4type.org

Pens, chisels and material source listings

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:06:32 +0000

‘If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page… when it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.’

– Adrian Frutiger

Typography is primarily the applied use of existing type - used within this balanced ‘banal and beautiful’ understanding of what’s comfortable and appropriate for each use. There’s more than enough variances and challenges to this premise to keep anyone busy, in terms of learning, thinking, adapting and practising, for a long time. The contexts, mediums and uses of type in use are many, so any careful designer attempting to consistently produce valid solutions which are not only ‘fit for purpose’ and appropriate, but also, at times, ‘more’ than this, should be questioned.

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1 Henry Koerner was an artist and painter, not a typographer. His words, given during a design and drawing tutorial, seem to fit this circumstance well. I was originally trained as an illustrator, later as a typographer and digitally based graphic designer. It’s within drawing letterforms that I find the necessary observations of contrasts, weights, line, stroke, rhythm and negative shapes to be commonly ‘balanced’ in both disciplines.

London based (and nearby) letterpress resources for printing posters, books, etc

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:46:56 +0000

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Observations, techniques & labours of love

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:35:14 +0000

Working with type – and designing type and cutting letters are undeniably labours of love. There are many levels of thinking, research and preparation which ‘feed into’ these disciplines and their training, even if an eventual outcome of ‘mastery’ isn’t achieved (I may never carve stone or wood as well as I’d like). In this respect, acknowledgment and admiration of what type and lettering can be – remains unshakable.

About recent updates (as of 25 August 2010)
This post marks a major update and formatting revision for 4type.org beginning in July 2010. Concurrently, I’ve experienced a database problem relating to a server migration, which was necessary due to unrelated formatting concerns that my web host had to perform. This has resulted in some delays in migrating posts from their formerly hosted location to this new (and permanent) location. Thanks for understanding. Updates will be in progress; most likely for most of the month of July. Again, my apologies for this technical delay.

Regardless, now there’s a newly separated blog area for short posts & quick browsing. And, type-related portfolio samples – outside of what’s directly relevant for blog or article discussions, have been removed to be posted on another site. For the most part, 4type.org is about sharing educational and practical interests in applying & designing type. Some entries on 4type.org (when indicated) reflect research interests which are fairly involved; password links to these texts may be offered for academic study or discussion. Page posts on this site will also be updated but due to their length and complexity (or alternate publication), these may be featured in excerpt form. All typographic projects, works and texts referenced are directly credited within each post; direct links and additional resources are offered when it’s appropriate and helpful.

For more about this site and who’s responsible for maintaining, editing and updating it, please refer to this link.

For more about the tools, techniques, methods, resource links and books helpful to designing type and lettering, please refer to these links: designing type and making letter forms. For any questions or comments, please contact Jim [at] 4type [dot] org.

The word ‘TYPE’ used for the entry thumbnail to this post (shown as a small image, below) was digitally overlaid using Monotype foundry’s cut of the typeface Albertus, designed by the influential and very prolific typographer, Berthold Wolpe.

The carved number 43, at left, was photographed at 43 Chancery Lane, central London. I’ve been told (this hasn’t been verified) that it’s the sure handed work of London based letter carver Richard Kindersley.

Rediscovering F M Hessemer’s collection of historic patterns and an odd little book by Adrian Frutiger

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:38:04 +0000

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Type and neutrality: Akzidenz Grotesk

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:18:16 +0000

Akzidenz Grotesk is one of my favourite typefaces. When I speak to or work with other typographers and graphic designers, I often feel compelled to explain my reasons for this. This 2008 forum entry (on Typophile, initiated by Nick Shinn on 07.06.08) called the Unborn: sans serif lower case in the 19th century) partly illustrates why – if you scroll down and read the thoughtful contributions to this discussion by James Mosely and others – why I find this specific sans serif design so sturdy – and ‘workable’. Like the sans serif lower case being discussed in this post, there wasn’t just one single designer (or even a group of designers) who can be undeniably credited for its formal constructs – it appears to be a distilled collection of different (yet similar) grotesque designs (some of these were likely to be hand lettered) from the mid to late 19th century.

Most agree it was first released by H Berthold AG foundry in 1898 (or 1896) as a basic but not a complete range of weights and styles. According to Martin Majoor (In an article titled, ‘Inclined to be dull’, Eye magazine no 63), ‘The different versions of the Akzidenz family were produced by anonymous punch cutters, which makes it hard to appreciate that the Grotesks were actually designed by people. One name, however, did survive: that of Ferdinand Theinhardt, who is known as the designer of Royal Grotesque and Breite Grotesque, two typefaces that later became members of the Akzidenz family.’

What’s available as current digital versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk are adapted from an ambitious and successful late 1950s project largely directed and produced by Günter Gerhard Lange at Berthold. He extended its type family, adding to it a larger character set, but being careful to retain most of the idiosyncrasies of the 1898 face. Majoor also points out that the German word, ‘Akzidenz’ means ‘display’, implying the type’s original use was intended (and actively marketed) for this use. Of course, this type’s text use is now common and there’s little or no debate about this type’s influence on many widely popularised forms: Univers, Helvertica, etc. And, increasingly, ‘neutrality’ had been explored as ‘attribute’ of a type’s design, more than its use.

‘Neutrality’ as a visual form is very contextual, so how a typeface is used by a designer must play into this perceived quality. It’s rarely added in posts like this that Jan Tschichold stated that even certain classically designed serif typefaces could be used in a ‘neutral’ way, which counters the stereotypical perspective that only sans serif typefaces could be ‘neutral’. Wim Crouwel notes that his own view of typography represents somewhat of a conflict between ‘less readable’ yet expressively interesting abstract typeforms and his pragmatic concerns about ‘neutrality’ and readability. As a modernist typographer, Crouwel offers a an acceptance of variance which may be fairly considered rare. In terms of recent type development, particularly new typefaces which closely follow the historically significant forms of Akzidenz Grotesk or Neuzeit Grotesk, Martin Majoor, in an article originally published in the Polish magazine 2+3d in 2005 (an updated version was pubished in Eye magazine in 2007), notes,

‘Since 2000 there has again been a revival of the Akzidenz-like typefaces. The American designer Christian Schwartz based his FF Bau (2002-04) on a 19th century Grotesk from Schelter & Giesecke [a specimen sheet is shown at right], a former Leipzig-based foundry (Miedinger followed some of its forms for his Helvetica). Unfortunately, the italic is a slanted roman again. [Majoor makes the point earlier in this article that Akzidenz & Neuzeit Grotesk, as well as Helvetica and Univers, as use ‘slanted roman’ rather than true italic forms] Akkurat (2004-05) by Swiss designer Laurenz Brunner is another Akzidenz-like design, with influences from Neuzeit Grotesk. Swiss designer François Rappo used his Theinhardt revival in the book We make fonts, a 2006 project by the University of Art and Design, Lausanne.’

Along with the group of typefaces Majoor mentions, the typeface ‘Neutral’, designed by Kai Bernau as part of his work for his final degree project at KABK, seems to represent (in some respects, perhaps) the ‘fever pitch’ of this ‘making a neutral typeface’ in recent times. The premise of all of these adventurous explorations can be questioned – but it also can be easily understood. If you consider that Akzidenz Grotesk, in the form we can still use it today, was ‘neutrally useful’ in the late 1950s – largely based on forms developed in the 1890s and before, you have to also accept that this form of type design always was (and still is) open to endless interpretations. Sans serif and ‘netrually intentioned’ variations of new type, if and when these are carefully and knowingly designed (and all sources are properly acknowledged), are welcomed. And, these different and newer forms of type can only be accepted or rejected in use – and over time.

Notes about modernism 1945–1962

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:39:46 +0000

Unlike the social eras which ended or began during specific times: the Cold War, the Victorian and Edwardian eras, etc, both disparaging and admiring critics of modernism cannot easily define a beginning or end to this movement – although many have tried. Noting the ‘beginning’ or first known date of a modernist work, as a building or other forms of design, is much more easily defined than its end.

The Second World War’s architectural and graphic forms were rapidly replaced and rebuilt in ways which must be considered unprecedented. Nothing has since been, gratefully, as widespread, devastating or destructive. The strong social implications that this disorder and chaos, and along with it, the old ways of interpreting and organising visual forms must be discarded and replaced lingers with us more than 65 years later.

What’s been carefully identified by many design critics as significant movements succeeding or ‘after’ modernism – postmodernism, structuralism, the international style, radical modernism, minimalism, maximalism, poststructuralism, deconstructionism, etc – all have had their lasting change – and yet, perhaps tellingly, none have signaled a ‘definitive end’ to modernist design. Some would argue that all of these forms are simply different expressions of modernism, others regard this broad view to be unlikely. There have been questionable forms identified within the wider variables of any of these movements, but this reflects the skill of the designer(s) and producers more than the fault of the movement. The ‘rules’, restrictions and even the failings of any formal consideration are applied by individuals, not ‘movements’.

The ominous term ‘late modernism’ as it applies to graphic design suggests this movement came to a close sometime in the 1970s, suspiciously close to the demise of another significant visual form: letterpress printing. It seems, for whatever reasons, modernism’s imagined ending is always linked to another very significant social ‘end’ and a rapid rebuilding: a world war, a 500 year printing tradition – and more recently, sweeping digital and technological changes.

Ironically, the more information I collect about the post war ‘demise’ of modernism and the re-introduction of the term, ‘postmodernism’, (there are historical references to this term in the mid to late 19th century) the more imaginary the line between this movement and any of those that followed it becomes. Perhaps we don’t need to know, outside of the practically provided ‘textbook’ explanations of why some works should be identified as art nouveau, constructivism, pop art, new wave, post punk, neo constructivism or internationally recognised symbolism, when, exactly, the modernist movement was supposedly ‘killed off’ by critical or intellectual decree.

Modernism’s influence has been long lasting, and its associations with the avante garde art movement, music, film and poetry has perhaps been distanced and underplayed. It’s possible that progressive forms of architecture, many forms of art and graphic design were once very interconnected – if only for brief and very productive instances. If this, in part, defines modernism, I don’t think it could’ve died (or was killed) in the 1970s.

Here are some resource notes (articles and essays, accessible in libraries and on Blackboard) about modernist architecture and design during this time. Please feel free to copy any or all of these for your reference:

Network architecture lab’s post on ‘late modernism’

Joseph Hudnut, ‘The Post-Modern House’ (1945)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, ‘New Education-Organic Approach’ (1946)
Max Bill, ‘Education and Design’ (1952)
Walter Gropius, ‘Eight Steps toward a Solid Architecture’ (1954)
Jacob Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Peter Smithson, et al., ‘Doorn Manifesto’ (1954)
Philip Johnson, ‘The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture’ (1955)
Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, ‘Transparency (Part 2)’ (1956)
Alison and Peter Smithson, ‘The New Brutalism’ (1957)
James Stirling, ‘Regionalism and Modern Architecture’ (1957)
Louis Kahn, ‘Architecture Is the Thoughtful Making of Spaces’ (1957)
Tomás Maldonado, ‘New Developments in Industry and the Training of the Designer’ (1958)
Ernesto Rogers, ‘The Evolution of Architecture: Reply to the Custodian of Frigidaires’ (1959)
Aldo van Eyck, ‘Steps toward a Configurative Discipline’ (1962)

Pictured below: one of my favourite modernist book covers, designed and photographed in 1953 by Alvin Lustig. Shown are the colours (black and white) it was originally printed in. I think this inexpensively produced cover works well very today as a visual introduction to this collection of poems by Lorca.

Makaoto Saito’s memorable typographic posters

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:57:26 +0000

‘Yesterday I saw Makoto Saito’s ‘Blue Bone’ for the first time in some while. It captured my attention with tremendous impact: a single blue bone at the centre of an all white periphery. It was part of an exhibition entitled “Contemporary Expression in Background, Interspace and Margin”. This unusual show aimed to demonstrate how Japan’s unique sense of “background, interspace and margin” is manifested in contemporary works.’

I’ve always had a very similar reaction to what’s described above in viewing this specific poster (click to enlarge the small image at left). Viewed in its actual size, it has more impact – it almost ‘looks musical’. The reason I’ve quoted this article as if it might be happening currently is the images shared in this retrospective still seem (to me) to be quite fresh, in terms of Saito’s very defined awareness of perceptual depth, use of symbolism – and interpretations of both western and Japanese typographic forms. There can be many ‘direct’ associations that may be interpreted with this kind of sparse and vertical spatial arrangement – but there’s more to than this, too.

The choice of using this shade of blue is chillingly cold in this context – alluding to ancestral connections, humanity in association with artifice and, more obviously and directly, water and sky. The phallic aspect of its construct is (and isn’t) clearly realised – there’s something oddly ‘nonsexual’ about it – bones are too directly associated with death. But here it is, defying gravity with simple lighting creating a thin shadow defining an all white floor and seamless backdrop – purplish hues in the shadows. Not an easy design to dismiss as ‘one dimensional’ – the minimal typography appears prominently but diagonally balanced and somewhat ‘evasive’, resting in the lower left corner and clinging to the upper right edge. It seems many western typographic designers either embrace or look upon this type of visual construct with envy and even suspicion: more of less deciding this work cannot practically influence their own. By contrast, in sharing this article with MA students of typography, particularly (but not exclusively) those from Japan, China and other Asian countries recently, many of these students seem to respond to Saito’s works (and the original publication it was printed in, pictured at right) much more enthusiastically. Perhaps this is easily explained as visual and cultural differences. However, there may be another factor which affects this perception: the educational and practical tendency to dismiss works from certain eras (meaning the 1980s or any other past era, for that matter) as being ‘merely’ valid for their time and of historical significance only – or worse, painfully ‘dated’.

I still think this work is strong, and I don’t doubt that many would agree with this. I’ll concede that some elements of its type use ‘identify’ with the time it was produced, but I question if it’s relatively easy to find yourself ‘categorising’ or grouping these kinds of images too generally. I often wonder why these kinds of spacial, textural and symbolic visualisations seem to be ‘missing’ or absent from process (I don’t, however, advocate their imitation, copying or misappropriation – these are posted for learning or discussion, not as templates for pastiche). Perhaps this work does represent an east/west cultural divide – but perhaps, too, these posters by Makaoto Saito represent effective graphic and typographic design beyond any cultural boundaries – or date of development (all works shown by Saito, like the article and publication featuring his work, were produced in the 1980s).

I suppose the thing that I’m most ‘struck by’, in regards to current typographic and graphic design education, is not only the possibility of our currently experiencing an era in which ‘the lost art of the poster’ sounds valid. I’m not stating this in any accusatory mindset, either. I consider this kind of awareness to be inclusive: meaning that I think the design of any poster which attempts to convey more than the representational or ‘tourist’ views of London, for instance, must be challenging – this isn’t a task for ‘the fainthearted’, as they say.

Rick Poynor, commenting about the recent London Poster project (2009), puts it this way:

‘…the poster, long an endangered undertaking in Britain’s graphic culture, is an inflexible taskmaster. Four sides defining a big empty rectangle: that’s all there is. The unchanging aim is to fill the space with something surprising, memorable and visually original that communicates effectively to its intended viewers. The exercise is hard in the way that writing a really good poem or pop song is hard, requiring condensed visual thought, and the poster’s fabulous history of invention makes it even harder. Add to that the challenge, in this case, of no real client, no clearly definable audience, and being entirely responsible for the poster’s content and point of view.’

Perhaps it is someone indicative of our own time that ‘relative scale’ is assumed. Actual scale, in printing out a poster design and looking at it in context is critically important to its construct. And, of course, the same goes from many kinds of design which can be translated initially and then ‘fine tuned’ later digitally – but the critically important ‘in process’ decisions of scale relevance are deceptive if not viewed as in actual, not virtual, physical form. Undeniably, there are many other design and typographic concerns as well. Not the least of which are symbolism, context and content. Possibly more in poster design than in any other graphic form, the designer must be ‘entirely responsible for the poster’s content and point of view’. Not a very common circumstance, is it?

The good news, I think, is that the poster does not need to continue to be considered a ‘lost art’. There are ways to learn this craft – in the manner of careful research – and a willingness to ask (and answer) many difficult questions about cultural (and widely) understood meaning, symbolism and varying levels of taste, visual experience and immediate reactions. Arguably, Poynor makes it clear that he admires certain qualities of some of the poster in the recent London Poster Series – he’s questioning a few of them in specific terms, which is what a design critic should do. I would agree with many critics that movie, theatre and cinema posters are not in great place, currently. It’s a bit difficult to imagine a current retrospective of ‘the best cinema posters for the last ten years’. Maybe there’d be something in this kind of exhibit which would delight and surprise viewers – but nothing (meaning nothing I can remember seeing recently) springs to mind. Current designers, then, must learn their typographic craft from carefully selected (and not imitated) inspirations – in order to ‘find their own way’ into expressing their best work as posters.

And I’m not implying, by any means of interpretation, that there aren’t great posters being produced currently for many different kinds of messages and genrés. I do agree that this specific typographic form is endlessly challenging – so it’s best to look around to become well informed about what you like (or don’t like) as posters – and why.

Protected: Ariella typeface development

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:38:46 +0000

Protected: Battling typographic ‘dulness’

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:27:37 +0000

Blasts from the past (for educational use)

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:35:23 +0000

[Text and images from prior blog post insert here - thnx]