consistent typography

CONSISTENTTYPOGRAPHY

PRESENT

SURROUNDINGS

STUDIES

DIMENSIONAL

INTERVIEW

CROUWEL

N° 1

“ I see today designers that use all typefaces through each other, one day a typeface, the other day a typeface, all in favour of an certain atmosphere. I’m....I’m not...I don’t like that.”

-Wim Crouwel FROM Helvetica The Film

ENTERING:

Everywhere we are affected by messages, texts and pictures that tries to communicate to us. It is just there. A perfect typography fulfills its role in communication and in its context. Perfection of typography will hardly be noticeable. It exists and harmonize in its surrounding. It should be notice-able in such a way that one can see that there is something. It is something that gild the text, making it easy to read or reach me in a prosperous way.

In this publication, I have selected ten typefaces which I think has a certain beauty in itself, and in a way “talks to me.” It can be the font in its entirety, a letter or in combination with other fonts gives a certain feeling. Those elected, I can not proclaim to the best when the daily new fonts on the mar-ket and tomorrow I might fall in love with a new typeface. However, they provide a great foundation and inspiration for today’s type-face design.

The publication provides a visual experience and up to you as a viewer to see, interpret and reflect on the font, its form both on the flat surface but also in a demosional form. The letters which takes a new form and get a totally new character and gives further opportunities for design.

It followed then by the various interviews of artists and type designers that I find inspiring, is historical in basis to the current design.

JOHAN HAMMARSTRÖM

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SURROUNDINGS

CONTEXTUAL TYPOGRAPHY

Wherever we turn our eyes can behold a writing, a font. It may be a logo, body text

in the yesterdays paper or a sign stating that you should not stand on the yellow

marker. Everywhere. On closer study of the letters, you can start identifying some

similarity in the letters and fonts. After Helvetica the Film began fonts naked to my

eyes and similarities started to become clearer. However, dependent by its context.

AVENIRFlags of Bloomberg

fills the lamppost in New York

ANDALE MONOOn signs with Helvetica & Bodoni

by subwaystation in New York

Universe BlackSubway, London

Universe BlackSubway, London

UNIVERSCeilings of the underground trains

Subway station London

DIDOTMemorial plate

on building Verneuil in Paris

HELVETICABoard from American Apparel

by sidewalk in Amsterdam

AKZIDENZ GROTESKNumbered by the station

underground in New York

GEORGIAMonument in London

BODONIIn front of Broadway

waiting for Mamma Mia! New York

AVENIRPick up point

parkingplace in Munich

BASKERVILLEBaskervillehous Birmingham

BODONITruck parked in San Fransisco

UNIVERSMcdonalds basicfont Los Angeles

BODONITypeface in a printing place

TYPEFACEYou find it everywhere

anywhere you find it

TYPE PORTRAITS

P.25AKZIDENZ GROTESK. H. Berthold AG Type Foundry

P.27ANDALE MONO. Steve Matteson

P.29AVENIR. Adrian Frutiger

P.31BASKERVILLE. John Baskerville

P.33BODONI. Giambattista Bodoni

P.35DIDOT. Firmin Didot

P.39GEORGIA. Matthew Carter

P.41HELVETICA. Max Miedinger & Eduard Hoffmann

P.43SABON. Jan Tschichold

P.45UNIVERS. Adrian Frutiger

—

AKZINDENZ GROTESK

Akzidenz GroteskabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;

Akzidenz Grotesk BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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ANDALE MONO

Andale MonoabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Andale Mono ItalicabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


- 29 -

AVENIR

Avenir 45 BookabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Avenir 85 HeavyabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


- 31 -

BASKERVILLE

BaskervilleabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Baskerville BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


- 33 -

BODONI

Bodoni BookabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Bodoni BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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DidotabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Didot BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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GEORGIA

GeorgiaabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Georgia BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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HELVETICA

HelveticaabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Helvetica BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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SabonabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Sabon BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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UNIVERS

Univers 55 RomanabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


Univers 65 BoldabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 £%@*+?!.,:;


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TYPOG RAPHY: [FROM GREEK] to strike & to write.

The design, or selection, of letter forms to be org anized into words and sentences to be disposed in blocks of type as printing upon a page.

How Is A Letters Form Seen? What Is The Potential Opportunity To Highlight Its Characteris-tic Features. By Adding An Additional Dimension Provides Opportunities. Forms Emphasized

Further And Gives A Whole New Expression. A New Type.

DIMENSIONALSHAPE OF LETTERS

STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY J. Abbott Miller

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Typography has historically been conceived at the art of designing let-

ters: DIMENSIONAL TYPOGRAPHY adds a spatial and temporal concern

to the traditionally “flat” and static province of the letter. From early

carved inscriptions to neon signs, numerous experiments in the history

of typography and signage have interpreted letters as physical, spatial

entities. With the advent of motion pictures, animation and movie titles

have explored the temporal possibilities of letters moving through space

and time. By now, the spectacle of the dancing, decorated, and three-

dimensional letterform is common in both print and electronic media.

Developments in graphic design and multimedia have suggested two

directions for dimensional typography: on the one hand, “normal” let-

terforms are agents in an increasingly complex layering of Information;

the pioneering work of Muriel Cooper at the M.l.T. Media Lab is a

prime example of this direction. In these experiments, readers navigate

textual displays through spatial paradigms that represent depth. This

vein of inquiry replaces the small-to-large hierarchy of traditional print

media with a near to far spatial and temporal

dynamic, an eloquent transposition that maps

neatly onto our sense of reading as a process

of moving deeper and deeper into a document.

This direction in dimensional typography

investigates the spatial disposition of “flat”

letterforms: depth is represented through the

layering of successive planar surfaces. Dimen-

sional typography can also be understood as

an investigation of the sculptural and three-

dimensional forms of individual letters. This

line of inquiry assumes that the ability to think

of letterforms as having spatial and temporal

dimension brings with it new obligations and

opportunities to augment the visual and editorial power of letters. In its

focus on the individual letterform, this direction is akin to the concerns

that preoccupy type designers. Rather than looking at how typography

is arranged within a spatial construct, this vein of research looks at the

formal, visual properties of individual characters.

Yet these two avenues of research need not be thought of as exclusive of

one another: presumably, concern for the spatial aspect of navigation

and the sculptural aspect of individual forms will converge in a new

approach to typography that fuses these two spheres of interest. Both

directions suggest an expanded field for design. Readers and viewers

are increasingly able and willing to navigate texts and negotiate chal-

lenging textual and visual environments, whether they are the physi-

cal spaces of exhibitions or the virtual environments of new media.

Designers accustomed to dealing with the flat, pictorial paradigms of

print are now dealing with the architectural, ergonomic, and cinematic

paradigms of environmental, immersive media.

Historical precedents in lettering, typography, and signage exert a

strong influence on how we think about what three-dimensionality

in letters might look like. Among the ways in which letters have been

rendered dimensional, extrusion is probably the most prevalent. It is a

direct transposition of the ordinarily flat world of letters into object-

hood. The effect is of a letterform multiplied and stacked in depth, like

pages in a book. Nineteenth-century wood type explored illusionistic

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depth through elaborate perspective constructions. Perhaps because of

its deep roots in the history of ornamental and display typography, ex-

trusion remains the most enduring strategy of dimensional typography

today. Extruded letters signify monumentality, as in the 20th-century

Fox logo, by rendering letterforms weighty and material. New software

programs automatically “dimension-alize” fonts by extruding them

and rendering them in simulated stone, glass, and chrome.

Extrusion is a predictable yet powerful expression of dimensional ty-

pography. Its utter obviousness and widespread use tends to occlude

the variety of other ways letterforms may become dimen-sional. For

instance, the rotation of a letter yields classical forms: spheres, col-

umns, and cones. As a formal operation, performed digitally or on a

woodworker’s lathe, rotation is as basic as extrusion. But because it

transforms the signature silhouette of a letter into a solid, often closed

form, it is rarely seen in dimensional typography (even rarer is rota-

tion along vertical, rather than horizontal axes). Rotation generates

less automatically legible forms, yet it suggests

ways of introducing three-dimensionality that

escapes the conventions of extrusion.

Tubing is related to extrusion and rotation, but

it limits the “lathing” operation to the stroke

of the letter rather than the overall shape of

the character. Novelty fonts like Frankfurter,

or vernacular letters based on pipes, are figu-

rative versions of tubing. Neon signs are an

obvious three-dimensional application of tub-

ing which has, in turn, become the basis for

the display fonts like Neon and Electric and

others. Many letters evoke three-dimensional-

ity through shadowing or the use of implied

light sources. This was another persistent motif of nineteenth-century

wood type. But shadow fonts were also of interest to designers at the

Bauhaus, who were attracted to the relationship of shadow letters to the

“new vision” offered by photography. The design and photography of

Joost Schmidt and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy incorporated the cast-shadows

of letters, and Herbert Bayer developed an alphabet which relies exclu-

sively on the cast shadow to delineate the letterform. A similar strategy

was used by the American type designer R. H. Middleton in his 1932

font called Umbra. Shadows have become such a standard technique

that a “drop shadow” option is incorporated into most typesetting and

page layout software, accessed as easily as italics or boldface.

Two dimensional letters resembling ribbons and those created with ref-

erence to stitching, threading, and lacing, comprise a genre linked to

sewing. In paintings from the Renaissance onward, curling ribbons are

shown bearing letters. In ceremonial documents the letters themselves

rather than a supporting surface are represented as undulating ribbons.

The linked forms of many script fonts, such as Matthew Carter’s 1966

Snell Roundhand, interpret the stroke of the letter as if it were formed

from a continuous strand of ribbon. The possibilities of twisted, folded,

and pleated letter-forms suggests that the logic of sewing could fruit-

fully inform the construction of dimensional typography.

Another strategy with resonance for both two- and three-dimensions is

molecular construction: letters that are built from similar, small-scale

“Many letters evoke

three-dimensionality

through shadowing

or the use of implied

light sources.”

units to form a larger whole. Individual units may be identical as in the

brick-like formation of bit-maps that comprise Zuzana Licko’s fonts

Oakland and Emperor or merely similar in scale. Another formal prin-

ciple that builds larger forms out of small-scale although not necessar-

ily identical components, could be termed modular construction. Such

letters that are built from a discrete vocabulary of often interchangeable

parts, a notion inherited from the language of industrialization. The

rationalist ethos of modularity has folded a number of investigation in

twentieth-century type design, including Theo van Doeaburg’a 1919

geometric font, Josef Albere’s 1925 stencil font, and Herbert Bayer’s

1925 universal. Common to all of these approaches is an interest in re-

ducing alphabetic forms to a limited vocabulary of repeat able marks.

A more complex interpretation of modular construction may be teen in

the ingenious Fregio Mecono, designed in Italy in the 1920s. It reduces

the alphabet to sequence of curved, straight, and transitional forms, a

kit-of-parts that can yield a tremendous variety of heights, widths, and

thickness. 1995 font by Matthew Carter is not a strictly modular font,

but it shares the constructive logic modularity by employing detachable

slab-serifs. Accessed through optional keystrokes, the serifs may be ap-

plied as one might add a initial to a post.

Another operation in this expanding, Imprecise system of classifica-

tion that now further challenges the nomenclature of typography, may

be awkwardly described as bloating. Bulbous, organic, corpulent, in-

flated, and biomorphic are all adjectives that come to mind when trying

to describe letterforms that exhibit mutable, ductile qualities. Bloated

letterforms are reminiscent of both the way skin envelopes a skeletal

understructure, and the shapes produced by the expansion and contrac-

tion of membranous materials. Thus the associations of bloated forms

range from the organic, vegetal, and bodily, to the balloon-like and

tensile. A range of display fonts produced in the 1960s and ‘70s exhibit

cartoon-like forms that bear the influence of the Pop appreciation of

toys, kitsch, and vernacular objects. Pop art directly engaged letter-

forms and numbers as part of its inventory of everyday life. The soft

sculptures of Clues Oldenburg, which presented letters and numbers as

soft, pillow-like constructions, have directly and indirectly informed

the sensibility of 1960s and 70s novelty lettering.

In the case studies that follow, “dimensional typography” is explored at

the micro-level of individual letterforms. We have interpreted historic

and contemporary typefaces by transposing their two-dimensionality

into volumetric and planar forms. Thus most of what follows builds

on existing typefaces by historic figures like Ambroise Didot as well as

contemporaries who have become our unwitting collaborators. The let-

ters represented here are snapshots of “objects” constructed in digital

environments: each letter could potentially be “output” as a three-di-

mensional artifact from the information used to describe them digital-

ly. However, their physical manifestation is not a final objective: their

exact role in either physical and virtual environments was bracketed off

from their formal and conceptual development.

DIMENSIONAL

Illustrations made by Johan Hammarstrom in study of the motion and the shape of the typeface

STUDIES

- 54 -

DIDOT—

The thin hairline strokes becomes a solid anchor to strengthen

the letter and vaults to its shoulder

The shapes are distinct but also soft in the movement

- 55 -

DIMENTIONAL

HELVETICA—

Found a bag full with perfect formated letters

Just as obvious as seen from the front

- 60 -

STUDIES

- 61 -

DIMENSIONAL

Looking at your work, I always think it’s so incredible; the form, the

typefaces, the layout. It’s very influential and yet we are seeing this out

of context from the time it was created. At the time, did it seem shock-

ing or was it accepted by those around as just good design, or were

people quite indifferent?

It was an amount of luck, we had the right clients who embraced this

sort of thinking – mainly the director [of the Van Abbemuseum, and

then of the Stedelijk Museum] who was a great and long term client. We

met through my art school in Southern Holland [Groningen] where I

was teaching in 1954 (up until then I was painting, I didn’t really know

what to do) – the head of the school knew the director – and six months

after I had started teaching I got a phone call, which was the beginning

of a long relationship with him. He wanted to represent artwork with

a more advanced way of thinking that reflected what was happening

with Modern Art. We were very interested in the abstract at that time.

He was very supportive, as I dealt with him directly, and he dealt with

the curators, who always wanted to have a say in the way their shows

were promoted or represented. I just dealt with him, and he was very

supportive of my ideas, as they fitted with the ideas of abstract paining,

so my ideas were really quite accepted.

How did the public perceive your work?

Well, the general public, I don’t really know. But the interested public

were very receptive to it. I was often invited to talk and the public that

came to these talks were very accepting. In 1952 I had met a swiss

designer whilst working for an exhibition design company in and be-

tween ‘52-’54 we worked together on large-scale projects encompassing

art, architecture and design, our aim, to ‘redefine the visual world’.

From this came an institute which translates as ‘The Foundation of

Good Living’, which produced a magazine promoting good interiors

and therefore good living. It was a different direction for interiors, pro-

moting a new, functional aesthetic, so even then there was a sense of

promoting new thinking, new ways of looking at the world. In 1955 I

met Kho Liang Le who was an interior designer and we worked very

well together, later setting up Designstudio.

You mentioned that luck has played a part in your success – that the

director of the Stedelijk being a patron of what you did really helped

to break the work to a wider audience and had you not met him that

things could have been very different...

Yes, he definitely understood the value of good design, that design

should reflect the [new] thinking of the time. He had a law background

but became director of art museums as an art lover; in 1954 he bought

the first Picasso in Holland, for which people thought he was crazy. He

went on to buy many more pieces and this is how he developed the col-

lection of the Stedelijk.

You said in your presentation that the director would always cri-

tique your work but not until after it was done. Was his critique ever

harsh?

Oh, usually he would say something like, “that was not so inspired” or

something like that. He was never too harsh. We had a long ongoing

relationship like this.

When you became director [of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum]

you were then the client. Did you take anything from your time as

designer for the Stedelijk that helped you in commissioning design for

the museum?

Oh, yes. I adopted many of the same techniques – of critiquing after and

dealing with the curators on behalf of the designer. I had 15-20 years

of experience working as a designer which I wanted to bring to my role

as director. Sandberg, the director [of the Stedelijk], was a practising

typographer and when we had meetings he always had a ruler and was

drawing type. But when I became a director myself I found it was dif-

ficult to manage the responsibilities of director and be as involved in the

design as I would have liked, so I hired two people to work with me. My

brief to them was not “work with my grids” but rather “make the Insti-

tute visible” through a series of catalogues and posters for the museum.

After a period of time we looked at the work as a set, and found that is

was quite mismatched, it did not seem to have a single voice. So, I had

to think how to address this. At around this time I had been approached

by 8vo to write a piece on lower case typography for Octavo magazine.

I knew that Hamish Muir and Simon Johnston had been taught by the

Swiss typographer Wolfgang Weingart, and that they had taken this

back to the UK and – with the other 8vo partners – had developed a new

kind of language that had evolved away from this Swiss background;

and that hadn’t made it back to Switzerland or Holland – which I found

very interesting. This is how I came to commission 8vo to work with

me for the museum. I didn’t want to impose my thinking but up to that

WE WERE IN DUBLIN FOR CANDY’S SWEETTALK 24 EVENT , WHERE MR CROUWEL HAD GIVEN AN ENGAGING, HOUR- LONG

PRESENTATION A POTTED HISTORY OF HIS WORK AND THINKING WHICH WAS THEN FOLLOWED

BY THE DUBLIN SCREENING OF HELVETICA THE FILM.

WIM CROUWEL

STRIKING THE EYEINTERVIEW BY Michael & Nicola Place FOR CREATIVE REVIEW

INTERVIEW

—

- 63 -

point 8vo had mainly used Helvetica, whereas the museum’s typeface

was Futura, so this had to be a rule – as well as to have one size of cata-

loge and one of posters. That would mean everything had a consistency.

Do you think 8vo felt daunted working with you and on such a large

undertaking?

Well they didn’t seem to be. They dealt with the curators themselves,

each curator wants to make their own catalogue, so my only directive

to the curators was to let the designers design.

Everyone seems to have a piece of Wim Crouwel work that they love.

For me it really is your typeface design – was that driven by a lack of

expression in other available typefaces – or a reaction to the work/brief

that became the seed for the new idea/design?

We never designed a full typeface, only around the ten or so letters that

were needed. I always searched for the abstract, something that would

strike the eye.

I love sans serif typefaces. I love to work with Gill or Akzidenz Grotesk

– both have an unevenness, which for many is fantastic. As Spieker-

mann says in the [Helvetica] film of Helvetica: “all the little things

make it interesting.”

I’m a great believer in personal expression in graphic design and I be-

lieve that graphic design can ask questions as well as answer them. Do

you see design as pure problem solving – or is that personal expression

vital?

Of course design is about problem solving, but I cannot resist adding

something personal. A page should have tension.

Was there anything else that was influential to you in designing type-

faces?

I was, of course, very influenced by Joseph Müller-Brockmann. We met

in 1957 and were friends since then. But Müller-Brockmann only every

used Akzidenz Grotesk, never anything else, but he was a great inspira-

tion.

Did you and JM-B ever critique each others work?

No, I had far too much respect for him: He was ten years older than me,

he was one of my heroes. I loved the abstract quality of his work – it was

amazing. Müller-Brockmann was my man!

I came to your work quite late on, when I saw a version of New Alpha-

bet on a Joy Division cover. Did you know about Peter Saville and that

he had used that at the time?

No, I had never met him at until we met in a chance meeting at the Mies

Van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona.

How did you first see the Joy Division cover?

In a magazine and on the internet. Somebody kindly took the letters

and made them more legible, which of course wasn’t the original idea!

Eventually I worked with David Quay at The Foundry to make the

New Alphabet a fully working typeface. He had approached me to see

if I would be interested in working on it and because all the drawings

existed for this it was possible. My father was a draughtsman and he

had drawn up all the letters for me based on my sketches, so it was very

possible to work on this to make it a full typeface. They [The Foundry]

also worked to develop Gridnik, which started life as a commission for

Olivetti typewriters. Myself, Joseph Müller-Brockmann and another

designer were each commissioned to develop a typeface for the in-

terchangeable balls for the typewriters, but in the end these were not

used. So, I had the drawings for Gridnik for 20 or 30 years, and David

Quay developed it for release, as well as creating the missing letters

and the different weights now available. I’m not a typeface designer, so

I needed to work with someone to complete the typeface.

I am currently working on a typeface and when you design a whole

alphabet you realize its such specialist skill. Listening to your talk last

night, I was thinking that of course when someone presents their work

we see all the good parts, the cream of the work, and that naturally

the stresses and difficult times disappear into the background or get

lost in time. Has your experience really been the ‘golden time’ that it

appears to be?

Oh yes, it has been fantastic and it is as you see it. Although, in the be-

ginning, designers used to be called ‘Advertising Designers’ who used to

fight with everyone. But we designers all knew each other and wanted

to lift design to a professional level, make it a profession in its own

right. But we also realized we would never get very rich as a group;

between the years 64-85 Total Design never really made much money,

although we each had good salaries, but the business itself never made

huge profits. In fact, one year, we made a loss. But we borrowed money

from the financial directors who funded the studio and each year we

paid them back, so the business was stable and we were able to have

good salaries and pensions.

I started designing by doing record sleeve design – is that something

you have thought about?

I have never done any record sleeves.

You did one!

Did I? Oh yes, for quite a strange project. Yes, a friend brought us to-

gether, me and the [music] artist – but music is not my business.

Record sleeves have always been a really exciting area of design, for

me anyway, especially in the UK. Do you think design for music is

important?

Well, yes I do, music can be very inspiring, but design for music has

never crossed my path, only where I have created theatre/ dance post-

ers. Design for music is just not in my system.

And then as hurriedly as we arrived, we had to leave. We thanked Mr

Crouwel for so generously giving us his time, and suddenly we were off

to the airport. Where, of course, we found our plane was delayed an

hour and we could have continued talking for a good while longer. Isn’t

that called Murphy’s law?

INTERVIEW

WIM CROUWEL

- 65 -

- 66 -

WIM CROUWEL

CREATOR—

of Alphabet 1, 2 and 3

Stedelijk Alphabet

Fodor Alphabet

Gridnik Alphabet

Now should I talk, should I not talk?

You want me to say something? Say something say nothing.

Life of a designer is a life of fight. A fight against the angriness.

It’s just like a doctor who fights against a disease. For us the

visual disease is what we have around and what we try to do is

to cure it with design. Good typographers always has the idea

of distance between letters. Within typography there is black

or white. Typography is really white. You know, it’s not even

black. Its is the space between the blacks that really makes it. In

a sentence its like the music.

It’s not the notes, it’s the space you put between the notes that

makes the music. We always say that to use very few typefaces.

It is not that we blame a type, we believe that there are not many

good typefaces. If I want to be really generous I would say that it

is a dozen. Basically I use no more then three. There are people

that thinks that the type should be expressive, and they have a

different point from mine. I don’t think type should be expressive

at all. I can write the word dog with any typeface and it doesn’t

have to look like a dog. But there are people when they write

“dog” it should bark.

Massimo Vignelli

- 68 -

INTERVIEW FROM The Helvetica film

- 69 -

At the age of 19, Carter spent a year studying in The Netherlands

where he learned from Jan van Krimpen’s assistant P. H.

Raedisch. Raedisch taught Carter the art of punch cutting at

the Joh. Enschedé type foundry. By 1961 Carter was able to use

the skills he acquired to cut his own version of the semi-bold

typeface Dante.

Carter eventually returned to London where he became a

freelancer as well as the typographic advisor to Crosfield

Electronics, distributors of Photon phototypesetting machines.

Carter designed many typefaces for Mergenthaler Linotype

as well. Under Linotype, Carter created well known typefaces

such as the 100-year replacement typeface for Bell Telephone

Company. In 1981, Carter and his colleague Mike Parker created

Bitstream Inc.[1] This digital type foundry is currently one of

the largest suppliers of type. He left Bitstream in 1991 to form

the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone. Matthew

Carter focuses on improving many typefaces’ readability. He

designs specifically for Apple and Microsoft computers. Georgia

and Verdana are two fonts that have been created primarily for

viewing on computer monitors.

Matthew CarterBIOGRAPHY FROM Encyclopedia

The look of Punk didn’t offer much hope for a fresh graphic

language. This is where Malcolm Garrett was to be invaluable.

Malcolm had a copy of Herber Spencer’s Pioneers of Modern

Typography.

The one chapter that he hadn’t reinterpreted in his own work

was the cool, disciplined “New Typography” of Tschichold and

its subtlety appealed to me. I found a parallel in it for the New

Wave that was evolving out of Punk. In this, as it seemed at the

time, obscure byway of graphic design history, I saw a look for

the new cold mood of 1977-78 …

So for me, the door to graphic enlightenment was the book,

Pioneers of Modern Typography. My entire education about the

art and design movements of the twentieth century, other than

Pop, began at that point.

Peter Saville

- 70 -

TEXT FROM Pioneers of Modern Typography

- 71 -

The CD case sold with the album was a dark purple/blue hue,

making the cover look simply like a dark blue picture of Reed’s

face.

The bright yellow aspect and the “rays” of the cover image were

only made apparent when the liner notes were removed from the

case.

Stefan SagmeisterALBUMCOVER FOR Lou Reed

“I GRAVE MYSELF THINKING WHAT IS IN THIS. WHAT IS IN THIS WORLD. THIS WORLD IS DIF-FERENT MOVEMENTS OF EACH AND THIS PRINTS THIS TEXTS THIS WORDS THIS LETTERS THIS INK THIS WHITESPACE THIS DOTS THIS SOLIDARITY OF THIS WORLD. WHY SPEAKING WHY LIS-TENING ITS CONTENT CANT MAKE YOU FEEL DIFFERENT. MEANINGS ARE JUST A WAY TO GREED FEEL AND TREAT. TREATING IS BAD IS BAD IS BAD. COULD YOU WOULD YOU WILL YOU CAUSE I WOULD NEVER TREAT I WOULD NEVER EVER TREAT. HATING IS JUST AS GOOD AS LOVING YOU CAN NOT LOVE IF DONT YOU DONT HAVE QUETIONS TO HATE QUESTINING THINGS. I KNEW I WOULD REACH TO LOVE”

CONSISTENT TYPOGRAPHY N °1

consistent typography

Documents

new typeface

new form

new yorkgeorgiamonument

new yorkavenirpick

new character

daily new fonts

new yorkuniverse blacksubway

type designers