Corita Kent exhibit on display at Dordt College

Corita Kent
Love, 1979
Screen Print, 20 x 20 inches
“…the ability to feel is very beautiful.” —Corita Kent

Dordt College will display a selection of original screen prints by Corita Kent from the collection of the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles. The exhibition of 26 prints will be on display from January 6 to February 12.

The exhibition has been curated by Dordt College Professor of Art David Versluis. “I attempted to select work that represents the range of Corita Kent’s typographic style and expressiveness,” says Versluis. “As a graphic design instructor for many years I’ve thought about the qualities of Corita Kent and her activist screen prints of the ’60s and ’70s. This exhibition suggests that her message and image prints are as important and relevant for us today as they were nearly 50 years ago.”

Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita) (1918–1986), born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18 she entered the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary, eventually teaching in and then heading up the art department at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. Her work evolved from figurative and religious to incorporating advertising images and slogans, popular song lyrics, biblical verses, and literature. Throughout the ’60s, her work became increasingly political, urging viewers to consider poverty, racism, and injustice.

In 1968 she left the order and moved to Boston. Her work evolved into a sparser, introspective style, influenced by living in a new environment, a secular life, and her battles with cancer. She remained active in social causes until her death in 1986. At the time of her death, she had created almost 800 screen print editions, thousands of watercolors, and innumerable public and private commissions.

Roy R. Behrens sent me this review of the Corita Kent catalog from the College Art Association.

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Dordt College graphic design and printmaking student: Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia

Christina Chahyadinata
Courage
Linocut 2016
9" x 12"

Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) is a sophomore student from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia. Crissy has the heart of a christian servant. This is her first linocut print and indicates her dexterity of hand-lettering and her ability to orchestrate the integrality of text and image. A Polynesian image of tropical and verdant flora…

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Vernacular OldType in Grand Marais

Bally’s Blacksmith Shop (built ca.1911), Grand Marais, Minnesota.
This close-up photo features the early signage (perhaps original) on the side of the building. The structure is undergoing renovation as a historical site. Photograph by versluis ©2015.

Perhaps the letterforms in this particular sign were generated by a self-taught sign painter, but the type fitting, letter spacing and classic layout on clapboards is especially interesting. The sign painter expresses ingenuity through the combination of condensed with regular and extended type styles in order to copy-fit the text within the space.

Writer Meredith Davis in her book Graphic Design Theory mentions that:

The often hand-generated and "crudely" designed vernacular faces were in stark contrast to the typographic precision and refinement of late modernism. They recalled the history of communication, distinctions of social class and settings, and associations with how and for whom they were produced. (1)

1. Davis, Meredith. Graphic Design Theory. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2012. 120-21. Print.

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Corita Kent: “come alive!”

Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita)
“come alive!” 1967
Silkscreen
Dimensions: 13" x 23"
photograph by versluis
courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles

Corita suggests a parody of brand graphics from the Brillo box and Tide detergent.

The following is from the Corita Art Center:

Text:
come alive! you can make it—The glory of Christ is man fully alive man fully alive is the glory of God the blue cross way is very simple we walk together don’t you need somebody to love jefferson air plane you can make it

Quote by Jefferson Airplane, Pepsi generation ad slogan, Saint Irenaeus

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Corita Kent: “Lucky Earth”

Lucky Earth (1963)
Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita)
Silkscreen
Dimensions: 25.5" x 30.5"
photograph by versluis
courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles

The following is from the Corita Art Center:

Spring has come back again. The earth is like a child who has memorized poems, oh many!...now it seem worth the effort for she wins the prize. Her teacher was strict. We loved the white hair of the old man's beard when we asked what the green and the blue are, right off she knows every word. Lucky earth, with your holiday, and all the children coming to play! We tried to catch you. The gayest will do it. Teacher trained her until she knew it, and all that’s printed in roots and long unruly stems she sings in a song. —Rilke 

Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 1, no. 21

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New Work: AIGA South Dakota’s QUOTE THIS! art gallery show — Tis the season for graduation cakes.

This is Versluis’s piece for AIGA South Dakota’s QUOTE THIS! art gallery show. The QUOTE THIS! group exhibition features handmade typographic renderings of one’s favorite design quote. The show is now on view at the Sioux Falls Design Center from May–July 2013. Versluis’s piece is a photograph of a custom-ordered, hand-lettered graduation cake that honors a quote by designer Morton Goldsholl who once stated, “Bad Design is Useless and a Sham.”

About a year ago while spending Sabbatical time at Thirst (3st) I found this wonderful quote by Morton Goldsholl while studying one of Rick Valicenti’s fabulous sketchbooks. Valicenti had heard Mort make this statement:

And speaking more about Rick’s connection with Morton Goldsholl — here’s a recent designboom interview in which Valicenti responds to a question:

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given? 

Something that I always remember was told to me by Morton Goldsholl, a Chicago design legend and student of Moholy Nagy’s first class at the New Bauhaus: on a rainy night some 30 years ago I drove to Mort’s office to meet the man with a friend, Michael Glass, and together we stood soaked, knocking at his front door. When he answered, we were both completely tongue tied. Out of panic, I asked, ‘If you could share any wisdom with two young designers what would it be?’ Mort answered with, ‘I have three words for you both – take a risk.’ Then he closed the door, and we left! (1)

1.  “Rick Valicenti (3st) Interview.” designboom. designboom.com, 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 2 May 2013.

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Peoples Savings Bank (1909–11), Cedar Rapids, Iowa—Louis H. Sullivan and Parker Noble Berry, architects (1)

Peoples Savings Bank (1909–11) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Louis H. Sullivan (1856–1924) and Parker Noble Berry (1888–1918), architects (1)
photograph by versluis 2012

After a marvelous restoration project that was completed in 1991 the Peoples Savings Bank in Cedar Rapids, Iowa now occupies its corner lot across the street from the bridge over the Cedar River rather sadly. The structure received heavy interior damage from the historic flood waters of 2008. Now the building, much like its architect Louis H. Sullivan, seems to reflect the loneliness Sullivan experienced in 1924, at the end of his life, very sick, under-appreciated, and living in a single room in Chicago.

Pictured above is one of the building’s repetitive identity motifs, which are located on the street level just above the water table. This terra cotta insignia is replicated on each of the “corner stones”. The crest carries the Bank’s initials, P.S.B., simulating an applied interlaced typographic design suggesting a Chicago Arts and Crafts style. Additionally, the impact of this monogram suggests inspiration based on Celtic designs.


North facade
photograph by versluis 2012


Peoples Savings Bank construction drawing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
North and South Elevations, 1909–11
Black and red ink on linen
From the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of William Gray Purcell, 1988.410.5


West facade
photograph by versluis 2012


Peoples Savings Bank construction drawings, Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
Longitudinal Section Looking East, 1909–11
Black and red ink on linen
From the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of William Gray Purcell, 1988.410.7

Other Sullivanesque bank symbols include the griffin (guardian) and in this project they ceremoniously occupy the top of structural columns (pedestals) visible on the second level and initially at the entry and missing. The formal entryway, now boarded-up, is deep but modest and contributes to and reinforces the perfectly balanced symmetry and geometric program of the building.

Interestingly, Sullivan’s design seems very 20th century modern and minimal (without Sullivan’s quintessential ornament), yet classical as well. The structure seems to reiterate what Sullivan did with some of his tomb designs (vaults) for prominent Chicagoans where the second level protrudes up from a substantial ground level base.

The current condition of the building is a reminder, in another context, of a passage from Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats as referenced from an endnote in Jeffery Plank’s wonderful book, Aaron Siskind and Louis Sullivan: The Institute of Design Photo Section Project:

For Sullivan’s “organic architecture,” the birth and death of architectural forms and functions, and, by implication, of particular buildings, is an ongoing process: “And decay proceeds as inevitably as growth: Functions decline, structures disintegrate, differentiations blur, the fabric dissolves, life disappears, death appears, time engulfs–the eternal night falls. Out of oblivion into oblivion, so goes the drama of created things–and of such is the history of an “organism” (Kindergarten Chats, p. 48; this passage was omitted in the 1947 reprint. … In 1901, when he first published the Kindergarten Chats essays, however, Sullivan was interested in the “hey-day [sic],” the “NEW ARCHITECTURE” that would replace the decayed forms and functions of “contemporaneous American architecture” (pp. 48-49). (2)

Perhaps from a more objective perspective regarding Sullivan’s late period work here’s a passage from art historian James F. O’Gorman, who writes:

The best of the banks [Sullivan’s so-called “jewel boxes”] is the National Farmers’ in Owatonna, [Minnesota] (1906–08), a work which, like the People’s Savings and Loan in Sidney, [Ohio], of a decade later….

The awkward People’s Savings Bank of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1911), on the other hand, seems a squat, trabeated variation on the earlier synagogue [Kehilath Anshe Ma´ariv (K.A.M.) Synagogue, Chicago, 1889–91]. Although these small, out-of-the-way buildings do contain some of Sullivan’s most characteristic and breathtakingly beautiful ornament, they in fact represent the afterglow of a career whose sunset had occurred near the turn of the century. (3)

1. Wilson, Richard Guy. “Prairie School Works in the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago.” The Prairie School: Design Vision for the Midwest 21.2 (1995): 107-09. Print.
2. Plank, Jeffery. Aaron Siskind and Louis Sullivan: The Institute of Design Photo Section Project. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers, 2008. 77. Print.
3. O’Gorman, James F. Three American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865–1915. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. 111. Print.

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John Cage used press type to compose his mesostics

M: Writings ’67–‘72, 1973
Author: John Cage
Art director/designer: Raymond M. Grimaila, Middletown, Connecticut
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Interestingly, for the cover design Grimaila chose a type style for the “M”  that seems to be a precursor to Dala Floda.


This is an inside spread (p.122-23) from a chapter known as the Mushroom Book. Cage used press type to compose and produce his mesostics designs.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is hosting a marvelous ongoing exhibition series that features iconic works from the MCA Collection. Currently there’s a “Mixed Media” show titled, MCA DNA: John Cage, which started September 1 and runs to March 3, 2013. MCA online information explains the artifacts on display this way:

Materials demonstrating how to interpret the score of this important work [A Dip in the Lake: Ten Quicksteps, Sixty-two Waltzes, and Fifty-six Marches for Chicago and Vicinity (1978)], which later entered the MCA Collection, are on view along with scores and books drawn from the more than eighty items associated with Cage in the MCA Artists’ Books Collection. 

The exhibition at MCA honors the John Cage Centennial as well as Cage’s long-time relationship with the MCA. One of Cage’s pieces on display is one of his diary series, M: Writings ’67–‘72 that was published in 1973. The book features a collection of Cage’s mesostics that are, as someone described them, “inspired by music, mushrooms, Marcel Duchamp, Merce Cunningham, Marshall McCluhan, etc. and includes ‘Mureau’ composed from the writings of Henry David Thoreau.”

This publication was recognized in AIGA’s Fifty Books of the Year (1974) and is in the AIGA design archives. The Design Archives description states: “This is a miscellany written and printed pretty much according to the I Ching. It seems abstruse, but attuned readers can enjoy Cage’s high humor while soaking in the penetrating insights and anecdotes intended to ‘unstructured bourgeois’.”

Bibliography:
Cage, John. M: Writings, ’67-’72. n.p.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Dec. 2012.

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Envelope art by Carl Regehr, 1983

Above is an example of one of Carl Regehr’s delightful envelopes and Polaroids (Jazz is shown) that were on display at the STA 85th anniversary celebration in Chicago last month. The show celebrated and featured numerous pieces of imaginative envelope art and Polaroids by Regehr. A remarkable thing about Carl was that he could pre-visualize and sketch out his design concepts with great coherency.

The envelopes and Polaroids were from correspondence between Regehr and Victor Margolin in 1983. Margolin was instrumental in developing the discipline of design history at University of Illinois Chicago and Regehr was a beloved design professor at the University in Campaign-Urbana. The envelope illustrated above is postmarked 12 Jan 1983. Regehr died in 1983 after a decade-long battle with cancer.

Also shown above is the accompanying written note and documentation for the Carl Regehr/Victor Margolin project and the exhibit.

True to Carl's idea for the envelope display, event organizer Jack Wiess installed the show with envelopes and corresponding Polaroid typographic collages in plastic bags that hung on a “clothes-line”.

In his hand-writing Regehr suggests to Margolin:

For example I could see that at the end of the year there might be 100's of envelopes that could be exhibited in plastic baggies … etc. The project also is valuable because it attempts to share interests and continue the dialogue we established last year.

signed Carlos. (Carl’s Latino persona)

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John August Swanson as graphic designer: 1972 Cesar Chavez United Farm Workers Poster

John August Swanson, Struggle for Justice: 40th Anniversary Poster, 2012/1972
© John August Swanson 2012

“It is my hope that this art work [my posters] might serve as an inspiration and a tool for those working to organize those who have been displaced and marginalized by economic injustice into compassionate communities empowered to implement justice and  bring peace.” —John August Swanson

The Dordt College department of art and design is busy preparing and anticipating the next art exhibition featuring the Richard and Helen De Vos collection of John August Swanson's iconic advent series of serigraphs. The exhibition will be installed in the Campus Center Art Gallery from October 10 to December 2.

In addition, we have become inspired by Swanson graphic design work. Compared to Swanson's serigraphs very little is known about his social activist posters. Illustrated above is John's recently reissued poster from 1972 titled "Struggle for Justice” which is a 40th anniversary commemorative piece. Of import is that the poster has as much relevance today as it did in 1968 and the poster is a significant reminder that challenges still exist for racial and economic justice in our society.

About the poster Swanson writes the following on his website:

The poster, STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE, was first created forty years ago, in 1972 to help raise money for the United Farm Workers. The original printing was limited to one hundred posters. 

As I recall, the union provided me with a statement from Cesar Chavez’s 1968 speech. My idea for the poster design was to use his words to create a “newspaper,” a black and white montage of photos and lettering. For the lettering, I used a variety of typefaces; many of these were rubber-stamp alphabets I had carved from rubber erasers and other materials. His words became my “headlines,” accompanied by images showing the struggles of the United Farm Workers in our agricultural fields and the attacks from the giant agribusiness corporations. I also used other photos depicting labor, race, and economic struggles throughout the 20th century in the United States. I interspersed the words and photo images, hoping that this would be an interesting design and would best communicate the message of our continuing struggle to bring justice for all.

In 2011, I felt the message still resonated with strong grass-root movements: the energetic actions of the Occupy Movement, the growing awareness and participation of the Global Warming and Environmental Movements, the struggle of workers to protect their labor unions, and the renewed effort of the Peace Movement. I decided the poster should be reprinted. The original poster was revised with new images, revised spacing, and adapted text. Now, I hope this poster will bring Chávez’s powerful words to students, to union workers, and to those who struggle for justice. I hope this work will encourage, strengthen, and empower those who seek a just and peaceful world.

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A Fair for all the Senses—The Century of Progress International Exposition Chicago, 1933-34

A. Raymond Katz (Sándor), artist. Play, See, Hear, 1934. 
Image from anything could happen.

In the previous post we featured an illustration by A. Raymond Katz (Sándor) for the small book published in 1935 titled, Love Poems of an Artists Model and as a follow-up we’re showing a promotional poster Katz designed in 1934 for the Chicago World’s Fair—A Century of Progress. The 1933-34 International Exposition was an event set on Chicago’s lakefront in the heart of downtown. 

The poster’s dynamic composition, rhythmical patterns, and strong complementary colors indicates the influence of modern twentieth century art in Katz's painted montage that highlighted some of the popular attractions of the World’s Fair.

In 1934 the World’s Fair was back by popular demand due to the the success of the 1933 World’s Fair. Among the poster images is an exotic dancer and star nightclub attraction of he time, Sally Rand. Rand is shown wearing a safari helmet that suggests another famous act, Frank Buck’s Jungle Camp and “Old Morocco” on the Midway.

Katz packed a lot into the poster for the 1934 World's Fair which was held during the Great Depression. The Fair also featured the new such as Chicago Moderne architecture inspired by Art Deco and streamline styling, and included numerous state-of-the-art technology exhibits. Chicago became a futuristic symbol of a “Rainbow City” demonstrating the effect and power of photovoltaic cells that converted natural light into electricity.  

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Ed Fella: 1995 correspondence envelope

Ed Fella—correspondence with Rick Valicenti, number 10 envelope, 1995;
Ink and Prisma color. The artwork is published with permission.

One of the most delightful and whimsical pieces in Rick Valicenti’s art and graphic design collection at Thirst is this framed envelope art by Ed Fella, postmarked June 6, 1995, Royal Oak, Michigan. As with much of Fella's work he is able to give significance to the ordinary.

To fully appreciate Ed Fella’s artful graphic design one needs to be open to the possibilities and inspiration of graphic design from all sides. Mainly there’s sincerity in Fella’s hand-drawn sketchbook style that’s free from ulterior motives and thus seems ironic—contradicting, in a way, what graphic design should be. This piece conveys Fella’s personality and as someone said, “Ed Fella explored typography beyond what the computer provided.”

Envelope art is interesting because in spite of its unconventionality to postal regulations, the mail carrier can still decipher the address and return address, thus fulfilling delivery to the addressee.

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Furniture of the mind: Eric Ku

Eric Ku, Chair/Chair, 2009, in the Walker Art Center’s Graphic Design: Now in Production. The exhibition documentation label adjacent to the piece states:

Eric Ku’s Chair is made from pieces that when taken apart, spell out the word “chair”.  Ku was inspired by a famous work by conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth. One and Three Chairs (1965). Kosuth placed a real chair in the gallery next to a photograph of the same chair (photographed in that gallery) and a definition from a dictionary. 

Regarding his conceptual artwork, Joseph Kosuth has said:

Fundamental to this idea of art is the understanding of the linguistic nature of all art propositions, be they past or present, and regardless of the elements used in their construction. 

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Interrelations between writing and typography

cover design—Gerrit Noordzij, The Stroke: Theory of Writing

The beauty of letters, whether handwritten or typographic, is that they constitute the black shape and white space of both letter-making forms. The counter form or inner parts of letters and the surrounding white or negative space are integral to the positive black shapes of the letter and word.

Dutch typographer, Gerrit Noordzij writes admirably about this interrelation of positive and negative letter forms in his book, The Stroke: Theory of Writing (2006) (translated by Peter Enneson):

Current studies of writing do not attend to the white of the word, but to the black of the letter. Consequently considerations of writing exhaust themselves in the exploration of superficial differences. The universal vantage point that renders handwriting and typographic letters comparable is not to be found in the black of the letter. The black of a typographic letter is so different from the black of a handwritten letter that as strict comparatives they appear incommensurate. Wherever typography concerns itself only with the black shapes of the prefabricated letters printable on paper, the academic study of writing is coerced into separating the consideration of handwriting from a history of type. (p.17)  

Both writing and typography utilize the relationship in two-dimensional design of the figure and ground design elements. This means that the contrast of negative forms is of equal value to the positive shapes. In letter and word construction the contrast of the black encircled by the white surface or visa versa are enriched with tension.

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Gerrit Noordzij: having a good time when you’re teaching

Above is a Vimeo frame still of Gerrit Noordzij as he’s sketching and explaining the design of letterforms during his talk at TypeMedia on 25 March 2010. Erik van Blokland posted the video.

Noordzij is the renowned graphic designer and teacher at the Dutch Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. A great little book titled, The Stroke: Theory of Writing (1985) was written by Gerrit Noordzij and translated fairly recently by Peter Enneson (thank you, Peter). The publisher, Hyphen Press, states, “The Stroke stands out as the most concise and complete summary of Noordzij’s theories on type.”

In an excerpt from an interview with Robin Kinross, Noordzij describes how he teaches his “binary system” to students — Noordzij prefaces:

… any writing of any civilization begins with the stroke, and the stroke is made with the tool [brush or pen], and if you have a stiff tool, then the shape of the tool dominates the character of your writing, and with a soft tool the impulse of your hand dominates the writing.

Noordzij continues to explain:

I always found it very nice to ask my students “is it this? or is it that?”… It’s a nice method. It’s the binary tree.… My system is good for finding your way in design.…

The journalist Margaret Richardson once asked me what my main objective was in teaching. I said, to have a good time. She thought that I was not serious. But I said I was serious. And why did I want to have a good time? As a teacher you can only have a good time when your students are sure that they have a good time. I tried to find things that the students found interesting. Thought-provoking things are always the best; they like that.

I wanted to ask my students to study the book Printing Types by [D.B.] Updike. Then after three weeks I would ask them about it. In my classes we didn’t have what is called a ‘discipline’. Imagine that you go to your students, show them these impressive thick volumes, and say that you will ask them about the book in three weeks’ time. What do they say? “Oh, that's too much! We have so many things to do!” I just took a paragraph from the book and read it aloud. They started laughing. I said: “how do you think that this man could be so famous and yet say such stupid things?” The next day they were crowding around me with quotations and arguments. Just ask a student to find the faults in Updike or in Morison or in me, and they will bring you arguments.

It is just as with a child playing a game. I think that many students have the feeling, often unconsciously, that playing this game could be important for everything else in their lives. It may not really go to the heart of the matter, nevertheless it’s a good problem for a school. It’s a problem that can be a metaphor for your real problems, and because it's just a metaphor you can play with it. Then the only thing that you have to do as a teacher is watch, and show that you are present. So that when people are doing dangerous things, they can afford the risk, because you are there. When you are at the back of the class, sometimes you see somebody look to see if you are still there. That keeps you alive, or at least it gives you a good time.

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Oded Ezer: “Biotypography”—imaginative discovery rather than pragmatism

The pieces shown above (top) Tipografya poster, 2003 and Helvetica Live! poster, 2008 were designed by Oded Ezer of Tel Aviv. Currently, the posters are included in an exhibition titled, Graphic Design: Now in Production, which is on display until 22 January 2012 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Here’s an observation of the Walker exhibition catalog by Rick Poynor.

The “Tipografya” poster showcases the Frankrhulia type design, which is motivated by the adaptation of the classic Berthold’s “Frank Ruehl” Hebrew font. Ezer’s poster features the logotype for the Hebrew word for typography. Oded’s letter designs carry on the very fine Hebraic typography tradition. Traditional Pentateuch Hebrew typography fully appreciates the design elements of the letter, the word, and the book. Perhaps the essence of Hebrew type design is artistry that concentrates, like the Psalmist, “the inner soul of the poet and musician.” [1]

Oded has coined the term Biotypography in reference to the organic nature and “bio”-diversity of his typographic work. Paola Antonelli writes about this synthesis of art and science:

Ezer thinks that since, very often, a type designer chooses a typeface for its ability to embody and render the feeling of a project, the step from object to creature is direct and typefaces should really become living, biological beings. As he explains it, “The term Biotypography refers to any application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof to create [to make] or modify typographical phenomena.” [2]

Ezer’s beautifully eccentric typographic designs are mainly about the impact of visual form and expression. The compelling detail in his work are the accentuated appendages that simulate moving legs and antennae. These posters also allude to the mutual feature of ubiquity suggested by the “Frank Ruehl” Hebrew text font style and the font Helvetica. Both are still widely used today. Although unintentional, it’s fascinating how one’s reflection faintly merges with the framed glass of the pieces that are in the Walker exhibition.

1. Antonelli, Paola. “The Typographer’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Design Observer: Observatory. Ed. Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand, Julie Lasky, and Nancy Levinson. The Design Observer Group, 16 June 2008. Web. 11 Jan. 2012. Here’s the link.
2. Ibid.

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Philippe Apeloig, “understanding the art and design of letters”

Photographs from the Graphic Design: Now in Production show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (note viewer and environmental interior reflections in the frame glass).
Top: Philippe Apeloig, designer. FIAF: French Institute/Alliance Française de New York, Crossing the Line – FIAF Fall Festival, Affiche, 100 × 150 cm, 2010. Directly above: Philippe Apeloig, [Motion] Typographie (on screen): La Lorraine, 2005.

Currently on display is a major exhibition at the Walker called Graphic Design: Now in Production — the show runs until 22 January 2012. In the exhibition catalog Ellen Lupton writes, as one of the featured essayists, a piece entitled, “The Making of Typographic Man.” Lupton’s essay correlates to the Typography area in the show, which features, among several others, the work of French graphic designer, Philippe Apeloig. As Ms. Lupton states:

Custom lettering is a powerful current in contemporary design. Designers today combine physical and digital processes to create letterforms that grow, copulate, and fall apart. Vocabularies range from the lush organicism of Marian Bantjes and Antoine et Manual to the geometric constructions of Philippe Apeloig, whose bitmapped forms suggest an animated process of assembly and dissolution. [1]

However, Apeloig’s compelling typography also seems to move beyond the geometric constructions, using the motion of countless pixilated points of light that coalesce and disperse to suggest the impact of human culture in flux and crossing boundaries. Interestingly, Lupton ends her essay with these words, which contextualizes the work of Apeloig:

Unfurling today across the networked horizon, text is now mutable (changing), interactive, and iterative, no longer melded to a solid medium… an essential “natural resource” (an essential medium of text exchange in our times). [2]

Indeed Apeloig’s typographic design is an image of a flourishing estuary—the ebb and flow of multifaceted cultural diversities.

1. Lupton, Ellen. “2011 The Making of Typograpic Man.” Graphic Design: Now in Production. Ed. Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2011. 113. Print.
2. Ibid. 114.

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Hand-painted Clarendon Extended & Regular

Photograph of a vintage World War II railroad troop sleeping car manufactured by the Pullman Company, Chicago in the early 1940s.
New Buffalo Railroad Museum, New Buffalo, Michigan
Photograph by versluis 2011

The Victorian typestyle Clarendon Extended on the side of this restored railroad car is painted homemade but the name “Pullman” is nicely lettered. The Clarendon suggests the beginnings of the Pullman Palace Car Company in the nineteenth century. Note how the letterer amputated the toe in the leg terminal of the “R” in Troop and Sleeper to maintain tight letter spacing.

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Bakkerij Versluis: Logotype

Above: the Bakkerij Versluis storefront, Woerden, Netherlands
Photograph by versluis, 2004 (note the sunflowers in the upper bay window)
Below: Banner is taken from the Bakkerij Versluis website

Bakkerij Versluis (probably no relation) is located on Voorstraat in Woerden, Netherlands — Woerden is just off E30 between Utrecht and Gouda.

Here’s a quick non-comprehensive logo analysis:

The Versluis logotype is relatively simple and rather an enjoyable trademark — the casual script type style seems to convey friendliness that reminds one to give thanks for our daily croissant, bread, and banket (a traditional Dutch almond pastry).

The shape of a crescent-shaped bread roll — the croissant, inspired the interesting form of the upper case “V” in the logotype, which relates to the angular and square ends of the script style letters. The deeper color suggest Versluis as purveyors of good, wholesome, and sweet things to eat.

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Futura and the Dordt College architectural sign of 1955

Pictured above is the original Dordt College architectural sign of 1955, which is composed using the Futura typeface. It’s perhaps the classiest exterior sign on campus. The 8 inch high metal letters are 1.875 inches deep and are mounted to 4 inch thick limestone blocks with .5 inch stand-offs, which can create pronounced drop shadows. The generous letter spacing seems to mitigate the encroachment of the geometrically circular “O” into the space of the other letters.

Futura is a sans serif face that adheres to the tenet of being assembled from geometric shapes and the characteristically consistent stroke width suggests automation. Futura was developed with 1920s Bauhaus influences and is the quintessentially twentieth century modern (universal) typeface with classical proportions that helps to convey the concept of form ever follows function. It was one of the commercially popular sans serif type styles of the mid-twentieth century.

Regarding “universal” Futura during the Bauhaus era, Ellen Lupton (crediting Richard Southall and Christopher Burke) puts it this way:

While any graphic designer of the period would have required skills in hand lettering, only a few embarked on the more challenging task of creating a complete, industrially produced typeface. One who did so was Paul Renner, who began work on Futura in Munich in 1924. Although early versions of his alphabet included experimental characters with extreme geometric forms, the final typeface — released in 1927, after three years of ongoing development — is more conservative. The circular “O” of Futura links it to the cruder, more programmatic experiments of the Bauhaus.[1]

1. Lupton, Ellen. “Herbert Bayer: Designs for ‘Universal’ Lettering. 1925 and 1927.” Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity. Ed. Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2009. 200-03. Print.

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