Experiments – Type as Image

Just a little ditty here inspired by Harry Pearce’s recent release at Pentagram, Conundrums. See if you can guess this:

Click the image to enlarge.

ANSWER BELOW:

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fish out of water

Filed under: Experiments, PPD, Self-Initiated

Dada Poem

I’ve been reading up on art-movements recently in preparation for an essay I’ll be doing over the next week (more to follow on that), and one thing that has stuck in my mind is the concept of a Dada Poem, which I thought would make for an interesting typographic experiment, as well as a chance to break away from the norm, learn about art history and get my hands nice and dirty.

Here’s it explained by Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of Dadaism:

• Take a newspaper.
• Take a pair of scissors.
• Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
• Cut out the article.
• Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
• Shake it gently.
• Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
• Copy conscientiously.
• The poem will be like you.
• And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

Rather than copying the words as they came out, I simply taped them into my sketchbook. I felt that this would be more honest (eliminating mistakes when copying) and also aesthetically pleasing in quite a post-modern, scrappy way. Make of it what you will!

As always, click the pictures to enlarge.

Filed under: Experiments, Self-Initiated, Sketchbooks

Experiments – Peace Off

To be completely honest, I’ve been jonesing to make a silly typeface for a while, but haven’t had any ideas. That’s all changed now, though, as I was inspired to make one out of the peace symbol after watching a documentary on Vietnam & the anti-war movement.

It’s completely silly and of no commercial use, but it’s been an interesting experiment for me as I gave myself strict limitations in the fact I couldn’t skew, modify or rotate the symbol at all – only remove lines where they intersect with others. This caused some problems that I’m yet to solve (note the lack of a ‘K’) but made it all the more a challenge.

You can see the evolution from my ‘eureka’ sketchbook moment below. Click the images to enlarge.

Filed under: Experiments, PPD, Self-Initiated, Sketchbooks

Experiments – Found Type

So today I sat down for an hour or so with a box of found metal type. I didn’t have any of the other tools / pieces need to letterpress correctly, so instead spent my time experimenting with elastic bands and ink from a felt-tip pen.

This is something I’ve touched on before with my work for The Spook House, and wanted to really get a feel for putting the letters together, learning how kerning was done with metal and generally just get a bit of trial and error on paper.

One thing that I really took a shine to was an old Royal British Legion crest. The work is so intricate, and when stamped (poorly) it leaves a very unique mark which feels alive somehow.

I’m now looking into buying an old case of letters and learning how to typeset properly.

Filed under: Experiments, Research, Sketchbooks