The Fonts of Summer

Amercian Apparel product page

Above: Amercian Apparel product page featuring ITC Grouch, 2007.

Some things are made for summer. The summer hit, for example. Recently, I’m thinking of “Crazy,” by Gnarls Barkley, “Hey Ya” by Outkast, or, this summer, Rhianna’s “Umbrella” (which you might want to stand under whether it’s raining or not). Summer brings us beach reads and popcorn flicks, and, of course, summer food—light, cool, and refreshing. Designwise, we’ve definitely got summer clothes and summer places: wear your flip-flops out on the deck or your seersucker and khakis out to your country house.

So: why not summer fonts? I can’t think of a good reason why not. Like all things summer, a summer font need only follow a few simple rules. Be catchy. Be simple. Be happy. And be gone soon enough to belong to a single summer only.

Everyone’s heard of the Summer of Love. But I predict that this summer—in nerdy font circles at least—will be the Summer of Grouch. ITC Grouch, that is.

07 August 2007 — Design Observer, Published, Essays

Notes on a New Website

Old Homepage

New Homepage

Above: Old vs new—the homepages of studio-gs.com.

Kevin and I have just completed a serious revamp of our old website, http://www.studio-gs.com, and naturally a lot of thinking went into it. The broad strokes of what’s new about the site were included in our email to clients and friends: a lot of new work, a showcase of details, and a richer and more dynamic “News” section. These changes are fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the old site, but some of the models and discussions that informed the new site are not. L&UL seems like an ideal place to capture and share some of these ideas while they’re still fresh in my mind, so that’s what I’ve tried to do in the collection of notes below.

28 March 2007 — Unpublished

Behind the Eight-Ball

Magic 8 Ball

As part of my teaching at Parsons, every so often I get asked to be a part of or help with student projects or exhibitions. One of these opportunities crossed my desk a few days ago, and read in part:

I am emailing you all on behalf of the Senior Thesis Exhibition Core Team. As a result of tonight’s meeting the students decided that their objective is to represent all senior students in the design of the card and therefore agreed upon creating a collaborative opportunity for all students to participate in the creation of the visuals for the post card. We ask each of you to decide upon a 1×1 inch icon/image that would represent yourself and/or your work. This image will become part of a larger grid.

I must admit, if I were a student, I would have had a really tough time with this particular assignment. For one thing, trying to encapsulate a senior project, especially midway through the process of making one, is pretty difficult for my students, many of whom are making a long-form, large-scale project for the first time. I also wonder—though it’s certainly well-meaning—how truly “collaborative” a grid of 1×1 inch images is. Sure, it gives you a cross-section of styles and approaches and everyone gets equal play, but it seems like saying my sock drawer collaborates with my underwear drawer to form a dresser, or my car collaborates with the car next to mine to form a lot of parked cars. Yes, they show parts of a whole, but a “collaborative” whole, to me, it’s not.

16 March 2007 — Unpublished

Modern Hieroglyphics

One Laptop Per Child logo

I was looking at Pentagram’s elegant new logo for the One Laptop Per Child program—the non-profit organization has the goal of providing laptop computers to all children in developing nations—and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a logo I’d just seen on my trip to Italy, where, in the sleepy Cinqueterre town of Vernazza, my sugar packet from Albergo Gianni had a similar four-part glyph:

Albergo Gianni logo

It’s as charming and childlike as the Pentagram logo, almost a rebus, and I can’t help but enjoy the fact that the owner probably designed it himself.

15 February 2007 — Unpublished

Form-giving

New Yorker card

1. BASKET
The Gift came, as gifts often do, without my asking for it. Its cover flashed up on my computer screen by way of an Amazon.com server that drew upon a collective memory of what customers like me had already purchased when I logged in one afternoon looking for a particular book on Shaker design. The cover, probably designed in part by The Gift’s author, Lewis Hyde, caught my eye because it featured a drawing that Hyde, who is an English professor at Kenyon College, credits inside as “Basket of Apples.” The drawing, however, is more properly credited as “A Little Basket Full of Beautiful Apples” and was made 150 years ago by a self-taught Shaker woman named Hannah Cohoon, who would have called it a “gift drawing.” I had first seen it several days before, in an article from The New Yorker by Adam Gopnik on the Shakers titled “Shining Tree of Life,” where he describes both the drawing and the circumstances of its making:

24 January 2007 — Dot Dot Dot, Published, Essays

Final Journal Project

Journal Cover

Above: Detail from the cover of “This is Not a Manifesto.”

Work together to produce 16 copies of a printed journal. Each of you will get 1 copy. Send 1 copy to me at the address below by the due date. The remaining copy will be filed with the office.

The journal’s pages will be in 6 x 9 inch format, tape- or glue-bound. Each student will be responsible for 12 pages plus a short contributor bio with email/contact info. The content of your pages must include at least 2 and not more than 6 of your individual assignments from this class. You may also use portions of your reading responses, graphic/visual experiments from other classes this semester, and other students’ assignments from this class with their consent.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

50 Footnotes

50 Footnotes Assignment

Above: Michael Trovela’s response to the assignment, which made use of on-screen PDF footnoting software. Spread from “This is Not a Manifesto.”

Using one of the essays from this week, add 50 footnotes (or annotations) derived from your personal experience of design education at RISD. Your notes may be visual, verbal, sonic, cross-referential, etc.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Ethics Poll

Ethics Poll Assignment

Above: Meg Dreyer’s response to the assignment, in which she compiled the data on the designers and then put the same questions to a professional attorney. His answers were often surprising. Spread from “This is Not a Manifesto.”

In 2 days, work together to compile 100 responses to Milton Glaser’s 12 steps. Ask for yes/no responses and ask respondents to provide additional comments where they’re willing. Prepare a results report using the quantitative data, an condensed set of qualitative responses, and supporting real-world examples of Glaser’s hypotheticals.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Color Propaganda Blog

Blog Assignment

Above: The red team’s blog, “Red is the New Black.”

Divide into two groups and create a blog each. One blog supports the color red. The other supports the color blue. The two are competitive. Create 10 new postings per day, minimum. Information need not be accurate and will likely be propagandistic. When possible, use Alexander Theroux’s essays from The Primary Colors to construct your posts.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Two Descriptions

Beautiful Ugly Assignment

Above: Hoon Kim’s visceral response to the assignment. Pages from “This Is Not a Manifesto.”

1) Describe a FedEx slip through the eyes of a Modernist in 250 words. 2) Describe the same FedEx slip through the eyes of a Postmodernist in 250 words.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Beautiful & Ugly

Beautiful Ugly Assignment

Above: Two of Elana Wetzner’s beautiful objects. Pages from “This Is Not a Manifesto.”

Bring in a box marked “Beautiful” and another marked “Ugly.” Place five graphic design artifacts in each. Come to class prepared to explain your rationale for the placement of the objects.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Supermarket Wall Plaque

Supermarket Assignment

Above: For his response, Philipp Rumpf offered a detailed Marxist reading of the Arm & Hammer box. Spread from “This Is Not a Manifesto.”

Select an object available at the supermarket and write a museum-style wall plaque to describe it. Include artist, nationality, life dates, official title, year of creation, materials, purchasing information, and a 250-word description of the object in an art historical context.

This assignment is from the class Graphic Design & Critical Thinking.

10 January 2007 — Education, Assignments

Recommended Readings

481. In a few bookstores over the holidays, I've taken a look at Annie Leibovitz' new monograph At Work and thought, "Nice book. Bad kerning." Designer David Croy agrees, and offers a great little mini-kerning lesson here. I've also found this kerning lesson from David Jury's book About Face to be very helpful. Jury sorts letters into the basic shapes of triangles, circles, and squares and takes it from there. Of course, practice makes perfect.
480. These inky bubble experiments Kevin sent me are kind of like Rorschach inkblots gone all three dimensional and trippy.
479. Will spiral-based curves replace Bézier curves as the cleanest, simplest way to draw fonts? My student Scott Kellum sure thinks so. Grab the code by Raph Levien or play with the tool yourself at Fontly.
478. Who do we have to thank for the CD? In one sense, maybe Beethoven. And the MP3? Maybe Suzanne Vega.
477. Virginia Heffernan vs Jessica Fridrich vs Jürg Lehni vs Michel Gondry vs Scott Kellum vs Rubik's Cubes.
476. What could be a better idea than having the Muppets' meep-meister Beaker meeping Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and then posting it on YouTube? Maybe something, but I don't know what that something could be. This video left me meep-less.
475. This video by Körner Union for Larytta is one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. It just keeps getting more insane, so make sure to watch to the end (via VVork).
474. Two great shorts today featuring interviews with designer Peter Saville. The first, via the always great Bevel and Boss, features an interview with Saville by Arkitip magazine on the development of his designs for Factory records and the legendary Haçienda club. The second, from the always wonderful podcast Tate Shots via Tagbanger and perhaps even closer to my heart, is Saville on Richard Hamilton's reworking of Dieter Rams's Toaster for Braun. Quoting Saville: "It's kind of like a blueprint to my own work."
473. One of my favorite blogs in the whole world, Andy's Reference Library, is making the leap from virtual to real in fine fashion at one of my favorite shops in the whole world, Alisa's Kiosk. Read all about it, or, if you're in NYC, hit the opening party this Friday 11/28 from 7 to 10pm. Black Friday indeed.
472. "When we received the assignment, we immediately read both of Senator Obama’s books. We were struck by the ideas of hope, change and a new perspective on red and blue (not red and blue states, but one country). There was also a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics — 'a new day,' — so to speak." Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender about the development of the O monogram. Interestingly, the interview implies that Sender LLC never met directly with Obama during or after the mark's development.
471. "What I want to be able to say, in the end, is that friendship is incredibly valuable in life, and in fact is not just valuable but absolutely necessary—that you can't live without it—but that its value, distinct as it is, is not the "values" that our moral behavior exhibits or expresses. A whole other set of values—which we have tended to neglect in philosophy—is involved in friendship, and I believe these [neglected] values are also involved in the arts and in our attitudes towards the arts. To put it very bluntly and very roughly, the values of morality are values that depend on our commonalities: the similarities we have among other people and the similarities we want to create among us. The values of friendship are exactly the opposite: they are the values that distinguish us from one another, that make us distinct and interesting individuals, the values that differentiate one person from another." Princeton Professor Alexander Nehamas speaking on my favorite podcast Philiosophy Bites draws parallels between friendship and the arts and aligns friendship with the individual, opposing it to morality, which is a common (or shared) state. In other words, books make friends, but not every book will make any friend. However, despite the fact that we are disinclined to read some books, and we may not even be friendly with someone who would, morality dictates that we should accept and respect them regardless.
470. Wow. Within a few hours of posting Spraypaint and an open call for a Williams Word Generator, I have been pleasantly surprised by the response. Jason Kottke was kind enough to post Spraypaint on the wonderful Kottke.org and I awoke to dozens of supportive emails this morning. Hektor himself wrote in to say he'd like to paint the poem sometime, and, best of all, Kaolin of GUD Magazine quickly created a working Williams Word Generator for words of eight letters or less. Hopefully it will be able to do longer words in the future, but for now, it's a great start. Once again, Internet: well done. Well done. Update: Kaolin has his generator working for ten letters now.
469. If you're in NYC this Tuesday 25 November, I'll be taking part in Dexter Sinister's CUBIST VARIETY SHOW at The Kitchen, a kind of living microfiche adaptation of their True Mirror project from this year's Whitney Biennial. I (or another) will be reading, along with fellow contributors Cory Arcangel, Mark Beasley, Walead Beshty, Sarah Crowner, Jason Fulford, Larissa Harris, Michael Portnoy, Steve Rushton, and Alex Waterman.
468. OPEN CALL FOR A WILLIAMS WORD GENERATOR. I've just posted a new Williams Poem called "Spraypaint," and to go with that I wanted to issue an open call for a little web application I'm unofficially dubbing the "Williams Word Generator." A Williams Word Generator is essentially a widget or applet that would allow someone (say, me) to type a word into a text box and then scan that word's letters in sequence for other possible words. The letters have to be used in sequence and cannot be used more than once (for an example, see "Spraypaint"). Would this be difficult to do? Email me and let me know!
467. "At present, U.S. copyright protects an individual's work for his or her lifetime, plus 50 years; corporations with works 'made for hire' hold rights for 75 years. Under [Sen. Christopher] Dodd's proposal, at the end of each of these terms, the rights to an additional 20 years would be publicly auctioned, the proceeds going to build an endowment dedicated to the arts and humanities." Sen. Christopher Dodd reads into the Congressional Record an article by Lewis Hyde from the L.A. Times on the so-called "Arts Endowing the Arts Act," which auctions off copyright extensions on fading copyrights (like Mickey Mouse), in order to build an endowment for new arts and humanities work in the future.
466. Daniel B. Smith has written a lengthy profile of Lewis Hyde for this week's New York Times Magazine. In addition to delivering an endearing (and enduring) profile of Hyde and his practice (a favorite phrase: "I worked on how I work"), the article traces Hyde's development as a poet in Minnesota, his work as an alcoholism counselor at the Cambridge City Ward, his travels to Cuernavaca to meet Ivan Illich, and, most interesting to me, his writing and the initial public reception of The Gift: "Hyde worked on The Gift for seven years, barely scraping by, spending long months hunting through obscure folk tales for narratives that reflected what he came to call 'the commerce of the creative spirit.' When the book was finally published, the critic Martha Bayles castigated it in The New York Times for naïvely 'esp[ying] a noble savage in every struggling artist'—a critique that was echoed elsewhere. Yet the artistic community immediately embraced Hyde’s work. A bevy of poets, including Robert Pinsky, Donald Hall and Gary Snyder, published a group letter in The Times responding to Bayles’s review and praising Hyde’s ‘search to regain the unity of economic, aesthetic, social and religious life.' Bill Viola, the pioneering video artist, remembers New York artists in the 1980s excitedly exchanging dog-eared, marked-up copies. 'In a society that mostly talks about money,' says Margaret Atwood, who keeps a half-dozen copies of The Gift on hand at all times to distribute to artists she thinks will benefit from it, 'Lewis carved out a little island where you can say, "Life doesn’t always work that way."’" I routinely give copies of The Gift to friends as well, but I love the idea of exchanging it with notes. (Hyde would call this "giving increase.") Last but not least, Smith shares that Hyde is at work on a follow-up (of sorts) to The Gift, which focuses on the idea of the commons from its development in medieval times to its arrival in America. An abstract and 11-page PDF excerpt is available (free) on Hyde's website here.
465. Illustrator Paul Davis comes to AIGA/NY Small Talks on 11/19, followed by artist Tom Sachs on 12/02. I wrote about Sachs the other day, but I forgot to mention one of my favorite shows of his, his jaw-dropping Space Station exhibition for Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills.
464. A whole host of interesting and thought-provoking work by Aleksandra Mir. First, from her recent show at Mary Boone, Gary spotted an interesting example of Neuland in use. Visually the drawing reminds me most of the cover of Wulf Sachs's book Black Anger, shown here on the right. The exhibition had a great name, playing off the politics of color and the supposed purity of whiteness. The words WHITE HOUSE were paired variously with PURPLE HEART, IVORY TOWER, RED NECK, AGENT ORGANGE, GREEN THUMB, SILVER LININGS, and others. Second, I am sad to have missed Mir's show Newsroom 1986–2000, but she is distributing the catalog free on her website along with other catalogs, which are collected here. This PDF distribution of artists' catalogs is a very interesting and timely gesture, as is Mir's starting Newsroom's catalog with the project's Press Release. Over 200 front pages from the New York Post and Daily News were recreated to build a narrative of found phrases from the city in the years leading up to 9/11. Interesting, too, were these pages' production of which Mir writes, "During the two months of the duration of this show, I will create an environment that primitively simulates a newsroom of a major agency or newspaper. The material output of the agency will take the form of drawings, which for me are traces of activities such as reading, moving, talking, remembering and reporting. Together with a team of assistants, I plan to create 200 drawings inspired by the aforementioned tabloid covers and my personal references to them." A photo of the team in action can be found here.
463. Like my friend Brian Sholis, who just reviewed her show for Artforum.com, I am obsessed with the still-life photographs of Sharon Core, currently on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery. Haunting, cryptic, and beautiful.
462. The Designers page has been updated with a bunch of new studios and is now working better than ever thanks to Randy. As always, you can check it out here or grab the RSS feed.