Why So Bold? (part deux)

Alright so last Sunday I wrote about all this hype around bold geometric typography. It seems I am not the only that noticed because Kevin talked about that in class last Thursday.

So, the question is, is this new trend good or bad? In my opinion, it's only bad because it's a trend. It's this year's fashion. It's "in". Design really shouldn't be about being "in". In fact, it should be anything but "in" because "in" means looking like what everyone else wants you to look like. And design, in my mind, is all about surprise, shock, and thinking outside the box.

Talking about "thinking outside the box", I participated in a contest last semester. We had to design a t-shirt that represented what design is now. I drew a box, and outside of it a red dot with the inscription "think here"*. I won. However, I'm starting to think I was wrong. It seems to me design today, in Montreal and elsewhere, is all about thinking inside the box.

Anyway, what I should really be doing write now is working on my final projects, so I'll leave it at that. For now. Now here's my shirt and more bold typography for you:


*btw, I wrote this 'think here' in helvetica italic. Was it laziness, irony, or just a poor font library? We'll never know... (I know, but I'll never tell anyone)

DVNO Videoclip

Here's a link for Justice's clip DVNO on youtube. The clip is by So Me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_XzCR2MbrU

I just find it's a really fun and original way to create a clip with almost just typography.

Why So Bold?

Alright so, as everybody knows, every couple of year, some of the world's top typographers get together in a secluded and top secret bunker and argue on what are going to be the next grand tendencies in typeface design. It seems they have decided the hand drawn type era is now officially over, now is the time for the overly bold and almost unreadable typefaces.

Seriously, just take a look at these images from various posters and books. I wonder what Piet Zwart would be saying about that. According to him: "Pretentious [letter forms] oppose the utilitarian task of typography. The more uninteresting a letter is in itself the more useful it is in typography".

Interesting link

Now... here's a website that I don't really understand. But it's great. Reeeally great. From what I can understand it's images bookmarked by different users from around the world. The great thing images 1) the images are beautiful, and alot are related to design and typography 2) the website changes almost every seconds with the users posting things in real-time

Anyway, without further ado, here's the link:
http://ffffound.com/

Book and Album Covers

For my Print class, I did some research on albums and books covers. It's something that I'm very interested in. I find the capacity to render the spirit of a book or album that some designers have is really fascinating.

You've seen from my last post how I've used my research to make an album cover. However, it was an album without any content, so I could have done just anything really. For my final project in this Print class, I will take apart a book, print on it, than rebuild it. I also want to make a sleeve for it. I got an old book of Shakespeare's piece "Julius Caesar" from an used book store, so that should be very interesting.

Anyway, here are some examples of book and album covers from an earlier research:

PRIN351, MUTE album

Ok so, for my Print project, I was inspired by some articles found in Kevin's book/magazine Dot Dot Dot 9. The articles in question talk about the band Stereolab, a british alternative band formed in the 90s. In the article, their album covers are mentioned as not only as mirroring their music, but also elevating it.

Being a musician, I'm very concerned about the state of today's music scene. To me, music now is more about image then it is about music. Maybe it's been this way for ages, I can't really tell, but this seems very wrong to me.

What I decided to do for this project is to make an album cover and posters for a band that does not exist. This band is all about the image and not about the music. I wanted to see people's reaction to the imagery of the band, without ever being able to hear them. I decided to actually draw the images for the album. It's the first time in almost 2 years that I've actually picked up the pencils and drawn for a project. This is probably thanks to the book Chasing the Perfect that I read earlier this semester. Maybe next time I'll draw a mouse instead of birds...

Some people thought they were an Electro/Techno band. I had people telling me they must sound like Radiohead, and others like System Of A Down. Here is the visual:

DART392, Posters with typography

Here is the poster I had to create using the type we made for my 392 class. After the Internet, now comes the Outernet. What exactly is the Outernet? Well... how about everything the Internet is not.

Brief 2: Half Empty, Half Full

Yeeah, I know... Long time no see. Anyway, here is my final for the second brief and another version with the same text and image: