People for the Ethical Treatment of Typography

Time 2021-10-24 14:10:01

Web Name: People for the Ethical Treatment of Typography

WebSite: http://peoplefortheethicaltreatmentoftype.blogspot.com

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skip to main | skip to sidebar Friday, January 6, 2012 Slurp TVMy wife and I found something really special late last night...
SlurpTV, a Barcelona-based motionagrapher, video-jockey and wastingtimer makes (among other things) promo videos for a club-night in Barcelona called Nasty Mondays.
My wife and I are both products of the 80s, and so a lot of the content in these videos is nostalgic. But the video-compositions by SlurpTV are also a reminder of just how bizarre, decadent, and visually shocking 80s culture was. Take a few minutes to watch. They are mind-blowing.
Period typography and design is difficult to achieve successfully. And the more recent the period, the harder it is to do, because the references are fresher in our consciousness.
But SlurpTV is nailing the 80s, yet in a way we havent seen before. Enjoy.





Added byNTat11:16 AM1 comment: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 The Visual VoidMore than a year ago, I had a chance encounter with a guy named Kurt Thometz. Theres more on that here.
While we talked about reading, typography, printing, and other associated topics, we got on to the subject of orality. More specifically, the ideas surrounding orality and literacy. Orality is difficult to define, but loosely, it represents the human concept of a pre-literate time a time before we had a written language. There are still cultures, usually labeled primitive, that do not write, or read. But they communicate. They transmit thought to one another.



In our modern time, it is of paramount importance to be familiar with the way that computers work, or at least, how to work with them. As a not-so-distantparallel to that, we must be literate. We must know how to read; and how to write. These are standards in order to be considered an educated person. So, it's strange to consider this dichotomy of orality and literacy, because we see literacy as an obvious advantage. And of course it is. As a designer and typographer, and a largely visual thinker, it is difficult to imagine the world without written forms of communication.

But were our minds better when we didnt have the chance to rely on something being written down somewhere?The only reason to consider this is to get closer to understanding how we think. And how our human thinking has changed over the millennia. It is highly unlikely that we will ever return to a time where we can only communicate non-visually. Or to put a sharper point on it, without letters and words. Ray Bradbury captures this well in Fahrenheit 451 where he suggests the idea of texts being memorized by different individuals, and those individuals serving as vessels to bring fragments of human thought forward in a new oral tradition. For example, I would memorize the short story The Dead by James Joyce, and that would be mine to protect. I would know every word, and make sure to pass it along to someone younger, someone committed, who would then, in turn, carry it into the future...

Kurt suggested several books to me one of which I am finally reading now. It is called The Muse Learns to Write by Eric A. Havelock. Another is by Havelocks predecessor Walter J. Ong called Orality and Literacy. And of course, there is the seminal Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan. There are many books on these interrelated subjects of thinking/writing/reading, memory, information retention, the development of communication technologies and their effects on the trajectory of human thought.

Essentially, we began to speak to one another. Then we learned to write things down. Then we needed a better way of dispersing the written things. Scribes could only accomplish so much and so, the printing press was invented. Printing presses, their relative speed, and quantity-of-output has increased over time. And now we have the internet as our publication tool.But, as these technologies have rushed forward, what has happened to our brains?

It is worth taking the time to think about this. It is worth imagining a time where we interacted, our bodies and ears and eyes moved from place to place, we spoke to each other and listened. We listened to stories, and we retained information because we had to, because our memories were all that we had.

(The images above are from Jean Clottes bookReturn to Chauvet Cave. 35,000 year-old cave paintings were discovered in Chauvet Cave in 1994, making them the worlds oldest. The story of their discovery is well-documented in a beautiful film by Werner Herzog called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.) The drawings are mind-bendingly beautiful shaded, overlapped, and illustrating movement in some cases a distant precursor to Duchamps Nude Descending a Staircase.

Added byNTat6:40 PM1 comment: Monday, November 14, 2011
Of the 3 classes I teach at the School of Visual Arts, some of the more profound awakenings are in my second year typography class. With little background in design, students start to encounter the vast realm of expression offered through the lowly letterform. It's a strict courseintended to be meditative, and designed to create many quiet moments where students ponder the nuances of what make typographic expression so powerful and important.
The below represent some of the more successful executions for a unique project where students are randomly assigned both a well-known musical act, and a famous designer from 20th century history, then must synthesize their characteristics into a 12" record cover.


Jenny Wu designed this Neil Young 12" via Jan Tschichold


Heesang Lee's design for an Otis Redding 12" inspired by Bruno Monguzzi



Christopher Eustaquio's rendering of Led Zeppelin's untitled 12" in the style of Wolfgang WeingartAdded byNTat11:38 PM1 comment: Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)Our AimsTo guard and further the traditions of typography.
To promote brilliance and joy in communication.
Our Studio
Excellence
(found image) 16th centuryThe BraveJ.B.TaylorIan Allen Works21Trillion / 21MCProject MDavid ByrneProject M '08 Web LogTBDLord Whimsy - Mammal of ParadiseLaurie Rosenwald's RosenworldDresscodeOffice of Paul SahreSHOWstudioSaville AssociatesDesign Books of Great ImportancePaul Renner/The Art of Typography Christopher BurkeGeometry of Design Kimberly ElamTypographica Rick PoynerMacro+Microaesthetics Willi KunzDer Typografische Raster Hans Rudolf BosshardDesigned by Peter SavilleProduction for the Graphic Designer James CraigTM Chermayeff GeismarAn Essay on Typography Eric GillThe New Typography Jan TschicholdThe Art of Looking Sideways Alan FletcherTypography Friedrich Friedl, Nicolaus Ott and Bernard SteinDesigning Books Jost Huchuli, Robin KinrossPioneers of Swiss Graphic Design Lars MüllerGrid Systems Josef Müller-BrockmanElements of Typographic Style Robert BringhurstBackgroundIn the old days...
when a few of us had just started to notice typography and its power (what it said, how it looked and what it meant), we also started to see how few other designers noticed, cared or delved into the world of typography. A designer who does not pay attention to the history of design and typography, and does not become consumed with the details of type design and usage is like a carpenter who finds wood uninteresting, and ignores his nails.
As an instructor of design and typography at the School of Visual Arts, the desire to transmit a passion for typography is stronger than ever. But it isnt just typography. It isnt just the letters. Its the act of communicating a message bridging the space between the beauty and nuance of typographic details and the larger concept. As Musashi puts it, Rats head and oxs neck.
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