Sandbergh Wednesday Lectures poster by Anja Groten
Eurovision 3000 report spread by Anja Groten and Janneke de Rooij
It was such a pleasure to meet these brilliant ladies from the Sandbergh Institute last week in Nijmegen. Check out Anja and Janneke’s work and prepare to be amazed by Dutch design goodness!
If you’re in Amsterdam next month, their diploma show The Future’s so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades promises to be something special.
In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.
A simple idea, perfectly executed, beautiful and relevant… This project gives me some interesting ideas for the future development process of the Fugue. Could a similar approach be applied to collaborative poetry and its typographic expression?
I had been meaning to write a post about my obsession with typography for a while now, as I feel it’s something I’ve neglected on this site, but unfortunately I still haven’t found the time. Then I discovered Sam Winston‘s beautiful, poetic, obsessive, intelligent and meticulous art work. Winston’s explorations mirror a lot (if not all) of my interests in type and language, but his execution is far more exacting, patient, and painstaking I imagine.
I’ll save my intended post for another time, there’s certainly much more to say, but for now, enjoy Sam’s work.
New Visual is a newly launched “inspirational resource minimalist blog-a-thing” curated by Simon Carrasco, Philippe Laurent, Anne Laure To and myself. Expect a wide assortment of posts relating to art, design and contemporary visual culture. Follow and enjoy!
First up, long admired political art collective, The Beehive Design Collective, have launched a kickstarter campaign to mark their 10 year anniversary. I remember first seeing their work during the FTAA protests in Quebec City back in 2001, and just recently referenced their work in a class I was teaching as an example of an approach to a visual essay. Check out the video above to learn more about their important and inspirational work, and if you’re in the states, help ‘em out so they can keep printing and get yourself some beautiful posters while you’re at it.
The early view from our table
Another great Expozine weekend is in the books, and as tiring, stressful and hectic as it was, I’m pretty sad it’s over and we’re going to have to wait a whole year for the next opportunity to see so many amazing independent creators and creations.
As a member of the illustrious board, headed by the indefatiguable Louis Rastelli (with big shoutouts to Billy Mavreas, Genevieve Boyer, Pascal-Angelo Fioramore, Michelle Lacombe and Graham Hall) I spent Friday setting up hundreds of tables and chairs while hoping that issue XI of Four Minutes to Midnight would be printed and bound in time by my printers Kata Soho (kids, remember, don’t leave printing to the last minute!). Everything worked out in the end, and I was able to enjoy the opening event at Sala with some good friends and great performances by Sherwin Tija (reading from his collection of Pseudo-Haikus and new zine, “The Little Cancer that could”) and Super Fossil Power. There was a nice turnout, but unfortunately, as was to be expected, a lot of zinesters I was hoping to meet were MIA as they frantically finished their wares.
On Friday, I received my much anticipated copy of Ruud Linssen’s Book of war, mortification and love in the mail. Published by one of my favourite typefoundries, Underware, the book, which consists of a collection of personal essays on the concept of “voluntary suffering”, also acts as a type specimen for their Blackletter typeface Fakir.
The book is beautifully designed and crafted, which is not a surprise given the quality of Underware’s work. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Fakir reads as a text face though, since I had always considered it a bit of a playful display typeface. Even more impressive is how well it sits in such a serious and sombre context, accentuating the darkness of the essays with its jagged edges.
