Shantell Powell

Axial Layouts
Exercise 1: Axial System: Examples.

Exercise 2: Radial Systems: Examples
Nikola Tesla typography poster: Radial posters

Dilatational Systems: Examples



History:

Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918): "A book of poetry by French writer Guillaume Apollinaire, noted for its use of “caligrams” in which typeface and arrangement of words on the page add to the meaning of the compositions. In this way, the collection can be seen as a contribution to the tradition of concrete or visual poetry. Considered as the forefather of Surrealism, Apollinaire described his work as follows:"

"The Calligrammes are an idealisation of free verse poetry and typographical precision in an era when typography is reaching a brilliant end to its career, at the dawn of the new means of reproduction that are the cinema and the phonograph. (Guillaume Apollinaire, in a letter to André Billy)"

The Modernist Era: Concrete poetry: "The term was coined in the 1950s. In 1956 an international exhibition of concrete poetry was shown in São Paulo, Brazil, by the group Noigandres (Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Ronaldo Azeredo) with the poets Ferreira Gullar and Wlademir Dias Pino. Two years later, a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published."

Broadway and Thorne’s Fat Face are typefaces with a long and illustrious history. Thorne’s Fat Face is the older of the two typefaces, dating back to the dawn of the nineteenth century. Its creator, Robert Thorne, was a pioneer of typography and a prominent type founder. With the advent of readily-available printing technology, there was a huge rush in print advertising. Thorne’s business was thriving under this demand, and he developed this extra-bold typeface, which was described as “fat”, in 1803.

Thorne’s Fat Face was a sensation. It was sought after by advertisers because its engorged letterforms paired with hair-thin serifs and connecting strokes made it dominate a page (Kennard, 2014, para. 1). It was well-suited for ornamentation because of its thick letters, as can be seen in this reward poster for a missing horse.



Although it was much sought-after by advertisers, critics were aghast. One referred to it as having “preposterous disproportions” (de Jong et al, 2017, p. 108) Despite the criticisms, it was a successful typeface, and ended up having a significant effect on how text was used in advertising.

Before the advent of fat typefaces, advertisements were wordy, with long narratives. Since there was no room for many words on a poster dominated by Thorne’s Fat Face, advertising evolved to use fewer words, and to be punchier and more concise (de Jong et al, 2017, p. 109).

Compare the verbosity of the preceding poster with this poster from the 17th century:



Thorne’s Fat Face made advertising quickly readable without anyone needing to squint.

The next typeface to be compared, Broadway, was and is used for other purposes altogether. Superficially, they seem quite different. Thorne’s Fat Face is turgid and bloated, especially paired with its miniscule serifs. However, Broadway is not entirely dissimilar despite its more elegant appearance. It also relies on the pairing of thick strokes with thin ones, but to a different effect.

Broadway was designed in 1927 by Morris Fuller Benton. Originally, it was created with only uppercase letterforms, but lowercase letterforms were developed in 1929 by Sol Hess (P22 Type Foundry, 2018, para. 1). Unlike Thorne’s Fat Face, Broadway is a decorative sans serif typeface, and where Fat Face evokes a feeling of snake oil salesmen and wanted posters, Broadway is the textual embodiment of the Roaring Twenties. It is the quintessential Art Deco typeface, as can be seen in this poster:



It was also used for its namesake as evinced by this original cast recording for the production of Bullets Over Broadway:



The Broadway typeface contains no descenders in its lowercase letterforms which makes it ideal for bold underlining. Its angular tangents between thick and thin also give it high contrast, making it ideal for colourful compositions (Microsoft, 2018, para. 1).

Both typefaces have a distinct appearance, and both effectively take viewers back to the times in which the letterforms were created.

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And here is my study of the two typefaces, hand-drawn on fondant-covered cookies.

References

De Jong, C., Purvis, A., & Tholenaar, J. (Eds.) (2017). Type: A Visual History of Typefaces & Graphic Styles. Cologne, Germany: Taschen.

Kennard, J. (2014, February 6). The Story of Our Friend, the Fat Face [Blog post]. Retrieved January 24, 2018 from https://fontsinuse.com/uses/5578/the-story-of-our-friend-the-fat-face

Microsoft (2018). Microsoft Typography: Broadway. Retrieved January 24, 2018 from https://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=86

P22 Type Foundry (2018). Broadway. Retrieved January 24, 2018 from https://p22.com/family-Broadway

Skinfolk is a book for people curious about Inuit mythology. The book pairs objects from Inuit life with traditional stories. Inuit mythology demonstrates the transformative nature of living beings and also shows how allegedly inanimate objects contain life. This animistic nature is illustrated by the pairings of myth and object within the book. The word “skinfolk” is a portmanteau tying together the ideas of kin, skin, and folklore, and the book’s four tales have a central theme of how powerful women interact with flesh.

In order to ensure the topic is treated respectfully, an Inuk elder was consulted at the onset of the book’s creation. She also provided assistance in using consistent dialects for the Inuktitut terminology. An Anishinaabe craftsperson was consulted in order to learn traditional beadwork techniques, giving authenticity to the hand-beaded cover.

The colour palette is a simple one of white, blue, black, and red: common colours for traditional Inuit beadwork. The beadwork is sewn directly into the leather, foreshadowing the central theme of interactions with flesh. The single red bead in the tittle of the letter “i” and the red binding thread slashing across the margins represent the blood from those interactions. The cool silvery cast of charcoal illustrations and black-and-white photography matches the northern climes from whence spring the tales.

The typeface used for the title is Arjowiggins Inuit, chosen because it marries elements of Inuktitut syllabics with Latinate letters. Gadugi, the sans-serif font chosen for the text within the book, offers a seamless transition between English and Inuktitut.

Part of the project involves a hand-lettered book cover. I knew I wanted to do something with the Arjowiggins Inuit typeface, but as a bespoke typeface, it is not commercially available. I wrote to Arjowiggins Creative Papers, and they were nice enough to share it with me for my project.

At first, I was planning on replicating the typeface with tech pen, but while talking to folks at the Aboriginal Services Centre at Conestoga College, I saw Christina Restoule doing traditional indigenous beadwork. I asked Tauni Sheldon, an Inuk elder, if the beadwork was also used by Inuit, and she said that yes, it is a common element used on parkas and such. And so I decided I wanted to do my lettering in traditional beadwork.

Ms. Restoule told me she'd get me started with the technique, and on Friday, December 15, she helped me find the right sized beads and some leather to work with. I used an actual-sized printout of the title as a template.

The process is time-consuming. I worked on the beading all afternoon and into the late evening on Friday, throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, then picked the template out painstakingly on Monday before adding the final accent red bead in the tittle.

I chose black leather to contrast with white and sparkly blue glass beads. The single red bead represents blood.

What happens when the upper-case letter L is investigated as an abstract design element? “A Study of L” investigates this idea in a minimalistic fashion. A grotesque sans serif L, with stem equal in length to the arm, is depicted in each rendering.

Every L is rendered in black ink on white paper. A grey line intersects the arm and stem on all but one L, with a single dot punctuating each. The result of these combinations is both geometric and evocative of petroglyphs and Inuit typefaces, with their angles and curves.

The top leftmost rendering sets the stage for the study. This L is tilted so that it resembles a bow, with the dot representing a projectile. This motif ties in with the petroglyph/Inuit typeface concept and traditional hunter/gatherer iconography while simultaneously incorporating simplified geometric elements of trajectory.

From there onward, each rendering demonstrates inclination angles, slant ranges, and horizontal distances from a variety of positions. The final L in the series creates an emphatic finale. Like the first rendering, the arm and stem are at forty-five degrees to the frame. The grey line no longer touches the L. Three grey lines show movement away from the dot. They do not touch the L, as there no longer is a trajectory: the red dot is a bullseye, and the bow’s projectile has met its target.