Typography I: Typographer of Week 9 – Tobias Frere-Jones

TYPOGRAPHER: TOBIAS FRERE-JONES

Frere-Jones is an American type designer who had designed over 500 type faces – crazy! From the readings on him, it seems like he really picked type and stuck by it.

Some of the typefaces he designed includes Gotham and Interstate.

Gotham was popularized throughout New York City in signages, Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and other campaigns. Interstate was designed as homage to Highway Gothic, the official typeface of the American Federal Highway Administration.

Typefaces are Solutions

Frere-Jones talks in specific about typefaces for the different mediums and display (for print and for web) in this particular video. The video really highlights the problems that surfaces when a typeface is directly plucked from print and placed for web-reading, down to pixels!

The most interesting thing about this video for me is that the video provides the different methods to solve and clarify the typefaces for web, and the specific problems in specific letters down to pixels. It’s a really in-depth review of his experiences, experimentation and solutions for type problems.

I think this is really importance as a designer today where the computer screen is (almost) king.

Typography I: Typographer of Week 8 – Herb Lubalin

TYPOGRAPHER: HERB LUBALIN

I feel Lubalin – I would like to devote my life to painting after I retire too!

I find it really sad that Lubalin neither got the chance retire nor to devote his life to painting after retirement like he wanted to, passing on at the age of 63.

He is an American graphic designer and considered political for his lack of fear to declare his allegiances, creating works intended for positive societal and political changes.

Lubalin’s Typefaces

Lubalin was also a type designer and some of his typefaces include the ITC Avant Garde Gothic, Ronda and Lubalin Graph.

It can be noted that Lubalin Graph is a typeface family on its own but was derived from Avant Garde Gothic. The Avant Garde Gothic typeface was originally designed for the Avant Garde magazine.

The original Avant Garde logo by Lubalin

Despite the overuse and misuse of Avant Garde Gothic in 1970s, it’s still extremely influential and remains as one of Lubalin’s most iconic fonts.

Between the two, Lubalin Graph consists of more geometric letter forms, making it unsuitable for chunks of text but more suitable as logos and shorter, non-continuous texts.

U&lc (Upper and lower case)

U&lc is also known as Lubalin’s typographic journal, intended for him to promote his designs as well as provide a space for his experimentation to see how far he could push lettering. The journal is enviable as it was a space where Lubalin is his own client. Every designer (and artist) would find it hard to be able to pursue their own endeavors when they had to struggle with churning out designs to put food on their plate.

Overall

Lubalin is definitely in a class from his own. While I have not come across alot of his works until now, his works have a unique flow and look to them. It’s almost like a signature! His typefaces and works are elegant, gorgeous and even to some degree, painterly. Even his studio logo screams a unique personality.

He does seem to draw heavy influences from the Art Deco movement. His works are idealistic, exclusive and luxurious. As someone who is extremely inclined towards visual arts and towards the similarly luxurious Art Noveau myself, most of his works are visually engaging, satisfying and most definitely a big treat for my eyes.

Typography I: Typographer of Week 7 – Erik Spiekermann

TYPOGRAPHER: ERIK SPIEKERMANN

Erik Spiekermann is a German designer and typographer who aims to adapt and represent content appropriately. He also sees typography as a connection in communication design – linking products such as books, editorials, corporate items and more.

On a more random note, it’s cool to see a mention of Neville Brody while reading about Spiekermann and to know that Spiekermann partnered with Brody on FUSE and FontShop as well.

“A font should fuzz abit” – Can you see from a font where it comes from?

The article also mentions how Spiekermann discusses that fonts from the same type designers do indeed look like they came from the same designer, since designers are influenced by the traditions that they stands by.

I can’t help but to agree that it’s difficult for a designer and artist to break away from their designs – it would have to take alot of time to shift away from what they’ve made due to their unique experiences with different teachings and environments.

Designers tend to return to the same tools they have been taught to use as well and no one designer would be able to always use the same techniques in the same order due to the differences in their technical experiences as well (e.g. angles of strokes/choice of pen sizes).

On Typomaniac

In the video Typomaniac, Spiekermann speaks about information design for phone/web applications. He branded Nokia for 2001 and also talks about how “the function has to be the brand”, meaning how the product would have to function well to reflect the brand well (and how they are interlinked).

He also brought up several useful resources for creating dummy interfaces, such as Antetype, and mentioned a couple of cool tips in the video such as taking note of the screen that you are designing for. This is most definitely an important reminder to a designer – since it would not do to get too absorbed in designing an interface that looks amazing on its own but would fit on the interface it is intended for. It would end up in a terribly butchered design.

Overall

I enjoyed reading about Spiekermann’s processes and most definitely can relate to his fast-paced mode of going about design. I enjoy churning out drafts and assets early, so that they could be refined quickly.

A fast-paced process is definitely more suitable as well for a corporate environment where one has to work with many companies and clients. It’s not effective to repeatedly produce complicated work for brands that requires new assets quickly. Fast and simple is frequently more effective – just like how Spiekermann showed that people can identify Volkswagen by their blue and type.

Typography I: Typographer of Week 6 – Jonathan Barnbrook

TYPOGRAPHER: JONATHAN BARNBROOK

On Barnbrook’s Typography: A Collection of Curiosities

Barnbrook mentions that he bases his works on typography and he views it close to language; speak in language that has never been spoken before. He also mentions one thing that I find interesting and relatable despite not having much experience as a designer yet:

The Curse of the Designer

-also known as: noticing details that the average untrained eye neither notices nor cares about. It’s an extremely relatable feeling whilst going through this course, working on my own posters and other graphics. However, I do realise that people are growing increasingly sensitive to design and information around them. People are increasingly less easy to manipulate and more ready to suspend disbelief, likely because of the amount of information they take in from the Internet.

Barnbrook also mentions design as being important in a very political and social age – to which I completely agree. I do think this is increasingly so as well because we’ve moved on to a more digital age – where there are alot more wars waged online than off. Good designs conveys culture, and in turn conveys reliability.

Finally, another point I found interesting about what Barnbrook said was an interesting point about clients. He roughly mentions designs being associated to their designer, and about how after you work for Company A, it may not be very suitable for you to immediately jump to Company B. Following that, he also discusses the lack of experience as a very good thing – because of how the designer is able to experiment and shape themselves with brilliant works.

On Barnbrook’s different fonts

I can’t believe he’s the man behind Exocet! Diablo II was one of the first games I played and it was a big part in my life – I even bought the official copy of the game again a couple of years later because I first played with a pirated disc (oh man).

The O of Exocet face is definitely one of the things that sets it apart from many other fonts. It was also used for a Dungeons & Dragons setting Planetscape but it’s (personally) incredibly hard now not to associate Exocet with Diablo especially since Blizzard is a high profile game company that’s known for lots of triple A titles. Blizzard games were a big part of my life while growing up. I especially enjoyed playing Warcraft as a kid too. I don’t think anyone can use Exocet anymore without someone going “Oh! Isn’t that the Diablo font?”. I personally definitely can’t dissociate from that.

Other than Exocet, I find Barnbrook’s designs really peculiar (down to how they are named).

I love this guy.

Typography I: Typographer of Week 5 – Paula Scher

TYPOGRAPHER: PAULA SCHER

Paula Scher is a graphic designer based in New York. She is revolutionary, being the first woman to receive the Type Directors Club Medal, first female principal of Pentagram and also for working on branding projects for big companies. Well-known examples of such includes Windows 8, Tiffany & Co. and Citibank.

Liquid Identities

Scher names a successful brand identity as one that is liquid and fluid, rather than rigid, as information exists across different mediums and platforms. If the information and piece has to last long, then flexibility should be key to a successful brand identity.

Scher’s processes are extremely rational and her works are definitely alot more relatable compared to the past few typographers we’ve been looking at. Her identities are lodged deep into our subconscious. If you would just walk at a mall today, say Jurong Point or JEM, you would already see Citibank’s iconic logo. It’s not something we consciously think about, but definitely something that has wormed its way to the back of our head and can never forget.

She works with a very different platform for type. Designing for brands work extremely differently as compared to things like maps for train lines or magazines. The goal of crafting a brand identity is to burn the values and image of the company into the minds of a consumer. It is incredible how she is involved in the development for so for so many big brands.

Speaking for your work

One thing I found interesting is the section where Scher is quoted briefly about defending your work in the article ‘Get to know Paula Scher, titan of postmodern design’. Here is the quote:

“I think it’s very important for young designers to do two things. One: spend the first one to five years learning how to design and present design from somebody who is terrific at it. Having that basic understanding will carry you through the rest of their career. The second is this: develop the ability to explain, defend, and promote your work. Those are the two most important things.”

This hit a little hard considering this week in Typography class, we just went through how we should give and receive design critique. Being able to explain and sell your idea and concept is most definitely a major part of design. I find it hard to learn when to step in to defend my works as well, as it’s definitely just much easier to smile, nod and accept whatever that comes this way.

It may not be as applicable for now since lecturers and fellow classmates tend to suggest things that mean well for you and even sometimes ways for you to improve your work, but I do see the need to justify and defend our works in the future when there is a need to get your works seen (and where necessary), especially so in early stages of conceptualization where it’s still difficult to visualize an end product but you have to convince them to give you the funds to make it work.

An inspiration

Scher is definitely an inspiration as well for being one of the few female designers and leader in a male-dominated industry as well. Rather than letting herself be defined by gender, she identifies as a designer. Personally, I find the way she commits herself to her work extremely admirable!

Typography I: Typographer of Week 4 – Neville Brody

TYPOGRAPHER: NEVILLE BRODY

I find it interesting that we’re progressing into younger typographers for typographer of the week so far.

Neville Brody is a typographer, graphic designer as well as an art director from London. His works consists of record covers, magazine art and typography.

Fonts by Neville Brody

Some of the fonts he designed includes:

Arcadia
Industria
Insignia
FF Pop

I personally found Arcadia quite interesting and went to do a little bit more research on it. It turns out that the font borrows some elements from the Art Deco style and elegance. It also features high contrast lines – such as the A’s hair-thin crossbar on its much thicker body. On FontShop where Brody was one of the founders, the font is described to be well-suited for advertisements and invitations.

Looking up fonts by Brody seemed like a good start to understanding more about him. Soon I found Fuse, a “fontzine” by Neville Brody and Jon Wozencroft that launched in 1991. Fuse was to “challenge conventional thinking about the form and function of typography” and consisted of four experimental fonts designed to a theme and showcased through A2 posters.

At this point, I’ve gone through a couple of articles and each one described Brody, and his works, as experimental. This was certainly very refreshing compared to the two other typographers I’ve looked at previously (Tschihold and Vignelli).

Brody’s Works

Brody’s first record cover

In OFFSET 2014, Brody also mentions the idea of the ‘third mind’ where one needs to “find a device to put together incongruous elements and something new comes out of that”. The idea is to deliver something unexpected and taking the plunge to be pushing the boundaries of understanding. Between this and the ideology behind Fuse, Brody explores a very different face of design as compared to designers from the previous weeks.

While all of them understand to communicate with design, Brody seems to have a less traditional approach to it. He designs to challenge and not just to communicate. This can also be chalked up to the fact that Brody works with designing very different items and assets as compared to Tschihold and Massimo, and therefore his designs seek a very different purpose as well.

I feel that Brody, for his time, had been very forward-looking and an innovator. While he was criticized many times for his differences in approach and his products, alot of designers have now adopted a similar attitude in the treatment of everything as a design problem, regardless of disciplines (visuals, sound, installations, etc), as well as taking risks. There’s alot to be learnt from not just from his designs but from the “third mind” as well.