_andreia constantino

walking for the digital era

« o t e x t o a c c i o n a a s u a l e i t u r a (como uma porta, como uma máquina com o botão p l a y ) e o l e i t o r s o b r e a c i o n a - a , jogando com o t e x t o como quem joga um jogo, p r o c u r a n d o u m a p r á t i c a q u e o r e p r o d u z a.» Roland Barthes citado em Pensar com Tipos, Ellen Lupton (2006)

« o t e x t o a c c i o n a a s u a l e i t u r a (como uma porta, como uma máquina com o botão p l a y ) e o l e i t o r s o b r e a c i o n a - a , jogando com o t e x t o como quem joga um jogo, p r o c u r a n d o u m a p r á t i c a q u e o r e p r o d u z a.» Roland Barthes citado em Pensar com Tipos, Ellen Lupton (2006)

« «»W A L K I N G F O R T H E

so, it is a MIXINGMESSAGES about

D I G I T A L E R A |

« MY AWAY TO TYPOGRAHY » Wolfgang Weingart by Armstrong, Helen in Graphic Design Theory - Readings from the field+ Entrevista a Wolfgang Weingart Emigre nº 14

+ The Typographic Experiment, Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, Teal Triggs

+ Type Heresy by Paul Felton, foreword by Jonathan Barnbrook in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography+ To the Hell with rules by Rick Poyner in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography

+ On typography, entrevista com Jeffery Keedy in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography

Texto justificativo do booklet; contexto cultural; weingart / desconstrução e desmaterialização da tipografiaSintese esquemática; Personalidades e projectos de referência compreendidos à luz de referências bibliográficas consultadas

Ensino / New wave / Desconstrução

Reflexão Crítica / New Wave / Desconstrução / Computador /Cranbrook / Tipografia digital /Emigre / Neville Brody / David Carson +Type and deconstruction in the digital era by Rick Poynor in Looking Closer nº1

O quebrar das regras e conveções tipográficas outrora estabelecidas

Emigre Graphics in Graphic Design: A New History, by Stephen Eskilson (2007)

+ The obscence Typography Machine by Philipp Meggs in Texts on type. Critical writings on typography

« MY AWAY TO TYPOGRAHY » Wolfgang Weingart by Armstrong, Helen in Graphic Design Theory - Readings from the field+ Entrevista a Wolfgang Weingart Emigre nº 14

+ The Typographic Experiment, Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, Teal Triggs

+ Type Heresy by Paul Felton, foreword by Jonathan Barnbrook in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography+ To the Hell with rules by Rick Poyner in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography

+ On typography, entrevista com Jeffery Keedy in Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography

INTRO.

TYPE AND DECON-

STRUCTIONIN THE

DIGITAL ERA

TO THE HELL WITH THE RULES !

The ob scence

Typo.graphy Machine

WALKING IN THE DIGITAL ERA LOOKS FOR/

GUnrAY

F u s eEMIGRE

+ esquema_ Texto justificativo do booklet; contexto cultural; weingart / desconstrução e desmaterialização da tipografia

Sintese esquemática; Personalidades e projectos de referência compreendidos à luz de referências bibliográficas consultadas

Ensino / New wave / Desconstrução

Reflexão Crítica / New Wave / Desconstrução / Computador /Cranbrook / Tipografia digital /Emigre / Neville Brody / David Carson +Type and deconstruction in the digital era by Rick Poynor in Looking Closer nº1

O quebrar das regras e conveções tipográficas outrora estabelecidas

Tipografia digital / Prós e Contras

Designres / Contexto / Macintoch

Nelville Brody / Tipografia Digital + Fontshop

David Carson / Conceito Ray Gun Out of control by Dean Kuipers and Marvin Scott Jarrett (1997)

TED TALKS with David Carson 09’

Fuse in The graphic language of Neville Brody v.2

Emigre Graphics in Graphic Design: A New History, by Stephen Eskilson (2007)

0 7

1 1

1 5

1 7

1 9

2 1

2 3

2 5

2 7

wolfgag

WEINGART

+ The obscence Typography Machine by Philipp Meggs in Texts on type. Critical writings on typography

A segunda metade do século XX é marcada por mudanças sócio-culturais evidentes, onde a atitude crítica e o pluralismo cresciam à medida que as sociedades passavam a questionar os padrões anteriormente estabelecidos. Tal como Herbert Bayer e Jan Tschichold haviam adoptado uma nova abordagem no design tipográfico nos anos 20, cerca de quarenta anos mais tarde surge um movimento de oposição ao formalismo frio da tradição modernista difundido inicialmente na suíça mas que rapidamente se espalharia pelo resto do mundo: o pos-modernismo. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - -

NO DESIGN, CADA NOVO PASSO NO PROCESSO CONTÍNUO NÃO É NECESSARIAMENTE MELHOR, MAS DIFERENTE.

AO MESMO TEMPO QUE SE EXPRESSA COMO REFLEXO DAS MANIFESTAÇÕES CULTURAIS QUE MOLDAM UM NOVO AMBIENTE.

P O N T O DE R U P T U R A

com o conservadorismo anterior.

Nada mais natural que o

surgimento de uma nova geração

com ideias provocadoras que

questionavam as formas de

percepção existentes e as noções

estéticas outrora estabelecidas.

+

É REFERÊNCIA NESTE CONTEXTO, ILUSTRANDO-O DE FORMA EXEMPLAR TOMANDO UM NOVO RUMO NO TRATAMENTO DA TIPOGRAFIA E DO DESIGN GRÁFICO: APLICANDO A

INTRO.

W O L F G A N G W E I N G A R T ,

D E S C O N S / T R U Ç Ã O.

Dotados de um eminente sentido crítico

os profissionais das ltimas décadas do

século XX marcaram um importante

Digital tools may have allowed designers new power and flexibility, but typography remains the bedrock of good graphics – and one of

the most exciting areas of experimentation.

INTRO. Looking back on his teaching in 1985, Weingart stated:

Com esta eminente alteração de atitude, à medida que se caminhava para a era do digital, a prática do design encaminha-se para uma nova direcção, onde a tecnologia se assume como um factor importante, na medida em que aumenta o potencial e torna mais dinâmico todo o processo de criação. É neste sentido, que se procura estabelecer uma cadeia de referências em torno desta temática: reflecte-se essencialmente em torno da tipografia auxiliada pela tecnologia, aqui encarada «como possibilidade e necessidade». A tipografia associada ao design gráfico e a evolução no seu tratamento ao longo das últimas décadas surge como a linha condutora na exploração do período pós-modernista até à contemporaneidade. Centramo-nos nas novas linguagens gráficas e na consequente utilização tipográfica que rompem com as regras, constituindo manifestações experimentais que põem a legibilidade – uma qualidade de leitura eficiente, clara e simples - em conflito constante coma inteligibilidade – uma qualidade que promove o interesse, o prazer e o desafio da leitura. Pretende-se AQUI | COM ESTE OBJECTO GRÁFICO/TEÓRICO evidenciar a passagem da utilização da tipografia na era do digital como um trabalho auxiliado por computador compreendendo esta alteração de paradigma à luz das reflexões de designers e teóricos de referência.

CONCLUINDO, ASSINALAM-SE DESIGNERS E PROJECTOS EDITORIAIS ASSOCIADOS COMO MARCOS NA HISTÓRIA DO DESIGN, MARCADA PELA EXPERIMENTAÇÃO, PELA DESCONSTRUÇÃO E POR UMA LINGUAGEM GRÁFICA NÃO CONVENCIONAL NUMA ESTRUTURA SINTÁCTICA FRAGMENTADA.

D E S M A T E R I A L I Z A Ç Ã O D A

T I P O G R A F I A

| 0 7

« I TRY TO TEACH STUDENTS TO VIEW TYPOGRAPHY FROM ALL ANGLES:

T Y P E M U S T N O T A L W A Y S B E S E T F L U S H

L E F T / R A G G E D R I G H T , N O R I N O N L Y T W O T Y P E S I Z E S ,

N O T I N N E C E S S A R I L Y R I G H T - A N G L E A R R A N G E M E N T S , O R P R I N T E D I N E I T H E R

B L A C K O R R E D . T Y P O G R A P H Y M U S T N O T

B E D R Y , T I G H T L Y O R D E R E D O R R IG I D .

T Y P E M A Y B E S E T C E N T E R A X I S , R A G G E D L E F T / R A G G

E D R I G H T , P E R H A P S S O M E T I M E S

I N C H A O S . . . »

W O L F G A N G W E I N G A R T ,

D E S C O N S / T R U Ç Ã O.

The Modern movement falls roughly between the 1860s and the 1970s. It is typically defined as artists’ attempts to cope with a newly industrialized society. Modernism is progressive and often Utopian, empowering humans to improve or remake their environments. Within modernism falls various other movements crucial to the development of graphic design. These include futurism, constructivism, and New Typography. The design community continues to debate the value of modernism, as basic modernist tenets still define conventional standards for effective design.

MODERNISM

1960 1965 19701955 1975

NOVA TIPOGRAFIA NEW WAVE

WOLFGANG WEINGART«my away to typography»

DESCONSTRUÇÃO NA TIPOGRAFIA E NO DESIGN GRÁFICO

+Type and deconstruction in the digital era by Rick Poynor in Looking Closer nº1+Reading outside the Grid: Designers and society by Frances Butler in Looking Closer nº1

+A brave new worls: understandig deconstruction by Chuck and Martha Witte in Looking Closer nº1+Desconstruction by Rick Poynor in No more rules and Design an Postmodernism

APRIL GREIMAN

LAYERS OF MEANINGO DIGITAL | MACINTOSH

WILLI KUNZ

«ARQUITECTO DA INFORMAÇÃO»TYPOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATIONS

DAN FRIEDMAN

CAPA TYPOGRAFISCHE MONATSBLATERVISIBLE LANGUAGE

MOVIMENTO PUNK

AKZIDENZ GROTESK

New wave in History of Graphic Design by Phillip Meggs+Red me! Part 1 LIteraci in graphic design by Lucienne Robertsin Eye nº37

TYPOGRAPHICAHERBERT SPENCER

1949/67 LONDON

+ Type Heresy by Paul Felton, foreword by Jonathan Barnbrook in Breaking the Ten Commandments of TypographyEntrevista a Wolfgan Weingart in Emigre nº 14

The obscence Typography Machine by Philipp Meggs in Texts on type. Critical writings on typography

+ After Cranbrook: Katherine McCoy on the way ahead in Eye nº16

Emigre Graph ics in Graphic Design: A New History, by Stephen Eskilson (2007)

Postmodernists recognize that mea ning Is inherently unstable; there is no essence or center that one should strive to reach. The broad term postmodernism is closely associated with the critical field of poststructuralism. Within the design community it can be used to refer to a layered, complex style or a poststructuralist critical approach

to design. The postmodern movement begins roughly in the 1960s. There is no definite end point, although most suggest we have already moved into a post-postmodern

world. Critics describe postmodernism as either a reaction against or the ultimate continuation of modernism. Cither way, postmodernism moves away from the quest for

absolutes and universally applicable values that characterize modernism.

POSTMODERNISM

WOLFGANG WEINGART«my away to typography»

DESCONSTRUÇÃO NA TIPOGRAFIA E NO DESIGN GRÁFICO

APRIL GREIMAN

LAYERS OF MEANINGO DIGITAL | MACINTOSH

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

LERverbal racionallinearsequênciaTEXTO

VERvisual

intuitivoholístico

simultâneoIMAGEM

DAVID CARSON

BEACH CULTURESURFER

RAY GUN 92’95BIKINI

BLAH BLAH BLAH

P. SCOTT MAKELA

GRAPHIC DESIGNER, MULTIMEDIA, TYPE DESIGNER

KATHERINE MCCOY

FUSE

DIGITAL TYPOGRAPHY_

NEVILLE BRODYJON WOZENCROFT

PHIL BAINESMALCON GARRETT

IAN SWIFT

FONTSHOP

DIGITAL TYPEFACES

EMIGRE’ 84MAGAZINE | EMIGRE GRAPHICS | EMIGRE FONTS

VANDERLANS & ZUZANA LICKODIGITAL | MACINTOSH

_

ED. FELLA NICK BELL

BARRY DECK MR. KEEDY

HELVETICA

DOCUMENTARY 2007 GARY HUSTW

2007

EXPERIMENTAL JETSET

MARIEKE STOLKDANNY VAN DEN DUNGER

ERWIN BRINKERS

NEVILLE BRODY

THE FACEARENA

DE-CONSTRUCTING TYPOGRAPHY’ 90 by philipp meggs

Typography as a dicourse in Graphic Design Theory + After Cranbrook: Katherine McCoy on the way ahead in Eye nº16

CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART

Fuse in The graphic language of Neville Brody v.2Pixel Pirates: The Desktop Era in Merz to Emigre

Ray Gun Out of control by Dean Kuipers and Marvin Scott Jarrett (1997)

TOUCH

JON WOZENCROFTMULTIMEDIA PUBLISHING COMPANY

TED TALKS with David Carson 09’

Emigre Graph ics in Graphic Design: A New History, by Stephen Eskilson (2007)

Postmodernists recognize that mea ning Is inherently unstable; there is no essence or center that one should strive to reach. The broad term postmodernism is closely associated with the critical field of poststructuralism. Within the design community it can be used to refer to a layered, complex style or a poststructuralist critical approach

to design. The postmodern movement begins roughly in the 1960s. There is no definite end point, although most suggest we have already moved into a post-postmodern

world. Critics describe postmodernism as either a reaction against or the ultimate continuation of modernism. Cither way, postmodernism moves away from the quest for

absolutes and universally applicable values that characterize modernism.

« While studying under the Swiss masters, Armin Hofman and Emil Ruder

at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel in the 1960s, Weingart reacted to existing standards by

pushing typography to the limits of legibility and beyond. He narrowly escaped expulsion.

Combining extreme letterspacing, slant, weight, size, and repetition with

a fierce practical knowledge of printing, Weingart dismantled the rational

methodology of his elders. Out of this radicality emerged a design movement

appropriate to the changing postmodern times. NEW WAVE WAS BORN. (...) The teachers agreed on common

themes for the initial two years of the advanced program, the symbol and the package. Feeling more confident by

the second year, bolstered by the students’ enthusiasm, I risked further experimentation, and my classes became a

laboratory to test and expand models for a new typography. (...) Accelerated by the social unrest of our generation,

the force behind Swiss typography and its philosophy of reduction was losing its international hold.

My students were inspired, we were on to something different,

and we knew it. (...) » EMIGRE: What do you think about this loss of cultural identity?WEINGART: I think nothing about it. I don’t care. I never cared about nationalism. To me

“Swiss” design, or the so-called “Swiss Typography” such as Emil Ruder’s work, was never typically Swiss either. It all happened by accident. Sure, it is Swiss in the sense that it is

clean and clear, but the Germans are very much like the Swiss people; very strict, clean and disciplined, and yet they design very differently. After Ruder left Basel, I came here purely

by accident. My ideas were totally different from Ruder’s. They were somewhat parallel, but I continued where Ruder had reached a dead end. Swiss Typography was not too exciting, it was almost repetitious. There was a need for something new, a new impact, and I happened to be around at that time, which is now some twenty years ago. These happenings were all accidental and had nothing to do with Switzerland directly. They had perhaps something to do with the Swiss

educational system. Here, it was possible for every professional to teach (...)

EMIGRE: What do you think about this loss of cultural identity?WEINGART: I think nothing about it. I don’t care. I never cared about nationalism. To me

“Swiss” design, or the so-called “Swiss Typography” such as Emil Ruder’s work, was never typically Swiss either. It all happened by accident. Sure, it is Swiss in the sense that it is

clean and clear, but the Germans are very much like the Swiss people; very strict, clean and disciplined, and yet they design very differently. After Ruder left Basel, I came here purely

by accident. My ideas were totally different from Ruder’s. They were somewhat parallel, but I continued where Ruder had reached a dead end. Swiss Typography was not too exciting, it was almost repetitious. There was a need for something new, a new impact, and I happened to be around at that time, which is now some twenty years ago. These happenings were all accidental and had nothing to do with Switzerland directly. They had perhaps something to do with the Swiss

educational system. Here, it was possible for every professional to teach (...)

wolfgag

WEINGART

| 1 1

EMIGRE: We can’t just stop. We’ll always want to explore the new and unfamiliar, that’s human nature.

WEINGART: Well, we are exploring. Especially with the computer, we are finding out new possibilities, new ways to communicate. This will be the next explosion. But now we’re just exploring.

EMIGRE: That should be a reason to go on. WEINGART: No. I had to stop, in order to let the things that I produced sink in, and wait until the next, real explosion comes, so that designers in the new decade can copy me again...

EMIGRE: We can’t just stop. We’ll always want to explore the new and unfamiliar, that’s human nature.

WEINGART: Well, we are exploring. Especially with the computer, we are finding out new possibilities, new ways to communicate. This will be the next explosion. But now we’re just exploring.

| 1 3

IN THE AGE OF THE DESKTOP COMPUTER FONT

DESIGN SOFTWARE AND PAGE MAKE UP PROGRAMS

TYPE HAS ACQUIRED A FLUIDITY OF PHYICAL

OUTLINE AN EASE OF MANIPULATION AND

POTENTIALLY, A LACK OF CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES

UNIMAGINABLE ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO.

Swiss Style Modernism composed orderly, linear, well tempered messages using supposedly objective, and certainly inexpressive, sans serif letterforms. The new typographers, reacting against this bloodless neutrality;justify their experiments by arguing that no typeface is inherently illegible; rather, in the words of type designer Zuzana Iicko of Emigre Graphics, it is the readers familiarity with faces that accounts

for their legibility. Type design in the digital era is quirky, personal and unreservedly subjective. The authoritarian voices of Modernist typography, which seem to permit only a single authorized reading, are rejected as too corporate, inflexible and limiting, as though it may be a forlorn hope typographic diversity itself might somehow re enfranchise its readers. I think there are a lot of voices that have not

been heard typographically, says type designer Jeffery Keedy, head of graphics at CalArts. Whenever I start a new job and try to pick a typeface, none of the typefaces

die reader into becoming an active participant in the construction of the message. Later Modernist typography sought to reduce complexityand to clarify content, but the new typographers relish ambiguity, preferring the provisional utterance, alternative take, and delayed punchline to the finely honed phrase. If someone

interprets my work in a way that is totally new to me, I say fine, says Keedy. That way your work has a life of its own. You create a situation for people to do with

it what they will, and you don’t create an enclosed or encapsulated moment.

For Keedy, Deck, Emigre Graphics, and colleagues such as Neville Brody and Jonathan Barnbrook in Britain, and Max Kisman in The Netherlands, designing typefaces for personal use is a way of ensuring that graphic design projects carry their own specific identity and tone of voice. The pre digital typefaces that Brody drew for The Face emphasized the new perspectives on contemporary culture embodied in the magazine’s editorial content. They also functioned as a medium through which Brody could develop a socio-cultural commentary of his own. Typeface Two, designed in 1984, was deliberately authoritarian in mood, in order, Brody said, to draw a parallel between the social climate of the 1930s and 1980s. The typeface’s geometric rigidity was persistency undermined by the light-hearted manner in which it was applied. Other designers take an even more idiosyncratic approach. For Barry Deck, the starting point for a type design is not traditional notions of legibility or elegance, but a highly subjective and seemingly arbitrary narrative founded on what he perceives as the correlation between sexuality and letterforms.

give me the voice that I need. They just don’t relate to my experiences in my life. They’re about somebody else’s

experiences, which don’t belong to me. Another American type designer, CalArts graduate Barry Deck, speaks of

trading in the myth of the transparency of typographical form for a more realistic attitude toward form,

acknowledging that form carries meaning. The aim is to promote multiple rather than fixed readings, to provoke

This essay is an interim report on these changes, filed while they are still under way. It addresses

new work from America, Britain, Germany, France, and The Netherlands which is redefining our

approach to typography. Some of them anticipate the aesthetic concerns of the NEW DIGITAL

TYPOGRAPHY, or reflect the freedoms that typography makes possible, while still being

produced at the drawing board, or by letterpress. Some will stand the test of time; others will prove to have

been representative of their period, but of no greater significance. Among these articles of faith, legibility is

perhaps the first and most emotive. If there is one characteristic that links the many visual strategies of

the new typographers, it is their combined assault on this most sacred of cows.

IN THE AGE OF THE DESKTOP COMPUTER FONT

DESIGN SOFTWARE AND PAGE MAKE UP PROGRAMS

TYPE HAS ACQUIRED A FLUIDITY OF PHYICAL

OUTLINE AN EASE OF MANIPULATION AND

POTENTIALLY, A LACK OF CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES

UNIMAGINABLE ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO.

Jonathan Barnbrook goes a step further by extending this randomizing principle to the text itself. As if to imply an extreme suspicion of content, his typeface Burroughs (named after the novelist with a penchant for textual “cut-ups”) replaces whatever is typeset with a stream of gibberish generated at random by the software. Hand in hand with this investigation of the new aesthetic possibilities of the computer comes a revaluation of the artless and the ugly, the hand-made and the ready-made. For designers who are dissatisfied with the glib solutions and formulaic perfection of professional graphics, naive vernacular approaches to type (and imagery) appear to offer a rich seam of authenticity, allusion, expression, and meaning. Hard Werken, The Thunder Jockeys, John Weber and Barry Deck value letterforms hand drawn and mechanical for their impurities and flaws. I am really interested in type that isn’t perfect, says Deck. Type that reflects more truly the imperfect language of

an imperfect world inhabited by imperfect beings. In Fella’s agitated hands, type is spun, tilted, stretched, sliced, fractured, drawn as if with a broken nib, and set loose among fields of ink-blotter doodles and deranged networks of rules. He is perhaps the most extreme example of the typographer as artist, an innovator who assumes and achieves the same level of creative freedom as the painters and sculptors whose exhibitions he promotes in catalogues and posters. Cranbrook has been at the forefront in exploring the dense, complex layering most salient (ana frequently cnaazea; characteristics ot tne new typographic design. Unlike the earlier work of the New Wave designers, this is not simply a formal exercise in collagemaking; the method arises directly from an engagement with content. When the deconstructionist approach is applied to design,

write American critics Chuck Byrne and Martha Witte, “each layer, through the use of language and image, is an intentional performer in a deliberately playful game wherein the viewer can discover and experience the hidden complexities of language.” Work by Cranbrook co-chair Katherine McCoy and academy graduates Allen Hon and P. Scott Makela is a direct challenge to its audience, which must learn to “read” these allusive, open-ended image/type constructions with the same close attention that it would bring to a demanding piece of text. Although the idea of Deconstruction is gaining ground among designers in the U.S., and enjoys some currency in Europe where it originated, tew typographers at this point would feel sufficiently confident of the theoretical basis of the term to describe themselves as deconstructionists. Yet the visual strategies of deconstruction, driven by the layering capabilities of the computer, are already widely dispersed. The Californian surfing magazine Beach Culture rapidly became both cause célèbre and designers’ bete noire for the deconstructive frenzy with which its art director, David Carson dismantled the typography of contents pages, headlines, and text.

Ambitious publishing projects such as Emigre suggest that the tradition of experimental typography initiated by Futurism, Dada and the Bauhaus, and sustained by the work of Robert Massin. Wolfgang Weingart, Warren Lehrer

and others, is being refreshed. None of these projects is part of the typographic mainstream, or reaches a particularly wide readership, yet they are exerting an influence well beyond their milieu.

| 1 5

TYPE AND DECON-

STRUCTIONIN THE DIGITAL

ERA

TO THE HELL WITH THE RULES !We propose a revolution in typography. Satan and his Fallen Angels are renouncing the sacred Commandments. The typography of the disciples is dull rigid, linear, well-tempered design using extremely unexpressive sans-serif letterforms. We reject the authoritarian voices of the disciples, who preach a single reading; there is hardly any interaction between the message and the reader. Rick Poyner says: “The aim is to promove multiple, rather than fixed,

readings, to provoke the reader into becoming an active participant in the construction of the message. later modernist typography sought to reduce complexity, and to claryfy content, but the new typographers relish ambiguity ...”

How important are the leu Commandments of Typography, and must we rigidly abide by them?The first thins; one learns about typography and type design is that there are many rules and maxims that enlighten the neophyte. The second is that such rules are made to be broken. And the third is that ‘breaking the rules’ has always been just another one

of the rules.How has the emergence of rule-breaking typography changed the way a viewer interacts with a piece of work?Deliberate, wilful rule-breaking is done for the desired effect of getting the viewer’s attention. It works - that’s why people do it But some people break the rules simply because they don’t know them. It is important to remember that ‘rule-breaking’ predates ‘rule-making’ by quite a few years. In the history of typography, very little of what has been produced follows the rules, but this may change as many of the rules will be incorporated into our software. Then people will be following rules that they aren’t even aware of. Is this progress?

One of the Commandments states that you should not apply more than three typefaces in a document. What are your views on this?Simple methodologies generate simple results. Complex methodologies generate complex results. The idea that it is “really difficult to do something simple very well” is a load of Modernist propaganda (crap), but will always be very popular with lazy and unimaginative designers. But, most importantly, simple is fast, and designers are expected to work ridiculously fast nowadays, so it is no wonder that they have made the good old clean and simple Modernism fashionable (again).

We are here to show the light to designers who are bored by the dull solutions and rigid perfection that the Commandments offer.

Fallen Angel Barry Deck says: « I am really interested in typography that isn’t perfect, type that reflects more truly the imperfect language of an imperfect world, inhabited by imperfect beings. »People who cherish the Commandments are stuck with traditional uninteresting design solutions. According to one of the antichrists, Phil

Baines, Legibility presents information as facts rather than as an experience.” He believes that logic and linearity can sometimes be OK, but

that they satisfy only the rational side of the brain. For Poyner and the Fallen Angels,Typography should address our capacity for intuitive

insight and simultaneous perception, and stimulate our senses as well as engaging our intellect.” So let the day of the Commandment in

our design as much as we typographers are. Help us create Armageddon for the Ten Commandments and let all hell break loose!

| 1 7

The ob scence

Typo.graphy Machine

The ob scence

Typo.graphy MachineU n f o r t u n a t e l y , the ease of

computer use puts potent g r a p h i c

c a p a b i l i t i e s into the hands of

people who are devoid of any esthetic

sense about typography and have

l ittle or no understanding of the most

basic principles of design-Powerful

new software programs including

Aldus Freehand and Illustrator 88

give the designer (or moron, as the

case may be) the power to flip, route,

stretch, or bend typography with the

click of the mouse button. This permits

some of the most obscene type-forms ever devised

or imagined. Certainly, distortion can be a useful and

innovative design tool when handled with sensitivity

and intelligence, but we are seeing type distorted in

violation of everything that has been learned over the

past 500 years about making functional and beautiful

letterforms. Newspaper advertisements are a major source

of grotesque typographic distortion, as

headlines are stretched or condensed to fiwith

about as much grace as a fat lady squeezing

into a too-small girdle.

“Do the design magazines establish design trends, or do you merely follow and report about them?”

The obscene typography machine can also be the sublime typography machine. Professional designers can explore new creative possibilities and spend more time developing concepts and designing and less time laboriously executing their work. + As this technology becomes available in third-world nations, their efforts toward education and development can take quantum leaps forward as a result of the economy of desktop publishing.

At a recent Washington AIGA meeting, editors from four major design publications held a panel discussion. One of the shills in the audience asked,

After all of the editors replied that they weren’t too interested in stylistic trends or the latest fashion, one editor commented that the one real trend that everyone in the room should watch closely is the increasing importance of computers in graphic design. Most de-signers who I have overcome their computer phobu and learned computer-assisted design have become mesmerized by its possibilities.

Text can be poured into columns, PMS match-color backgrounds can be changed instantly to try different color combinations, and type size and style can be changed at will. For thou-sands of organizations with publications budgets too small to afford design and typeset-ting services, desktop publishing allows a significant upgrade of routine printed material rang-ing from internal company publications to public-school study guides and church bulletins.

But this wonderful new tool that is revolutionizing graphic design has its dark side.

| 1 9

WALKING IN THE DIGITAL AGELOOKS FOR/

WALKING IN THE DIGITAL AGELOOKS FOR/

FUSE

EMIGRE

RAY GUNand

,

,

| 2 1

The California design team of Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans founded Emigre Graphics

in Oakland, California, in 1984. VanderLans,

originally from the Netherlands, where he

studied graphic design under teachers devoted

to the International Style, immigrated to the San

Francisco area in 1980. _

VanderLans was inspired by the idea that “people read best what they read most” and the design of the paper was perfectly legible to its daily readers. This concept opened up his eyes to the vernacular culture of the world around him, as he realized that there was much more room for experi¬mentation outside the strictures of the International Style.

The name, of course, referred to their status as migrants, and in fact the original vision for this large-format magazine was as a show¬case for Dutch artists who had moved to the United States. I The first issue of Emigre shows VanderLans’s reaction against the International Style, as he laid out torn, collaged photographs in a disorienting fashion alongside

«... Therefore, when I came to the United States and started working at a newspaper, of all places, I was just stunned. ... All the things that they taught me at art school [in the Netherlands] about legibility and good fl type and bad type were swept aside. » VanderLans

In 1983, VanderLans founded Emigre magazine, along with two other Dutch expatriates he had met in San Francisco. The name, of course, referred to their status as migrants, and in fact the original vision for this large-format magazine was as a show¬case for Dutch artists who had moved to the United States.

typewriter type. The historian Rick Poynor has pointed out that while the digital revolution in graphic design is widely recognized, what could be called the “Xerox revolution” that began in the 1960s has been largely ignored. The widespread availability of the photocopier in the pre-digital age allowed artists such as VanderLans to appropri¬ate fragments of popular culture and use them to create radically unconventional new designs. While the use of the photocopier and the typewriter partly reflected the low budget for Emigre, I it also displayed VanderLans penchant for using vernacular sources; like many postmodernists, VanderLans wanted to use these simple elements not for their own sake, but as a jumping-off point for experiments in graphic design. He also wanted to make graphic design a medium that allowed for the intuitive expression of the artist. This desire is part of the general postmodern trend whereby designers rejected the model of «artist as engineer»— a concept that arose in the 1920s and become part of the fabric of the International Style — in favor of the idea of the designer as a creative, artistic individual who puts his or her own stamp on each project.

EMIGREEMIGRE

| 2 3

In th

e la

st 5

00 y

ears

of t

ypog

raph

ic h

istor

y, th

e m

ost

signi

fi-ca

nt c

hang

es h

ave

take

n pl

ace

in th

e la

st fi

ve

year

s. G

iven

that

the

digi

tal c

onve

rsio

n af

fect

s all

sphe

res

of h

uman

act

ivity

, It’I

s rem

arka

ble

that

ther

fe sh

ould

be

such

lim

ited

atte

ntio

n in

the

mai

nstr

eam

med

ia to

how

th

is ch

ange

mig

ht b

e vi

sual

ly re

pres

ente

d.

The

Fuse

pro

ject

was

seit

up b

y th

e Br

ody

stud

io in

O

ctob

er 19

90 n

ot a

s a st

rictly

com

mer

cial

ven

ture

but

as

a ne

cess

ity. P

ublis

hed

thro

ugh

the

Font

Shop

net

wor

k as

a n

ew m

ediu

m to

hig

hlig

ht th

e cr

eativ

e po

ssib

ilitie

s of

digi

tal t

ypog

raph

y, Fus

e cr

eate

s an

outle

t tha

t allo

ws t

ype

desig

ners

to c

halle

nge

conv

entio

nal t

hink

ing

abou

t the

form

and

func

tion

of

typo

grap

hy. P

rodu

cers

and

pur

chas

ers a

re u

rged

to

expe

rimen

t with

dig

ital l

angu

age

in a

con

text

lib-

erat

ed fr

om

clie

nt/c

omm

erci

al c

onst

rain

ts c

ontr

ibut

ors a

re b

riefe

d to

pu

sh th

e bo

unda

ries o

f bot

h th

e pr

inte

d w

ord

and

its fu

sing

into

ele

ctro

nic

lang

uage

so th

at ty

pogr

aphy

’s pr

ofes

-sio

nal

repr

esen

tatio

n in

gra

phic

des

ign

is re

volu

tioni

sed,

and

dig

ital

type

can

be

seen

as a

com

mon

feat

ure

of e

very

day

life

and

not s

omet

hing

that

hap

pens

in c

onfin

emen

t.

F u s e i s a l a n g u a g e r e s e a r c h p r o j e c t . D e s i g n e r s a r e c o m m i s s i o n e d t o d e v e l o p a n e x p e r i m e n t a l t y p e f a c e t h a t f o l l o w s t h r o u g h a t h o u g h t p r o c e s s o n t h e s t a t e o f t h e v i s u a l w o r d , a n d o n a n a c c o m p a n y i n g A 2 p o s t e r t h e y I m p l y I t s c r e a t i v e p o t e n t i a l . AN EDITORIAL BOOKLET

or poster outlfnes the theme and focus of each quarterly issue. Brody designs a promotional poster for each release, ancksince Fuse 5 he has designed a “hidden” font to accompany fie set of four.

T h e d i g i t a l f o r m a t o f c o m p u t e r d i s k i s p a c k a g e d w i t h f i v e p o s t e r s i n a c o r r u g a t e d c a r d c a s e , r e f l e c t i n g t h e h y b r i d s t a t e b e t w e e n p r i n t a n d s c r e e n . The contrast between the two methods of

storage and display Is used as a platform to

promote a dialogue on the extent to which

the digital fibde alters communication.

neville brody &Jon Wozencroft

| 2 5

T h i s i s d e s i g n p u b l i s h i n g b a c k a g a i n s t t h e o n s l a u g h t o f a n u n t h i n k a b l e p r e s e n t .

N o w t h e w o r d, t h e p r i n t e d w o r d , i s a n i n t e r f a c e o f q u i t e a s t o n i s h i n g d e p t a n d c o m p l e x i t y - so complex that whole years of training are required before an operator can access anything like the full bandwidth of any written language. (Skilled readers, accessing text, after their inner states at will. This is why dictators still seek to control presses.)

We are told that typography, this potent interface’s most intimate design. Its “look and feel”, has tended, for the past two centuries, to evolve toward transparency, the optimal

interface being viewed as one which the reader is least conscious of ...

To a c c e p t t h i s t o o l i t e r a l l y i s t o r u l e o u t d e s i g n s w h i c h a l l o w o u r a w a r e n e s s o f t h e i n t e r f a c e t o c o n s t i -t u t e a m a j o r a n d o n g o i n g a s p e c t o f t e x t u a l p l e a s u r e .

T h e e v e n t - h o r i z o n o f f u t u r y , c l o s e a s a n y w i n d s h i e l d , i t s t e x t u r e s m a p p e d i n c h a n n e l - z a p a n d t h e s e q u e n t i a l d e c a d y o f i m a g e s f a x e d a n d r e f a x e d into illegibility . . .

The designres of this book strategies drawn from newer sreceens. Thoroughly roughed up: brave new worlds abraded on the concrete of the now.

«há um vão na consciência (Chame-o de i n t u i ç ã o , como queira ) não sabemos de onde vem ou porquê.»

«o intelecto pouco interessa na estrada dadescoberta.»

GUnrAY «não confunda legibil idade com

comunicação.»David Carson

| 2 7

« EMIGRE: The real explosion? Where will it come from?

WEINGART: I am waiting for the next explosion.

I t w i l l h a p p e n. »

walking for the digital era

MIXINGMESSEGESDC4 2010’11 Faculdade de Belas Artes | UL

3ºAno . 1º Semestre_

Andreia Constantino, 4767