Letterforms Archive Tours:
- Set tables of archives of the collection, organise these depending on the audience. - Would do this in person but using the online archive to present to us over the web. - Document publications with photography compared to scans, able to see more about the object this way.
Looking through this table of work and own presentation: http://oa.letterformarchive.org/tabledetail?tableid=439
Link to talk recording: https://vimeo.com/posterhousenyc
FROM ARCHIVE TABLE:
Early Typograph:
- Very rigid grid based system, even though it's based off of handwritting.
- Guttenberg press
Before early printing: Manuscripts
1880-1910
- Can break from a grid more easily.
- Have diagonal text settings.
- Has a traditional baseline system but have breaks in the form of diagonal setting.
After print there was the grid that could be broken.
Including ornaments, there were all pieces of metal type to be put together in a way to break through the grid.
- Using brass curves to break the grid in decorative type pieces.
20th Century
- Avant Garde typography
For the voice: Typesetting a poem from 1918.
- each part of the poetry is on a different page, these pages are marked with tabs.
- All imagery is made with metal type to create unusual compositions.
El Lissitsky et al.
Curt Svitters: Merz
- Puts type on an angle
- Using lines and borders in unusual ways, weren’t the norm at the time.
- This issue is for advertising, bringing art to commercial design.
Paul Schuitema: - Bringing contemporary design to commercial works like advertising.
- Would be able to make mundane content much more interesting.
Elaine Lustig Cohen - Connection to constructivist Avant Garde artisits but bringing to a book jacket. - Breaking free of traditional grids - All cover angles aren't right angles.
Complete Commercial Artist (Japan)
- Were documenting what was happening with modernism in Japan 1920-30s
- Each piece has it's own untraditional typesettings
Supermarket Ads (Aaron Douglas)
- Breaking the rules is sometimes the best way to go
- Have hand lettered prices and headlines
- Products in different boxes with no grid system but it still works.
Aaron Douglas
- Used Ad from 60s to inform artistic work
- Doesn’t talk about how it was used directly
- Used scientific grid papers, uses all different grids to do interesting things with the type.
- Symbolic Constructions, pulls text away from semantic meaning and placing on a grid. Sometimes there letters aren't complete (because used letreset)
https://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-aaron-douglas
Indie Publishing took off with breaking the grid, were experimenting with typesetting and overprinting to get new effects.
Oracle - California Publication, known for printing poets work.
- Showcase for psychedelic art at the time
- Would start with the illustration and set the text around it, text is secondary.
- Columns of text become part of the illustration as well.
BiWeekly
- Bilingual publication
- Uses Chinese letterforms to play with grid that rotates
- Bring in psychedelic lettering and handwritten lettering.
- https://lausan.hk/2020/rise-and-fall-of-70s-biweekly/
Type Specimens:
David Carson
- Contribution to Fuse periodical, reprinting a fax overlaid onto design and made it part of the poster.
- Invite designers to create typeface and design poster for each issue
- Lots of experimentation with digital type design as people could make their own fonts since able to do digitally.
Laura Serra
Emigre
- Made in the progression from physical to digital
- Pushed forward post-modern design.
- Done by couple
- Rudy would sometimes be a grid system but would often be broken
PRESENTATION SLIDES:
(1896) Le Petit Journal des Refusees, Gelett Burgess:
- Almost on right angles in the whole thing
- Printed on wallpaper
- Cut in trapezoid shape, when placed on a shelf will always stand out
- Filled with letterforms and type
- References to other people doing similar kind of work
- Uses decorative typefaces on an uncommon baseline
- Only one issue was produced
(1966-7) Wes Wilson
Handbill for 13th floor Elevator
Poster for Moby Grape
- Poster art
- Were reviving the victorian grid by breaking the rules.
- Morphed letters out of square grids to fit around the illustration, keeping the illustration as the focus.
- Demonstrates that posters can be an experience rather than just read the information.
(1968) Emory Douglas The Black Panther May 4
- https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/emory-douglas-and-the-black-panther and https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/salon-video-conversation-with-emory-douglas
- Newspaper of urgency, wanted convey this with layers
- Knew what grids were wanted to break the rules on purpose.
- Were under pressure from print but also from police
(1972) Jane Norling, Day of Unacceptance
- Lithograph
- Straight forward lettering, needing to get a message across as quickly as they can
(1998-9) Dave Eggers, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern
- Later issues tore open the grid
- Changes letter sizes within a word
- Use hand-drawn lettering
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr Man Builds No Structure
- Responding to each layer
- Creating an overall effect by working without a grid from the start
Someone Died For Your Right to Vote…., (2015)
- Printed over standard road maps anyone could get.
- Would respond to issues and direct work to the government at that time.
- https://posterhouse.org/blog/letterpress-artist-amos-paul-kennedy-jr-s-rosa-parks-series/
David Schmidlapp & Phase 2
IGTimes, 1984-96
- Document street art
- Would document it the way it was, document it on the page the way you’d see it on the street.
- https://fontsinuse.com/uses/24685/earth-s-edge-flyer-aug-27-1983
Jack Stauffacher
Fine Print on Type book cover, 1988
- Known for wood type
- Experiments with wood type and typesetting
- https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/jack-stauffacher-on-working-with-type
Wanting to push past Swiss grids?
- Need to look beyond the western world.
- https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/contemporary-design-of-south-korea
Eunjoo Hong and Hyungjae Kin ManLab (2018)
- 7 new fonts were created for this exhibition, one for each artist.
Florence Fu’s article: https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/contemporary-design-of-south-korea
Tadanori Yokoo
- No sense of common grid
- Type lettering and illustration coming together in one piece.
- https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/tadanori-yokoo
Concrete Poetry:
Johanna Calle (2009) Abece
- Plays with grid
- Each page is a letter
- All letters are placed in the grid and rotated but then have more experiments sections where the grid is broken.
Jiri Kolar
- Using grid-based system to translate art across
- Same width and height for each letter
- But then they’re played with, staggered settings, different angles.
- Paints with the typewriter.
Timm Ulrichs
- Rotating the letters gives the grid a motion
Links:
https://posterhouse.org/event/letterpress-studio-tour-with-dafi-kuhne/
https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/utopian-construction-judaism-and-the-soviet-avant-garde
https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/the-complete-commercial-artist
https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/periodicals-as-collections-04
Q&A SECTION:
How can all elements work together without a grid
Get off the computer, computers force you into a grid straight away.
- Start to think in ways that are more analogExciting to incorporate limitations and see what results you can get from this.
Will there ever be a post-modern grid? When looking at a collection that goes back centuries there are many ways to think about the grid. Start to see these as the big picture grids become typographic grids, not Swiss grids.
- Able to look beyond what is traditionally considered the grid
Reflection:
- This talk was really interesting and I'm so glad I attended, I was able to learn more about different movements surrounding the grid and layout.
- seeing more experimental ways of approaching print and publication was really exciting, made me think about the direction I want to go in and how my projects can develop this year.
- I found it helpful to attend a talk all about books and print from someone who doesn't make books, the Letterfrom Archive stores a massive variety of printed matter and the compare was an individual who works with archiving, researching, and storing these artifacts.
- It was really helpful to hear about other roles that are involved with books.
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