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CONTEXT bOOk

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Published 2012

Leeds College of ArtBlenheim WalkLeedsLS2 9AQ

T 0113 202 8000F 0113 202 8001E info@leeds-art.ac.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electric or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

First printed in 2012 by Dox Di-rect

Designed by Emma Cooper+44 (0) 7870 534 137designbyemmac@gmail.com

www.designbyemmac.com

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Introduction00 My work 04 Architecture Publication06 Imdb Supplement08 Pluto Music 10 Ubiquitous typeface Editorial Design12 Jung & Wenig14 Jung & Wenig Interview 18 Caroline Fabes20 Patrick Fry22 Rob Van Hoesel24 Foam Magazine

Typography26 Why choose a particular typeface? 28 Erik Spierkermann Interview30 Typography Dissertation32 Swiss Style34 Experimental Jetset36 Interview with Stefan Sagmeister38 Obsessions Make My Life Worse and My Work Better

Branding / Identity40 Lundgren+Lindqvist42 Studio Laucke Siebein44 K-Rochelle46 FXD48 Bureau Bruneau50 Rosario Florio52 HauteMuse

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I have selected a small selection of my work completed over the past 3 years that demonstrate what I am about and what drives my practice. Demonstrat-ing my inclination to work in editorial design and branding. I feel that crea-tivity as well as structure is important to get the correct message across to a selected audience.

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Top 100 Imdb movies is a 20 page supplement which goes into the New York Times newspaper and is for en-tertainment purposes. Also there is a Imdb bag and a flyer to promote this supplement.

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Live Brief I started on work placement to design a home page for a website. The company is a studio specialising in music for children’s animation, fi lm, commercials etc. They are based in central Manchester and are not very recognised so they want a more vi-brant and eye-catching website.

The content was to remain pretty much the same, however the layout and colours are much bolder. I chose black and orange to match the beauti-ful photographs they sent me. I want-ed to really focus on the photographs as they are very welcoming and im-pressive and also stand out a lot on a black background.

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The type face itself is very illustrative and came from the idea of structural architecture. It is based on Helvetica as I found it ubiquitous similar to the buildings that surround us. It will be available to purchase online to design-ers.

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JUNG + WENIG

“WE AREOBSESSIVE

COLLECTORSOUR COMPUTERS ARE FILLED WITH COUNTLESS LIBRARIES, SORTED BY THEMES”

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Tell us how the two of you met, and how your collaboration works!

Well, it all started several years ago at the Leipzig University qualifying exams-a 5 day marathon of tests and aptitude screening. Tobi found himself billeted at a mad old ladies place, so I decided to rescue him and let him stay at my place in-stead. And we have been working- sometimes even living- together ever since.

In a way, we have become something of an old couple of graphic design: Tobi generates plenty chaos and Christopher cleans up after him. We even used to swap computers, but just put a stop to that. Now, on a day to day basis, we both do everything and simply play ping pong with the flies, tossing them back and forth. However, besides having matching or complementary skills, it is far more important to be on the same page when it comes to aesthetics and attitude.

So, is there something like a particular Jung and Wenig aesthetic or manifesto? How does this translate to your own and commissioned work?

I think our, lets say, idiosyncratic approach is both our strength and great di-lemma. On the one hand, it gives us and our work great focus and distraction, on the other, it narrows down our list of potential clients.

Both of us adore typography, which is probably down to our past at the Leipzig School of Design and working with people like Cyan, Gunter-Karl Bose, Markus DreBen et al. Add a generous dash of muddleheadedness and you are half way there! The results tend to be quiet bare and pared down-almost to the point of tedium.

When it comes to our commissioned work, we mostly do artist monographs, gallery programmes, etc. While this is not likely to make us rich, it means work-ing with people who are pretty much on the same wavelength and this gives us more leeway for playful experimentation. We love it when people know what they want and when they have something to say, because there is nothing worse than dressing up empty phrases and content. As long as people have something to say, that is a descent basis for experimentation and collaboration.

JUNG + WENIGIn a series of photo zines and books based on mostly found material, Berlin based duo infernal Jung and Wenig explore their gentle love/hate relationship with the iconic GR 3770 Risograph.

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Speaking of experimentation-most of your submissions to this book are quite experimental. Where does it all come from?

We simply design what feels right to us. The driving force? Probably a bit of boredom and the urge to make use of the freedom we have. Not to forget: we are obsessive collectors. Our computers are filled with countless libraries, sorted by themes. We usually start a search around a name or term and, like everybody else, get sidetracked by the wealth of further links. So we click our way through one particular branch, all the way into display truly stunning.

And while we have always collected the oddities, some of them actually look really interesting within the right graphic framework. After all, that is our job as graphic designers: to see the unseen and turn it into something worthwhile. Without this eye and curatorial aspect, any collection is just rubbish.

And as it is pretty much impossible to fill up your hardrive with bits of junk sized at 72kb, we never, ever delete anything. Actually, as a rule of thumb we would say: the higher a pictures resolution, the more boring and empty it will turn out to be. These high enders take themselves far too seriously!

Well, so much for the source-what about the actual projects?

We simply delve into our achieves and assemble a veritable wunderkammer of curiosities. And it usually starts with a huge amount of nuttieness-this seems to be a common thread. After all, this is what makes the internet such a great source: on the web, everyone is a star-and not only for the proverbial 15 min-utes, but as long as the link works. So, we take our pick from these would-be stars and offer them their own stage-without the tiniest hint of mercy. Take the Singlestammtisch: we came across all these odd, self promotional portraits, cut them up, turned them into a slightly unsettling collage and then scoured the net for accompanying text. That’s it!

But despite the overt silliness, it is all quite theoretical from Tower of Babel analogies to modern philosophy. Considering that we are not great at putting our thoughts and theories into words, we were lucky enough to find plenty of pictures to do it for us.

Indecently, most of these projects thrive on the humour of their content rather than “proper” graphic design. Discounting our bush project, they are all rather primitive-image on the left, image on the right, there you go. So, while they are fairly conceptual, they’re not especially ambitious in terms of technique. A lot of this is down to the reproduction technology we use, our Risograph GR 3770, which is famous for imprecise printing, limited colours, and slightly sloppy results

So, is it all about learning by doing?

Well, I don’t think a single project has ever gone without a hitch! A bookbinder once mixed up the layers of our 640kb project, which-in the scheme of things-did not really spoil the work, but slashed the price in half, so that was a bit of a lucky accident.And when you look at our own, free projects-with their different paper types and photo print inserts-it is usually pure madness from a production point of view. If we handed those to a bookbinder, there is no way we could afford it. But when you treat it as a voluntary craft project in your own workshop and studio, it can actually be quite meditative.

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How much time do you spend on the average project?

Including printing and binding, it probably takes around 2 months from start to finish-all done by hand and in house. Sure, that is a fair amount of time for what is basically a self indulgence. Sometimes, we do it on the side whilst working on an official project, but it is definitely a bit of luxury.

If you discount all the time and labour invested, producing an edition of 100 copies probably costs us around 800 euros in materials. Then again, we were lucky-we snagged our Risograph for a mere 700 euros plus 400 euros for an additional colour cartridge. Well, to be honest-we did not really pay for it all! A couple of years ago, someone paid us twice by mistake and we kept waiting for them to claim it back. When nothing happened for a year, we decided to invest the windfall in a “good cause”

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–CAROLINE FABES–Typeface system in which each let-ter was replaced by a square with a different colour. Use of this code through a pedagogic text of the Na-tional library.

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-PATRICK FRY-A zine featuring work that is conceptu-ally based on the number of the issue it appears in

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-Has many publications on his website and they are all very similar to this and he must have about 20 magazines on his website and the layout is very creative and interesting and I love the way he has just used mainly 2 colours and different stock inside the mag. I think having this type of effect really heightens the magazine and it is really simple to do.

ROB VAN HOESEL-

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FOAm mAgAZINE-

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Why choose a particular typeface?

Because it works.Some typefaces are just perfect for certain things. Some typefaces are better for headlines and text but there is always that small type at the bottom of letters which is what Franklin Gothic is for. A lot of typefaces are very overused like Frutiger on sign age programs in hospitals and airports.

Because you like its history.Some companies have fonts that were created the same year the clients organi-sation was founded. They say this gives the recommendation an aura of manifest destiny that is positively irresistible.

Because of who designed it.Some designers make typefaces and people just stick to their styles. Also you may of researched the type designer and been very inspired by their life and so you use there type.

Because it was there.Some typefaces are already on your computer, they could be the default type-face, normally this is Minion pro.

Because it reminds you of something.Whenever I want to make words look straightforward, conversational, and smart, I frequently consider Future, upper and lower case. Not because Paul Renner was straightforward, conversational, and smart, although he might have been. No, it’s because 45 years ago, Helmut Krone decided to use Futura in Doyle Dane Bernbach’s advertising for Volkswagen, and they still use it today. One warning, however: what reminds you of something may remind someone else of something else.

Because it’s beautiful.

9. Because it’s ugly.Sometimes its better to be talked about, even if it is bad, comic sans for instance is so overused and hated but in the right context can work well, even if it is ugly.

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Because it’s boring.Tibor Kalman was fascinated with boring typefaces. “No, this one is too clever, this one is too interesting,” he kept saying when showed him the fonts I was proposing for his monograph. Anything but a boring typeface, he felt, got in the way of the ideas.

Because it’s special.In design as in fashion, nothing beats bespoke tailoring.

Because you believe in it.Sometimes I think that Massimo Vignelli may be using too many typefaces, not too few. A true fundamentalist requires a monotheistic world view: one world, one typeface. The designers at Experimental Jetset have made the case for Helvetica. A lot of people don’t like Helvetica but those who believe it really is a perfect typeface will still use it.

Because you can’t not.

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What makes a good typeface?What makes a good typeface is decided by the users, not the designer.Most good typefaces have been designed for one purpose, they do not come from a designer’s whim.

Bodoni designed all his faces for specific books,Times was designed for the newspaper,Frutiger for sign age at Charles de Gaulle airport,Helvetica to appeal to certain graphic designers,Bell Gothic for the American telephone books,Gill for a shop front,Century for a magazine,Meta for the German post office,

There are certain laws of perception as well as cultural traditions whichA typeface has to adhere to it has to look almost like all the others, but just be a little different

You have designed a lot of typefaces. What is your favourite?ITC OfficinaITC Officina still looks great. While FF Meta was very unusual at the time (1985) and has a lot of imitators by now, Officina is my true classic. It was based on the idea that a typeface for correspondence should retain some of the quality of a typewriter face without the disadvantages of monospaced fonts. Basically, Officina is my redesign of Letter Gothic.On your blog, you publish a compilation of old type specimen? Do you some-times regret the good old time of paper? What have we lost in the digital world?The touch, smell and feel. Too much precision can be cold.You say that design is not an art because a designer works for a customer, an artist for himself. Have you ever tried to design a typeface for your own pleasure, artistic research or whatever you want ?No. Except perhaps my early faces, Berliner Grotesque and LoType, which I made because the old metal faces were not available as photo setting fonts in the 70s. There was no marketing rational behind this, just my love of these faces that I used to have as metal letters in my print shop.

Erik Spierkermann Interview

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Don’t you think that something conceived with a utilitarian view in mind can be considered only for itself ? Example: let’s take a poster of Cassandre (there has been an exhibition in the French National Library). It is designed to fulfil a customer needs (let’s say to encourage people to take the boat to go to New York). But I can now put this poster on a wall of my room just… because I really like the object…I agree. We have the responsibility to add something aesthetic and beautiful once we have solved the immediate problem. And then, when the problem is forgotten, the beauty remains

Finally, what is the ONE thing you think every student of typography should know?That you are designing not the black marks on the page, but the space in be-tween.

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TYPOgRAPHY

‘The letters of the alphabet have essential certain forms. We have as much right to use the best letters in writing and printing books as to use the best bricks in building a house.’(Podcast, Just my Type)

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‘You need to use something that is not necessarily intrinsically more legible, but that people are used to seeing. Preferences for typefaces such as Times Roman exist by habitat, because those typefaces have been around the longest.’(Just my type, S. Garfield)

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International style (swiss)

International or swiss style was based on the revolutionary principles of the 1920s, such as those devised by De Stijl, Bauhause and Jan Tschicholds The new Typography, which became firmly established in the 1950s. Grids, mathematical principles, minimal decoration and sans serif typography became the norm as typography de-veloped to represent universal useful-ness more than personal expression.

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ExPERImENTAL JETSET-

-A small, independent graphic design studio based in Amsterdam, consisting of three persons: Marieke Stolk, Danny van den Dungen and Erwin Brinkers. They have been collaborating as Experimental Jet-set since they graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (in 1997, 1997 and 1998 respectively), and in our work they focus mostly on printed matter.They often describe graphic design as “turning lan-guage into objects”. where in fact doing the oppo-site: they are trying to turn objects into language. Or better said, looking at the objects which have produced during the last ten years.

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Interview with Stefan Sagmeister What is the best moment of the day?In the early evening and the early morning. When talking about design I would say the morning because it’s quiet in here (his office) and there is then time to really think about concepts. The evening because then most of the day is over and so it’s a more playful time, specifically when all the tasks are done.

What books do you have on your bedside table?I just finished ‘the Brooklyn follies’ by Paul Auster which I loved. Last week I read a Picasso biography and I have just started ‘the last true story I’ll ever tell’ by john crawford, it’s an account of a soldier in Iraq. For pleasure I read fiction, nonfiction really whatever comes my way.

Do you read design magazines?The studio has subscriptions to a number of them, and I flick through them usu-ally for pleasure not for inspiration, and not usually in office hours.

Where do you get news from? Newspapers? TV?Not from TV, I cant stand TV news in America, I read the new York times, which I find a good newspaper although it is slanted towards one direction. It’s probably my prime news-source.

Do you notice how women are dressing?I do now much more than I used 10 years ago because my girlfriend is a fashion designer. Now I notice things here and there. She’s influenced how I dress for sure (heavily), and she has given me more of an eye for things.

Do you have any preferences?Also through her influence, simple grounded ideas.

What kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?Basically anything that isn’t made by my girlfriend, or isn’t sold by my brother. He also has a men’s fashion Store. So between the two of them I would say 95% of what I wear comes from either of them.

When you were a child, did you want to become a designer?Not as a child but as an adolescent, when I was around 15 or 16 I knew that I wanted to become a designer.

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Where do you work on your designs and projects?Everywhere, obviously the execution of them mostly in the office. The concep-tion of them everywhere, I travel quite a bit and now I find it easy to work on a plane and I love to work in a hotel room. I love to work in new fresh surroundings, a new country...Also I prefer working on concepts that don’t have a deadline at-tached where I can work freely.

Do you discuss your work with other graphic designers?We have a group called ‘second Tuesday’ and we meet every second month. There are about 15 people who run design firms. We always meet at someone’s home or studio, that person has to organize dinner and a subject. Sometimes these subjects are quite practical such as finances. Lately the topics have been focused more towards administration and business rather than cultural aspects.

Please describe your style?For a long time we prided ourselves not to have a style which to uphold became impossible. This is because if you really switch your stylistic approach from pro-ject to project it is impossible to come up with a new one on a weekly or monthly basis, without ripping-off either historical styles or a particular designers’ style. Although it would not cover all of our work I would say we are probably best known for our hand-made quality.

Which type of project has given you the most satisfaction?Well the cop-out answer would be projects for good clients who have good prod-ucts or good services. That could be CD packaging for a band that I love or for people who are kind or a pleasure to work with, or smarter than me so I can learnSomething. Projects where I have the guts to work on them hard enough so that they become good in my eyes, they always tend to be more rewarding than the ones where I was lazy.

Who would you like to design something for?A person who I have always wanted to and tried to work with is the guitarist ‘Robert fripp’ from the band ‘king crimson’ because it is a band that I have admired since I was 16. As far as a particular product is concerned I would love to do something ‘big’ and with a big impact in terms of its distribution. I would love to re-design the coke can, or an identity that is truly ‘worldwide’. I always

felt that these type of jobs used to be done very well by small design companies or single designers for example IBM or coca-cola. In the last decades though these jobs tend to have been done by larger branding consultancy. They often have a very different agenda and in my eyes generally do terrible jobs, though there are some exceptions. I think that it’s a pity that designers avoid this type of work in favour of more obscure projects, because today how children learn what the world looks like is determined by these type of jobs. So I would love to be involved there. In a small studio though this type of project rarely happens, big companies like working with other big companies.

And your studio is small...We very purposefully remain small. We started in 1993 and there would have been many opportunities to grow through the nineties. Other than not being involved with the size of branding I definitely think that a small studio only has advantages (apart from not being involved with the branding projects). to keep the studio small was actually advice I received from tibor kalman.

Is there any designer/ architect from the past you appreciate a lot?My old boss, tubbier kalman.

And those still working?Many, we would be here forever if I were to list them all! In industrial design I would say the ‘dutch bunch’, marcel wanders etc. In graphics, especially in the USA I would say rick valicenti, and in the UK mark farrow, but there are many people.

Do yo have any advice for the young?Try to be a good person and work your ass off.

What are you afraid of regarding the future?hmm (thinks) not much, I wouldn’t call myself a very gutsy person but I can’t say that I am scared of anything regarding the future... Not at all. I think that it’s going to be fine. Humanity adapts to all kinds of situations, and right now I think is a good time to be alive.

Obsessions make my Life Worse and my Work Better

I rarely obsess about things in my pri-vate life. I fail to care about the right shade of green for the couch, the sexual details of an ex-lover or the correct temperature of the meeting room AC. I don’t think I miss much.

However, I do obsess over our work and think that a number of our better projects came out of such an obses-sion. Doodling obsessively onto a poster depicting a headless chicken and an obsession with white angry monkeys that ultimately led to the giant inflatable animals all over Scot-land are just two such examples.

From Bernd and Hilda Becher’s obsessive need to record every water tower to On Kawara’s date paintings and James Turrell’s Roden Crater, obsessions seem to be an important ingredient in the work of many of our favorite contemporary artists.Obsessions make my Life worse and my Work better.*

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Lundgren+Lindqvist

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Lundgren+Lindqvist

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STuDIO LAuCKE SIEBEIN

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K. Rochelle Adjei re-launched the IndieCouture fashion maga-zine in New York. The magazine is focused on emerging fashion designers and other creative talent, but it’s a multicultural magazine that also features mu-sic, photography and culture. The readers are 75% African American. Rochell wanted that I design a new logo, which is clas-sic like Vogue, but she said that she’d definitely need a POP of colour. Final, I made a new logo (new typeface) and a new com-plex cover design concept with a hanger. Thank you for Rochelle, that gives scope for my abilities.

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-Mindfreak Productions is a Hungarian start-up pro-duction office, which produces movies, TV ads and manages music bands. They asked me to make a classic but a little bit playful logotype, which shows the word-play between Mindfreak and Mindfreak. Thank you for Balazs Makrai, Istvan Hanzel and Dan-iel Magyar giving scope for my abilities.

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FxD-bachelor thesis

At fxd graphic design they have done this significant project and all their deliverable are similar to the deliverable of the fashion collaboration. I had a meeting with them both today and they made it clear they wanted a very stylised Identity.

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Bureau Bruneau is the one man show of Ludvig Bruneau Rossow, a 24-year-old designer from Oslo, Norway.

I mainly work with printed matter rang-ing from visual identities to editorial design and packaging. The ideas be-hind my projects varies from technical to emotional concepts.

Bureau Bruneau

I graduated from the Graphic Design department at Westerdals School of Communication in 2010. After work-ing at Uniform for one year, I did an intership at Sagmeister Inc. In New York. Now, I’m currently working at Bleed in Oslo.

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Flyer announcing a party at the club Zukunft in Zurich. The give-away was a diamond, laser-cut from fabric by Jakob Schläpfer. Therefore we ex-perimented with light refractions on typography. Printed on 45 gsm white and metal coated paper.

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HauteMuse

HauteMuse magazine is a new Qatari fashion magazine. I wanted to de-sign a logotype, which is classic like VOGUE, or Harper’s BAZAAR, but more fresh. This is only a concept.

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Behind the zines:Self publishing culture

Graphic Design for Fashion

www.rosarioflorio.ch

www.kissmiklos.com

www.carolinefabes.com

www.patrickfry.co.uk

www.foam.org

www.kissmiklos.com

www.rosarioflorio.ch

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