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protest signmaking workshop 1.07.11

via www.flickr.com

Friday, January 7. 2-5pm at Field Work (1101 SW Jefferson Ave.)

North South Portland is a project that is currently underway at Field Work, a PSU art space in downtown Portland. Artists (and graphic design students and alum!) Justin Flood, Sarah Baugh and Nicole Lavelle invite you to help shape the project with your input and collaboration through a workshop co-sponsored by the Friends of Graphic Design.

Explore 1960’s typography and hand lettering techniques while participating in a discussion about the polarizing nature of urban renewal.

Is renewal helpful or detrimental to neighborhoods? Can communities benefit from quick, planned urban development? Let's investigate the role that visual communication can play in community politics and land use issues. Come craft protest signs supporting or decrying urban renewal, and learn about the history of the PSU neighborhood and how it came to its present state.

We'll have painting supplies and sign materials, as well as information about the history of urban renewal in Portland. Plus hot tea and classic 1960's jams!

All signs will be on display at Field Work from January 7 to January 16. Participants are welcome to take their signs home after that date.

All are welcome and please bring your friends!

For more information, see www.fieldworkspace.org or email Nicole Lavelle at nicolelavelle at gmail dot com.

PSU GD GRAD : Ben Mulkey on graduate school in the UK

Who I am: My name is Ben Mulkey, I'm a designer / writer and PSU graduate. 

What this blog post is about: My experience attending grad school on a Masters of Art course in the UK.

As told through a series of subject headings which substitute the abbreviated words in Masters of Art (MA) to form new two-word combinations that allude to my experiences while studying abroad.

PSU GD Student Ben Parsons is a finalist in the Design Sponge Typeface Competition!

Go Ben Parsons Go! Ben entered his typeface into the Design Sponge Typeface Competition. Ben created the typeface and promotional materials for Kate Bingaman Burt's Type One class. Go Vote for Ben's Black Toast Creation! Polls close tomorrow (the 16th!) 

Type Guru/Genius Matthew Carter Wins MacArthur Fellowship ($500,000 Whoa!)

"My job is to make type readable," says 2010 MacArthur Fellow, Matthew Carter. Carter was awared the extremely prestegious MacArther Fellowship which awards him $500,000 over the next five years. The grant is a no strings attached funding which will help the 72 year old continue his typographic research.

Read more over at Unbeige. Learn more about Matthew Carter HERE and HERE!

POTATO SANS / POTATO SERIF : Dispatch from Matt Livengood's Typography Class!

Created with flickr slideshow.

  

Q: Why on Earth would you be asked to bring a sharp kitchen knife to your typography class? 

A: Without that sharp knife, you can't carve potato? Obviously. Duh. 

Earlier this Spring, my typography students engaged in the very, very serious art of creating block prints from potatoes. We began the term with some reading and discussion of historic typographic technologies: moveable type, letterpress, etc. But in order to put into action the things we were examining, I thought it would be good for the class to get their hands dirty (read: starchy) by making their own blocks of typography for printing. 

Certainly, carving letters out of a potato isn't quite the same as what the old masters used to do; potatoes are drastically different than steel blocks and lead slugs. But the basic concept is the same: you want to produce a raised letterform on the flat surface of a block that can be inked and then used for printing that letterform on paper. What the class did with their potatoes required skill and patience, yes, but after spending a good deal of time and attention on their potato print blocks, I wondered aloud, "Can you imagine doing this same carving of letterforms in steel for, say, a letter of type measuring 6 points?" (We were working in 180 pt. type.) I think we could all agree that such an activity was… beyond both our means and materials. 

Check Out Slate Magazine Article: "Down With Verdana!" By Farhad Manjoo

Typography on the Web is basic and dull. A startup called Typekit will fix it. The brilliant Clea Ball, Art Department administrator extraodinaire has sent the GD program a link to a Slate article about web typography which begins by stating, "For typography geeks, the Web is a depressingly drab place. Just look around the page you're reading now: There are only a couple of fonts, Arial and Verdana, used to display most of the text. That would be fine, except that they're the same two fonts you find everywhere else on the Web...." To read the rest of the article follow the link above. Thanks Clea!

Experimental Type In Context // ART 354

At the beginning of my (Lis C.) Typography Two course we focus on exploring typography & language; meaning & message; and medium, context & environment. Our goal is to develop inventive work that explores how typographic treatment and context affect meaning and message. We consider our experimenting to be (quick) typographic journeys. Here are some of the students' fearless type and meaning explorations (and even more after the jump!). Enjoy!

Nate Preston  // Experimental Type In Context at PSU // http://www.constantprocedure.com/

Nate Preston  // Experimental Type In Context at PSU // http://www.constantprocedure.com/

 

Nate Preston  // Experimental Type In Context at PSU // http://www.constantprocedure.com/

Jessica Cerrato // Experimental Type In Context //

 

Nicole Lavelle // Experimental Type In Context //

 

Nicole Lavelle // Experimental Type In Context // digital mock-up of banner

Nicole Lavelle // Experimental Type In Context //

 

Jordan Lessler // Experimental Type In Context //

Jordan Lessler // Experimental Type In Context //

Alex Bellerud // Experimental Type In Context //

Alex Bellerud // Experimental Type In Context //

Alex Bellerud // Experimental Type In Context //

Type Geekery (and I mean Geekery in the best way possible): Justice Type Identification.

Justice - DVNO from Freedom Record on Vimeo.

Thanks to type smarty Stephen Coles' Tweet, I was told that his friend (and fontfeed editor) Yves Peters ID'ed all of the fonts in the rad Justice video DVNO.

Be sure to read Yves breakdown and be sure to check out the rest of FontFeed!

Oh, yeah - Stephen Coles is a type director at Font Shop and an editor at Typographica! (which has a BRAND NEW FACELIFT) AWESOME, for sure.

We Love Typography!

From the creators of I Love Typography come We Love Typography...kind of like a ffffound, but for type and curated by super type lovers! You can search by subject, color, style, designer - just search! just look! the site is FILLED with inspiration! WHOOO!

Thanks PSU student Isabel for showing this to me yesterday on her blog!

House Industries on Grain Edit

above: House Industries produced Alexander Girard Dolls

I BEG of you to read the wonderful interview about House Industries over at the fantastic design blog Grain Edit. The interview TOTALLY pertains to the second half of my 254 typeface project. 

House Industries is known for producing fantastic, well crafted goods to accompany their typeface releases. They research and revive faces and design artifacts from the past and repackage it for modern day consumption. They create tangible goods to accompany intangible font files. They create design pieces that you do not want to throw away, but instead you want to touch, display, think and be moved to MAKE objects yourself.  ahhhh...what a company!

above: House Industries produced Alexander Girard Memory Game