Alexander McQueen- Savage Beauty

At first I choose this exhibition catalog because of the cover, but then I saw all the gorgeous imagery and I was sold. The layout is very clean and simplified with full page image spreads. The type is elegant and does not distract from McQueen's work. The size of the photography in this catalog makes me feel as though I'm in the original exhibit.

Handmadefont- A4

This font was made by an Estonia based design company named HMF (Hand Made Font) founded in 2008 by Vladimir Loginov and Maksim Loginov. The company specializes in developing nontraditional and unique fonts. You can buy the fonts they make and use them freely and they have an animated video for most of their creations, which I thought was pretty neat. Each letter is made from one piece of A4 print paper, which can be interchanged with other colors as well. The font is san serif, bold, and block like.  

I really like that simple slits and subtle folds can create the letter forms. My favorite letter is "A" because there are minimal folds , yet I can recognize it's characteristics. I'm glad they let the folds rise rather than flattening them out because the shadows are interesting as well. I can see this font in an educational environment or office supply store. On future projects I'll take into consideration that almost anything can be used as a medium to create font. The simplest suggestions can convey a lot of information.

Animated Video here:   http://vimeo.com/21063281

Links: http://www.handmadefont.com/

MoMA - Shape Lab

Shape Lab is an interactive educational space for families. The educators’ intention for this space was to encourage visitors to interact with the space and explore the different ways artists use shapes in painting and sculpture. The space was filled with interactive tools and furniture, educational toys, art books, and shape learning activities. The original project request was to design an identity for its title wall. Instead, they designed a multifunctional activity wall, which both communicates its message and functions as a fun learning game.

 I thought this was a pretty cool interactive exhibit that breaks down how letter forms are created with a combination of simple geometric shapes. I like that the exhibit is for all ages, so typography can be enjoyed by everyone. The display font is fun because some of the recognizable aspects of the letter forms are implied and play on positive and negative space.

http://momadesignstudio.org/Shape-Lab

Genki ll

As nerdy as it may be, I absolutely love my Genki 2 Japanese textbook. For the past three years I've been using the first edition of vol.1 and 2 to study the language. It was collaboratively written by Eri Banno, Yutaka Ohno, Yoko Sakane, Chikako Shinagawa, Kyoko Tokashiki, and was first published by the Japan Times in 1999. This textbook's strongest point is the organization of the content, which is structured in a way that is easy to read and understand. The table of content displays the chapters clearly and allows me to find grammar taught in a specific lesson quickly.

Each chapter begins with a dialog, then a vocabulary, grammar, and practice section. I think the main font used is Times New Roman, but other other serifs and san serifs are present throughout the book as well. The Japanese font used is called kyoukashotai (教科書体) Which was created in the Meji era for use in primary school textbooks.  It resembles hand-written characters, which helps to learn the Hiragana/Katakana alphabet and Kanji(Chinese characters).

Different fonts and italics are used to distinguish the translations between Japanese and English, as well as grammar structure explanations with corresponding examples. Compared to other Japanese textbooks I have seen, this one is by far the best in my opinion. I appreciate how cohesively intertwined the two languages are and I am grateful for such a wonderful learning tool.

Yellowtrace

Yellowtrace is a design blog created in 2010 by a woman named Dana who is an interior designer in Sydney Australia. After years of working as a senior designer at a leading architecture firm, she established her own boutique practice. In this instillation, yarn and nails were used to "acknowledge the deep subliminal meanings imbedded in all colors and their effect on our thinking, emotions and feelings" through a series of short and dynamic words as typographic sculptures. The display type's letters are suggested by white space and are outlined with a tighter complex weaving of the yarn. 

 I thought this instillation was cool because in this case, specific words were chosen to articulate the essence of each color respectively, instead of vice versa. Usually, I focus on my type first and then select a color to match, so my perspective of the relationship between the two has changed. I'm also inspired to experiment with different mediums other than 2D to make expressive design.

p.s There is also a neat little video that shows the work in process.

 http://www.yellowtrace.com.au/2012/10/10/yellowtrace-promotion-rogerseller-presents-the-art-of-colour/

Beauty and Ugliness in Type Design

Hello everyone! 

A little about the site---Typotheque is a type foundry run by two designers who explore the development of type and have their own collection of  fonts which can be purchased. The article section has interviews, reviews, essays more geared towards the ideas revolving around the creation of new typefaces. While looking through numerous articles I was disappointed with the lack of visual examples, but I still found an interesting entry about a typeface whose principal design feature does not take into consideration  legibility or aesthetics, but rather focuses more on a conceptual aspect. 

Full article-- Beauty and Ugliness in Type design

Typeface: Karloff 
Classification: Serif
Released: 2012
Conceived by Peter Bil'ak, designed by Pieter van Rosmalen with assistance of Nikola Djurek

 This typeface is the result of a project, in which the high contrast of the Modern type of Bodoni and Didot was combined with the Italians from the middle of the Industrial Revolution. 

Example of Bodoni: While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very personal and subjective, many agree that the high-contrast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.

Example of Italian: This reversed-contrast typeface was designed to deliberately attract readers’ attention by defying their expectations.

I'm a big fan of Bodoni and Didot and used them a lot in Typography 1, so the article captured my attention quickly. Since the release of this typeface was fairly recent, they are in the process of promoting it, so there aren't many examples of it in use in products. The fusion of these extreme fonts is really unique and was executed in a way that effectively conveyed the relation between our perception of beauty and ugly letter forms. I like Karloff because it has personality. To me, the typeface is both memorizing and confusing to look at because my eye disagrees with the thick and thin lines in one letter, but enjoys them in another. The shapes created in both positive and negative space are also interesting. I would like to save this typeface to use in maybe a poster design or flyer with a bold statement of some sort. 

Thanks for reading, 

Marissa