La Boca

These poster designs for the new Darren Aronofsky film are beautiful also they are rather clever in their use of typography. It would have been so easy producing a set of four posters each using the same two fonts. However, they don’t! Each has different fonts for headings and subheadings, though they are precisely exact in wording. This means that when looking at them as a group of images, expecting to see much of the sameness, you spot these subtle differences in the typography and re-evaluates the integrity of the set as a whole.

There’s a Russian avant-garde influence to the pieces that hold them together as a set of designs. Looking at the Soviet film posters in the silent era you can see the same thing happening typographically.

The designs are beautiful; they show the elegance and structure of the film’s qualities. The compositions describe the theme with a disciplined and dynamic approach.

(top) Black Swan by Bemis Balkind | (x4) by London-based La Boca

Feature: Making the cut... Gavin Lucas. This feature is open to subscribers for a limited time only, thanks mainly to actor and Twitter darling Charlie Sheen, who, as evidenced in the Metro newspaper, has two of La Boca's posters on the wall of his LA pad: CR 

Famous Quotes from Type Designers

I hope you enjoy these typographic quotes! Please add others you like to the comments section.

1. Proper understanding of what the different punctuation marks and other special characters do.
2. Correct use of spacing. Kerning is important but word spacing is by far the most important for good comprehension of text, this covers the space between the lines and the linebreaks. This is obviously absolutely fundamental too.
3. A clear wayfinding system for titles, subheadings, page numbers, etc… that doesn't change and then confuse people.
4. An understanding of the different technologies that the work will be used on.
5. An understanding of the chaos or order that mixing font families and styles can create.
6. This is problematic and seen as out of the scope of typographic education, but shouldn't be: Is the message worth saying? And do you believe it yourself? When I asked this once at college it was treated with contempt, but as part of typographic education… I think it should be the first thing you think about. ................................~ Jonathan Barnbrook  

“From all these experiences the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader.”
~ Adrian Frutiger

“The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read; their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read.”
~ Zuzanna Licko

“Designers provide ways into–and out of–the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information. (…) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane function is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.”
~ Ellen Lupton
Thinking with Type

“A typeface is an alphabet in a straightjacket.”

~ Alan Fletcher

“Look at historical reference, look at old type books, there are so many old typefaces that are no longer available. Resurrect old fonts that you wouldn't use ordinarily.”

~ Louise Fili

“Don't mistake legibility for communication.”
~ David Carson

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy – the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand – and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.”
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“By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully,
deliberately, and well.  That is one of the ends for which they exist.”

~ Robert Bringhurst

“When a type design is good it is not because each individual letter of the alphabet is perfect in form, but because there is a feeling of harmony and unbroken rhythm that runs through the whole design, each letter kin to every other and to all.”
~ Frederick Goudy
Tell Us About Type, Mr Goudy

“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. A printed work which cannot be read becomes a product without a purpose.”

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“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing.”

~ Emil Ruder

“Letters are things, not pictures of things.”
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“There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools.”

~Eric Gill

“Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts.”
~ El Lizzitsky

“This then is the scribe’s direct purpose: the making of useful things legibly beautiful.”

~
Edward Johnston

“[Graphic Design is] the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.”

~ Massimo Vignelli

“Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced.”

~ Helmut Schmid

“The black space can never be beautiful until the white space is beautiful.”

~ Unknown Russian designer

Dot. The world's smallest stop-motion animation

The smallest stop-motion character animation ever… is made up of little bits and pieces such as pencil sharpening, pennies, fabric samples, leaves, and felt clouds. It's about a tiny girl (plastic figure) called Dot. She reminded me of Spirited Away’s Chihiro. Awakening then making a running escape to keep herself from falling off the edge of her enchanted world as it unravels.

Quite ambitious in construction focusing on two animations happening, Dots interactions within the scene and the collage backgrounds unravelling. Forming an interesting textural animation on the edge of the frame. Literary breaking down the subject matter and capturing with cellScope technology (a mobile phone microscope) the beauty of the fragmented debris pieces in stop-motion glory. What’s really amazing about this animation is tiny Dot herself, measuring 9mm tall.

Lovley Birds for Inspiration

One of the benefits of being a student is the opportunity of seeing the different interpretations of a project/subject explored. I remember the art crits as being a kind of bittersweet experience. Fantastic seeing all this stuff on the walls, but feeling vulnerable, allowing your piece to be surrounded; of course, now I miss all that excitement terribly! The Metropolitan Museum of Art has taken this idea to showcase artist’s works online. At the Met, these pieces are situated in different gallery spaces. However, online it’s possible to see these works thematically, here’s some lovely birds for inspiration. What a lovely idea, this is exactly how online galleries can really work!

The Conference of the Birds: (Iran) Page from a manuscript of the Mantiq al-Tayr 

Pendant - Tridacna shell (Maybe from Malaita Island, 19th century) 

A Lyre Bird (French, 1821–1868) by Charles Meryon

Lovely birds for inspiration

Back to the Future

When I first saw this project I found it pretty hilarious, but this idea is very clever, the personal portraits seem too resonant at the deepest of levels. Even though we don't know these people, it's a trip we all want to be involved with both in its charm and wonder. This is an opportunity not so much about looking at others but also thinking about ourselves. Our physical changes and our developmental journey from childhood onwards. The photographer Irina Werning literally offers her subjects the opportunity to go back to their future. She explains:

I love old photos. I admit being a nosey photographer. As soon as I step into someone else's house, I start sniffing for them. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it's imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A few months ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

Here these people are facing the absurdity of going back through time.

Irena Werning: Photographer

Illustrations Appeal

These Japanese posters, magazine covers and advertisements dated from the late 1920s are very beautiful and stylish compositionally. With a limited use of colour and elements placed on the page in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. These are partially interesting, not just because of their vintage appeal, but also because they serve to remind us of the allure and of illustration. They could form a solution to the visual problem we are facing on the web, as they look fast and cost effective to produce. 

Some are laced with text and some form colleges with photographs superposed and displaced with semi-transparent layers, others are coloured drawings with handcrafted letting. A great article by Khol Vihh: The sad story of illustration on the web (link) showcases the digital uses of poor stock imagery. This problem is basically caused by time and money. As a result in terms of imagination, whimsy, and political satire, these generic images often miss the hidden layers of meanings in the text. Also, the sameness doesn't serve to inspire or entertain and makes a reader more complacent. 

These posters serve and inspire me to grasp potential applications quite clearly; for example, political interests, fashion and beauty, aspirations and modernism. These posters prove just how effectively illustration creates its own distinction and that if used in conjunction with photography and text makes graphic media come alive.

Japanese graphic design from the 1920s-30s

Special thanks to Yvonne Moser and design northsouth for these links