to become an illustrator. He designed more than 400 typefaces for PhotoLettering. He played a critical role in establishing The International Typeface Corporation (or ITC) 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. Ed became a partner with Lubalin in the development of U&lc, ITC’s famous 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. With Herb Lubalin, Ed eventually became vice-president of ITC until its sale to Esselte Ltd. In 2004, House Industries released five typefaces based on the lettering of Ed Benguiat: Ed Interlock (1400 ligatures---based on Ed’s Interlock, Photolettering, 1960s), Ed Roman (animated bounce), Ed Script, Ed Gothic and Bengbats.
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He did logotypes for many companies, including Esquire, New York Times, Playboy, Reader’s Digesn, Sports Illustrated, Look, Estte Lauder, AT&T, A&E, Planet of the Apes, Super Fly. Lesser known Photolettering typefaces include Benguiat Bounce, Benguiat Boutique, Benguiat Bravado, Benguiat Brush, Benguiat Buffalo (+Ornaments), Benguiat Century, Benguiat Cinema, Benguiat Congressional, Benguiat Cooper Black, Benguiat Cracle, Benguiat Crisp, Benguiat Debbie, Benguiat Montage, Benguiat Roman. Scorpio, Laurent and Charisma, all done in the 1960s, are psychedlic types.
Edward Benguiat is a jazz musician turned prolific typographer from New York, known for his beautiful Art Nouveau inspired display faces. He has designed over 600 typefaces including Tiffany, Bookman, Benguiat, Barcelona and the famous Souvenir - the typeface everyone loves to hate due to its overuse. He has designed some beautiful logos including Playboy and movies such as Planet of the Apes and Superfly. We love his approach to designing typefaces, which challenges the number one design rule – Form follows function.
“I do not think of type
as something that should be readable. It should be beautiful.� -Ed Benguiat
10 Typefaces:
Benguiat has created over 600 typeface designs, here are just a few of his gems... Page 10
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30
Sabrina Retas
Under
30
Top young graphic designers to watch for.
As a designer, I am a firm believer in creating a bold statement. In order to create a clean design, you must “un-design” it as well, removing any elements that are unnecessary. Many of my images are based on an underlying grid, where every element finds itself aligned with another shape on the page. My foundations are inspired by the work of Wim Crowel and Paul Rand; I believe that mixing their strong design fundamentals with modern techniques creates compelling images. I often make graphic silhouettes or simplify objects into their most basic elements in order to create an interesting, uncluttered design. I utilize type in a large amount of my work. I enjoy typography as an art as well as a means of communication. By contrasting bold type with thinner alternatives one can lead the viewer’s eye throughout the page. Highlighting important information in a contrasting font can create an interesting design element to designate a bold focal point on the page to draw the viewer into the piece. My work describes me as an artist as well as a person. As a stubborn perfectionist, my designs reflect my personality by carefully placing components in relation to one another while maintaining an edginess that makes them unique. I have always attempted to add an element of my eccentricity into my work to show a piece of myself through my designs. In something as simple as my magazine spread, although it is extremely
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precise and technical, I tried to use bold and colorful photos to liven the design and show my personality. If I feel strongly about a piece I will never be afraid to fight for its integrity. However, I believe that a design must ultimately speak for its self to be considered truly successful. If I have done a good job on my work, my personality should be able to shine through the typography and reflect me as a designer.
‘‘ ‘‘
Helvetica is the sweatpants of typography
John Boardley
New Type
Typefaces or Fronts? Some new designs with an old twist. 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. DESIGNED BY SABRINA RETAS
CatWalk my monospaced unicase typeface And font
a bcd e fghIjklm� n op qrs tvw xyz 01 234 56789 .?�#!. Sabrina retas
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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.
Greek Rock My Monospace Unicase Typeface and Font
Rebecca Marmaroff Is a talented graphic designer who is currently attending Farmingdale State College. Being very creative and espressionistic she is able to achieve great sucess throughout his unicase/monocase font.
A B C D E FG H I J K L M N O PQ R S T U V W X Y Z 1234567890!?$:; Designed by Rebecca Marmaroff
Alexander Vilardi Is one of most talented graphic designers at Farmingdale State College. Being very optimistic and simple he is able to achieve great sucess throughout his unicase/monocase font.
Cubix Monocase Unicase Font
abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 Created by Alexander Vilardi
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