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O

revolucionário

tipógrafo e design

er suíço Wolfgang

Weingart foi respo

nsável por uma das

grandes mudanças

no cenário do desi

gn gráfico do sécu

lo XX, onde contra

riou todos

os

dogmas (limitações

, proporções matem

áticas, divisões g

eométricas do espa

ço, grelha e famíl

ias tipográficas)

‘impostos’ pela Es

cola

Suíça, como conseq

uência influenciou

directamente todo

s os movimentos po

steriores.

As novas tecnologi

as instigaram Wein

gart a realizar ex

perimentações com

tipos, fotocomposi

ções, sobreposiçõe

s de imagens, assi

metrias em composi

ções; um nível de

experimentalismo f

ortemente criticad

o pelo design gráf

ico modernista, re

sultando no surgim

ento de uma nova l

inguagem gráfica.

Apesar da sua form

ação na Escola Suí

ça, Weintgart pass

ou a defender a pe

rda da hierarquia

de informações, a

formação de uma vi

sualidade irrequie

ta, e o uso de

inúmeras tipografi

as num mesmo proje

cto, com o objecti

vo de criar o ‘jog

o’ entre texto e l

eitor defendido po

r Roland Barthes.

Weingart, apesar d

as novas experiênc

ias gráficas e tip

ográficas, estava

consciente do risc

o da utilizção das

novas tecnologias

, levando o design

gráfico para o

campo da expressão

pessoal, caracter

izando o expressio

nismo tipográfico,

enquanto a tipogr

afia suíça focava-

se na função sintá

tica, Weingart est

ava interessado

em como fazer as q

ualidades gráficas

da tipografia ser

em utilizadas e re

tidas no seu signi

ficado, acreditava

que alterações no

s tipos poderiam i

ntensificar ou

alterar o seu sign

ificado.

Weingart foi respo

nsável pelo surgim

ento do movimento

Punk (Inglaterra)

e New Wave; o últi

mo surgiu nos Esta

dos Unidos no fim

da década de 70, e

as novas

tecnologias eram u

tilizadas para a c

riação e manipulaç

ão de imagens, tor

nando o microcompu

tador uma ferramen

ta de trabalho na

área do design. Ne

ste período,

April Greiman dest

acou-se pela estét

ica desenvolvida n

os projetos, sendo

claramente óbvia

a influência de We

ingart devido à il

egibilidade criada

pela baixa

resolução dos tipo

s e imagens. O tip

ógrafo suíço també

m influenciou dire

ctamente nomes com

o Dan Friedman, Wi

lli Kunz, Kenneth

Hiebert, Neville B

rody, Peter

Saville, David Car

son, Stefan Sagmei

ster e os colectiv

os Experimental Je

t-Set e Tomato.

Na década de 90 a

diversidade tipogr

áfica difundiu-se

pelo meio profissi

onal, que por fim,

baseava-se no est

ilo gráfico de des

afio ao estilo suí

ço, provocando

um onda de acusaçõ

es às escolas de D

esign de difundir

as suas ideias exp

erimentais pelo mu

ndo, onde o design

tinha sido reduzi

do a um estilo sem

substância,

resultando em uma

avalanche de mensa

gens confusas e am

bíguas, a polémica

em torno das nova

s tipografias pass

ou então a girar e

m torno das questõ

es da

legibilidade e do

respeito ao leitor

. Tais tipografias

foram acusadas de

estarem a criar t

rabalhos meramente

estéticos, dificu

ltando a leitura e

m prol do culto

designer as an art

ist defendido por

Stefan Sagmeister.

Tais mudanças de p

aradigmas provocad

as por Weingart e

reforçadas por seu

s alunos, deram in

ício ao que é prod

uzido actualmente.

A descontrução ti

pográfica

frequentemente uti

lizada, consiste n

a manipulação dos

caracteres, tanto

das formas origina

is como do espaçam

ento entre caracte

res e imposição de

ruídos e

demasiados element

os, alterando a le

gibilidade e muita

s vezes perdendo-a

totalmente, fazen

do com que o carac

tere tenha função

ornamental e não a

função

original, informaç

ão. O que antes er

a utilizado como n

ível de experiment

ação, ainda respei

tando as normas da

Escola Suíça, ond

e eram estudadas n

ovas formas

da proposição gráf

ica, foi se perden

do pelo próprio su

rgimento das novas

tecnologias, embo

ra actualmente haj

a designers que pr

ocuram manter e de

stacar

a influência moder

nista nos seus

trabalhos tipográf

icos desconstrutiv

os, como é o caso

dos Experimental J

et-Set com o intui

to de um resultado

gráfico impactante

.

A iniciativa de We

ingart,

de levar o design

para a expressão p

essoal, é hoje mui

to utilizada e est

imulada pelo merca

do,

onde as experiênci

as

pessoais vão confi

gurar os trabalhos

gráficos. O própr

io estilo de vida,

o urbanismo, o

apelo ao consumism

o

e as constantes

inovações/transfor

mações tecnológica

s determinam a

desordem na

construção gráfica

.

O

revolucionário

tipógrafo e design

er suíço Wolfgang

Weingart foi respo

nsável por uma das

grandes mudanças

no cenário do desi

gn gráfico do sécu

lo XX, onde contra

riou todos

os

dogmas (limitações

, proporções matem

áticas, divisões g

eométricas do espa

ço, grelha e famíl

ias tipográficas)

‘impostos’ pela Es

cola

Suíça, como conseq

uência influenciou

directamente todo

s os movimentos po

steriores.

As novas tecnologi

as instigaram Wein

gart a realizar ex

perimentações com

tipos, fotocomposi

ções, sobreposiçõe

s de imagens, assi

metrias em composi

ções; um nível de

experimentalismo f

ortemente criticad

o pelo design gráf

ico modernista, re

sultando no surgim

ento de uma nova l

inguagem gráfica.

Apesar da sua form

ação na Escola Suí

ça, Weintgart pass

ou a defender a pe

rda da hierarquia

de informações, a

formação de uma vi

sualidade irrequie

ta, e o uso de

inúmeras tipografi

as num mesmo proje

cto, com o objecti

vo de criar o ‘jog

o’ entre texto e l

eitor defendido po

r Roland Barthes.

Weingart, apesar d

as novas experiênc

ias gráficas e tip

ográficas, estava

consciente do risc

o da utilizção das

novas tecnologias

, levando o design

gráfico para o

campo da expressão

pessoal, caracter

izando o expressio

nismo tipográfico,

enquanto a tipogr

afia suíça focava-

se na função sintá

tica, Weingart est

ava interessado

em como fazer as q

ualidades gráficas

da tipografia ser

em utilizadas e re

tidas no seu signi

ficado, acreditava

que alterações no

s tipos poderiam i

ntensificar ou

alterar o seu sign

ificado.

Weingart foi respo

nsável pelo surgim

ento do movimento

Punk (Inglaterra)

e New Wave; o últi

mo surgiu nos Esta

dos Unidos no fim

da década de 70, e

as novas

tecnologias eram u

tilizadas para a c

riação e manipulaç

ão de imagens, tor

nando o microcompu

tador uma ferramen

ta de trabalho na

área do design. Ne

ste período,

April Greiman dest

acou-se pela estét

ica desenvolvida n

os projetos, sendo

claramente óbvia

a influência de We

ingart devido à il

egibilidade criada

pela baixa

resolução dos tipo

s e imagens. O tip

ógrafo suíço també

m influenciou dire

ctamente nomes com

o Dan Friedman, Wi

lli Kunz, Kenneth

Hiebert, Neville B

rody, Peter

Saville, David Car

son, Stefan Sagmei

ster e os colectiv

os Experimental Je

t-Set e Tomato.

Na década de 90 a

diversidade tipogr

áfica difundiu-se

pelo meio profissi

onal, que por fim,

baseava-se no est

ilo gráfico de des

afio ao estilo suí

ço, provocando

um onda de acusaçõ

es às escolas de D

esign de difundir

as suas ideias exp

erimentais pelo mu

ndo, onde o design

tinha sido reduzi

do a um estilo sem

substância,

resultando em uma

avalanche de mensa

gens confusas e am

bíguas, a polémica

em torno das nova

s tipografias pass

ou então a girar e

m torno das questõ

es da

legibilidade e do

respeito ao leitor

. Tais tipografias

foram acusadas de

estarem a criar t

rabalhos meramente

estéticos, dificu

ltando a leitura e

m prol do culto

designer as an art

ist defendido por

Stefan Sagmeister.

Tais mudanças de p

aradigmas provocad

as por Weingart e

reforçadas por seu

s alunos, deram in

ício ao que é prod

uzido actualmente.

A descontrução ti

pográfica

frequentemente uti

lizada, consiste n

a manipulação dos

caracteres, tanto

das formas origina

is como do espaçam

ento entre caracte

res e imposição de

ruídos e

demasiados element

os, alterando a le

gibilidade e muita

s vezes perdendo-a

totalmente, fazen

do com que o carac

tere tenha função

ornamental e não a

função

original, informaç

ão. O que antes er

a utilizado como n

ível de experiment

ação, ainda respei

tando as normas da

Escola Suíça, ond

e eram estudadas n

ovas formas

da proposição gráf

ica, foi se perden

do pelo próprio su

rgimento das novas

tecnologias, embo

ra actualmente haj

a designers que pr

ocuram manter e de

stacar

a influência moder

nista nos seus

trabalhos tipográf

icos desconstrutiv

os, como é o caso

dos Experimental J

et-Set com o intui

to de um resultado

gráfico impactante

.

A iniciativa de We

ingart,

de levar o design

para a expressão p

essoal, é hoje mui

to utilizada e est

imulada pelo merca

do,

onde as experiênci

as

pessoais vão confi

gurar os trabalhos

gráficos. O própr

io estilo de vida,

o urbanismo, o

apelo ao consumism

o

e as constantes

inovações/transfor

mações tecnológica

s determinam a

desordem na

construção gráfica

.

1

wolfgangweingartist meinhomeboy

wolfgangweingartist meinhomeboy

3

“Wha

t’s

the

use

of

bein

g l e

g i

b l e

, whe

n no

thin

g in

spire

s yo

u to

ta

ke

noti

ce

of

it?”

WO

LF

GA

ND

W

E

I

N

G

A

R

T

3

MAKEUBLE!

TROAKEUBLE!

5

Wein

ga

rt

W

lfg

an

g

TRO

We discovered, that as increased space was inserted be-

tween letters, the words or word groups became graphic

in expression, and that understanding the message was

less dependent upon reading than we had supposed. Our

activities challenged, the viewpoint of Emil Ruder and his

followers. In the mid-sixties he wrote a succinct mani-

festo, a part of which I typographically interpreted for the

cover of Typographische Monatsblatter, Number 5/1973:

'Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey in-

formation in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve

typography from this duty. A printed work which cannot he read

becomes a product without purpose. More than graphic design,

t y p o g r p h y

is an expression of

technology, precision and good order.'

Founded by Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, the Weiterbildungsk-

lasse für Graphik, the international Advanced Program for Graphic De-

sign, was scheduled to begin in April 1968. Ruder's heartfelt wish was to

teach typography, but because of additional obligations as the school

director, he would, need a teaching assistant. He asked me, and, I read-

ily accepted. Tragically, his unexpected illness and regular hospital con-

finements in Basel precluded the chance of ever working together.

The first seven students came from the United States, Canada, Eng-

land, and Switzerland, expecting to study with the masters Hofi-

nann and Ruder. When I showed up as the typography teacher their

shock was obvious. Because of I my training, radical experiments,

and because we were around the same age, the students began toTRUST ME. Eventually, disappointment gave way to curiosity.

Teachers agreed on common themes for the initial two years of the, ad-

vanced program, the Symbol and the Package. Feeling more confident

by the second year, bolstered by the studants enthusiasm, I risked further experimentation and my classes became a labora-tory to test and expand models for a new typography.

7

k

9

kefgin

qefgin

11

qefgin The work of Wolfgang Weingart may to some mean simply the series of extraordinary Weltformat (905x 1280mm) posters he created in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in “Das Schweizer Plakat”, a maelstrom of

montage, framing elements and halftone screens. The posters constructed dizzying visual spaces that were a pleasure for the eye but disorienting for the intellect bent on meaning. Here were the signs and signifiers of process

reproduction gone mad, engulfing familiar images and words in a fractured world of moiré, colour separation and the effects of make-ready. Like much craft of the highest order, the assembly of the posters was a puzzle: their

beginning and end was obvious; pulling apart the process of making in between, anything but. They were at once self-evident and mysterious.

Where designers are known only by a fraction of their work - frequently reproduced, iconic and isolated - an anthology offers a chance to rediscover their influences and first principles of design buried in old or difficult-to-find books

and journals, if published at all. Weingart’s own first and formative statements on design and pedagogy were made in the early 1970s, on lecture tours (“How can one make Swiss typography?”) and in Typographische Monatsblatter.

Though his lectures have been republished, interviews given and teaching methods again profiled, Weingart’s own retrospective Typography allows him to make known a more representative body of work and the pattern of

experiment that supports it.

Towards the end of Typography Weingart writes: “technical equipment enabled me to realize my world of signs and pictures”. This important theme travelling throughout the book is traced to his training as a trade compositor where

the incidental, accidental or hidden features of metal type - the printed feet of the type body, for instance - suggested a compelling, alternative world of signifiers far removed from the image of type well set Later, as a student and

teacher at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel (now the Hochschule fiir Gestaltung und Kunst), experiments with type on the proofing press and in the process camera didn’t simply enable Weingart to realise his world of signs and

pictures but helped populate it with similar contraventions. These experiments were part of a wider scheme of design and teaching that sought provocatively to re-order the conventional meanings of typo-graphic form (Weingart’s

preferred orthography) while protesting as unrealistic “value-free” Swiss typography.

WW,

The work of Wolfgang Weingart may to some mean simply the series of extraordinary Weltformat (905x 1280mm) posters he created in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in “Das Schweizer Plakat”, a maelstrom of

montage, framing elements and halftone screens. The posters constructed dizzying visual spaces that were a pleasure for the eye but disorienting for the intellect bent on meaning. Here were the signs and signifiers of process

reproduction gone mad, engulfing familiar images and words in a fractured world of moiré, colour separation and the effects of make-ready. Like much craft of the highest order, the assembly of the posters was a puzzle: their

beginning and end was obvious; pulling apart the process of making in between, anything but. They were at once self-evident and mysterious.

Where designers are known only by a fraction of their work - frequently reproduced, iconic and isolated - an anthology offers a chance to rediscover their influences and first principles of design buried in old or difficult-to-find books

and journals, if published at all. Weingart’s own first and formative statements on design and pedagogy were made in the early 1970s, on lecture tours (“How can one make Swiss typography?”) and in Typographische Monatsblatter.

Though his lectures have been republished, interviews given and teaching methods again profiled, Weingart’s own retrospective Typography allows him to make known a more representative body of work and the pattern of

experiment that supports it.

Towards the end of Typography Weingart writes: “technical equipment enabled me to realize my world of signs and pictures”. This important theme travelling throughout the book is traced to his training as a trade compositor where

the incidental, accidental or hidden features of metal type - the printed feet of the type body, for instance - suggested a compelling, alternative world of signifiers far removed from the image of type well set Later, as a student and

teacher at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel (now the Hochschule fiir Gestaltung und Kunst), experiments with type on the proofing press and in the process camera didn’t simply enable Weingart to realise his world of signs and

pictures but helped populate it with similar contraventions. These experiments were part of a wider scheme of design and teaching that sought provocatively to re-order the conventional meanings of typo-graphic form (Weingart’s

preferred orthography) while protesting as unrealistic “value-free” Swiss typography.

13

WW,

By some measurements, his output is neither large nor diverse, despite signals the book’s 500-plus pages and 2.2kg weight might send to the contrary (the book, however, leaves almost entirely aside the story of 30 years teaching). But the lack of expanse is redressed in a distillation of creative cause and effect, following a logic Weingart insists characterises his development. Unrealistically neat or not, the reconstruction of six progressive “Independent Projects” has a useful programmatic momentum one might expect of a teacher. They also support Weingart’s claim that he is himself largely self-taught.Typography is pedagogical in other ways, too, offering sequences of pure two-dimensional design (“The Letter M” or “Typography as Endless Repetition”) that are salutary as exercises in the conceptual evolution of form and as sources of inspiration (the Near East deserts and their classical ruins). The sum is a catalogue of signs, pictures and techniques whose use and meaning assume a self-referential order in Weingart’s world and help make sense of the “real jobs” shown in the book’s later section “Correspondence between Experiment and Practical Application”. This is valuable in tracking the film layering and collage experiments that initiated the crescendo of his late posters.Where Weingart has less to offer is in considering text. His own concerns about it are found already in the lectures of the early 1970s, though on the evidence of Typography, the matter seems little addressed since. The book’s own text is hard: justified locked block-like into heavy-handed layouts; marginal references to illustrations are confused with page numbers; the Times New Roman type is often large and continuously underlined while the English translation is in italics, pushing reading to the edge of discomfort. As image, these choices successfully counterpoint hand-drawn textures and sparsely inhabited spreads. But in other respects it seems that Weingart’s view of text is a pictorial one that begrudges concessions to the reader’s efficient use of it. This may not be a problem or even a surprise. After all, the iconic quality of Weingart’s work is partly what makes his work (his pictun so fascinating and so challenging.Anyway, conventional efficiencies were what he set out to re-assess. Here though, are limits. For instance, what orders much typography now and gives it meaning often lies beneath the visual surface; it is structured by coded marki and penetrated by interrogators that make it functional and efficient This fluid, digital typography is conceptually distant from that which is static, iconic idiosyncratic. Of course, it’s unfair to comment on what Weingart does not offer in Typography, he implores us to “... understand my world of pictures i reflecting the times from whence they arose.” Nevertheless, since the mid 1989 (the date of his last significant projects he has continued to work, teach and consider the role of new technology in the production of communication.But past technical paradigms may well prove too burdensome. Weingart admits: “the assumption that digital or electronic tools would be the nexf step in my work was a delusion. My hands and the tangibility of my materials are fie sources of my pleasure and creative inspiration. I am bound to my roots as a craftsman.” At times in Typography ii appears a line is being drawn under a career, that Weingart’s work will now simply provide ruins for our technical-

By some measurements, his output is neither large nor diverse, despite signals the book’s 500-plus pages and 2.2kg weight might send to the contrary (the book, however, leaves almost entirely aside the story of 30 years teaching). But the lack of expanse is redressed in a distillation of creative cause and effect, following a logic Weingart insists characterises his development. Unrealistically neat or not, the reconstruction of six progressive “Independent Projects” has a useful programmatic momentum one might expect of a teacher. They also support Weingart’s claim that he is himself largely self-taught.Typography is pedagogical in other ways, too, offering sequences of pure two-dimensional design (“The Letter M” or “Typography as Endless Repetition”) that are salutary as exercises in the conceptual evolution of form and as sources of inspiration (the Near East deserts and their classical ruins). The sum is a catalogue of signs, pictures and techniques whose use and meaning assume a self-referential order in Weingart’s world and help make sense of the “real jobs” shown in the book’s later section “Correspondence between Experiment and Practical Application”. This is valuable in tracking the film layering and collage experiments that initiated the crescendo of his late posters.Where Weingart has less to offer is in considering text. His own concerns about it are found already in the lectures of the early 1970s, though on the evidence of Typography, the matter seems little addressed since. The book’s own text is hard: justified locked block-like into heavy-handed layouts; marginal references to illustrations are confused with page numbers; the Times New Roman type is often large and continuously underlined while the English translation is in italics, pushing reading to the edge of discomfort. As image, these choices successfully counterpoint hand-drawn textures and sparsely inhabited spreads. But in other respects it seems that Weingart’s view of text is a pictorial one that begrudges concessions to the reader’s efficient use of it. This may not be a problem or even a surprise. After all, the iconic quality of Weingart’s work is partly what makes his work (his pictun so fascinating and so challenging.Anyway, conventional efficiencies were what he set out to re-assess. Here though, are limits. For instance, what orders much typography now and gives it meaning often lies beneath the visual surface; it is structured by coded marki and penetrated by interrogators that make it functional and efficient This fluid, digital typography is conceptually distant from that which is static, iconic idiosyncratic. Of course, it’s unfair to comment on what Weingart does not offer in Typography, he implores us to “... understand my world of pictures i reflecting the times from whence they arose.” Nevertheless, since the mid 1989 (the date of his last significant projects he has continued to work, teach and consider the role of new technology in the production of communication.But past technical paradigms may well prove too burdensome. Weingart admits: “the assumption that digital or electronic tools would be the nexf step in my work was a delusion. My hands and the tangibility of my materials are fie sources of my pleasure and creative inspiration. I am bound to my roots as a craftsman.” At times in Typography ii appears a line is being drawn under a career, that Weingart’s work will now simply provide ruins for our technical-

q

15

WOLFGANG WEINGART TURNED A REBELLIOUS EYE TO SWISS RATIONAL TYPOGRAPHY, RESCUING IT FROM WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS "THE THRESHOLD OF STAGNATION.

" While studying under the Swiss masters, Armin Hofman and Emil Ruder at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel in the 1960s, Weingart reacted to existing standards by pushing typography to the limits of legibility and beyond. He narrowly escaped

expulsion. Combining extreme letterspacing, slant, weight, size, and repetition with a fierce practical knowledge of printing, Weingart dismantled the rational methodology of his elders. Out of this radicality emerged a design movement appropriate to

the changing postmodern times. New Wave was born. Weingart and the students he later taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, including April Greiman and Dan Friedman, used their intimate knowledge of Swiss

modernism to open its unrelenting structure to the dynamic experiments of a new era. His audacity urges us to look deeply at our own time and, in so doing, "to question established typography standards, change the rules, and to reevaluate its potential."

In an era when lead type was virtually obsolete, the environment of a traditionally equipped type shop—

its elements and tools in metal, wood, or synthetic materials—was the context, in fact, the impetus that enabled me to develop a progressive curriculum for the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel.

Swiss typography in general, and the typography of the Basel school in particular, played an important international role from the fifties until the end of the sixties. Its development, howev-

er, was on the threshold of stagnation; it became sterile and anonymous. My vision, fundamentally compatible with our school's philosophy, was to breathe new life into the teaching of typography by reexamin-

ing the assumed principles of its current practice. The only way to break typographic rules was to know them. I acquired this advantage during my apprenticeship as I became expert in letterpress printing. I as-

signed my students exercises that not only addressed basic design relationships with type placement, size, and weight, but also encouraged them to critically analyze letterspacing to experiment with the limits of readability.

We discovered that as increased space was inserted between letters, the words or word groups became graphic in expression, and that understanding the message was less dependent upon reading than we had supposed.

Our activities challenged the viewpoint of Emil Ruder and his followers. In the mid-sixties he wrote a succinct manifesto, a part of which I typographically interpreted ior the cover ofTyfograpKiscKe Monatsblfltter, Number 5/1973:

"Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. A print-

ed work that cannot be read becomes a product without purpose. More than graphic design, typography is an expression of technology, precision, and good order."

Founded by Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, the Weiterbildungsldasse for Graphik, the international Advanced Program for Graphic Design, was scheduled to begin in April 1968. Ruder's heartfelt wish was to teach typography, but because of

additional obligations as the school director, he would need a teaching assistant He asked me, and I readily accepted. Tragically, his unexpected illness and regular hospital confinements in Basel precluded the chance of ever working together.

The first seven students came from the United States, Canada, England, and Switzerland, expecting to study with the masters Hofmann and Ruder. When I showed up as the typography teach-

er, theii shock was obvious. Because of my training and radical experiments, and because we were around the same age, the students began to trust me. Eventually, disappointment gave way to curiosity.

The teachers agreed on common themes for the initial two years of the advanced program, the symbol and the package. Feeling more confident by the second year, bolstered by the students' enthusiasm, I risked further experimentation, and my classes became a laboratory to test and expand models for a new typography.

It was a major undertaking to organize my extremely diverse typographic ideas when I was asked to exhibit at the Stuttgart gallery Knauer-Expo in December 1969.1 designed eleven broadsides relating to thoughts

and fantasies about my life. One of them, entitled "was ich morgen am liebsten machen wiirde" (what I would most like to do tomorrow), was a list of wishes and dreams, and it has become one of my favorite works.

Accelerated by the social unrest of our generation, the force behind Swiss typography and its philosophy of reduction was losing its international hold. My students were inspired, we were on to something different, and we knew it.

FIFTH INDEPENDENT PROJECT: TYPOGRAPHY AS ENDLESS REPETITION

Years after our explosive rebellion against the prevailing status of Swiss typography and all the values that it had come to embody, my work, too, became repetitive. Disheartening as it was, I had to admit that our school

type shop, although well stocked in metal type, rule lines, symbols, and ornaments, flexible in all possible techniques, no longer offered creative potential, not for me personally and not in the professional practice of design.

Since the invention of printing, typography had been the domain of craftsmen. The artists and designers of the twenties and thirties, the so-called pioneers of modem typography, El Lissitz-

ky, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Zwart, whose work anticipated a future direction in graphic design, perhaps came to a similar dead end due to the inherent limitations of perpendicular composition in lead typography.

In my case the crisis came at the beginning of the seventies when the student unrest had subsided, when many of us were tryiijgto envision a new life. The renewed challenge to find other possibilities in my work, to find my way out of a leaden typographic cage, seemed futile.

It was too soon to imagine the potential of layering lithographic films. Nor could I predict that in the darkroom another world of surprise awaited: transparency and superimposed dot screens.

From a feeling of nowhere to go, a low point and a standstill, I set repeated, single type elements. The pictures conjured up many associations: the endless expanse of the desert, the steps of archaeological sites, the discipline of my apprenticeship, and, from

childhood, the drudgery of survival in a postwar economy and a report card with the failing grade that would never improve— in Germany, the number i. Lines that spanned a double-page spread reminded me of first grade in Salem Valley and my practice notebook

for handwriting. The word "schön," set in bold with two fine points above it, defined my idea of beauty. The rows of Rs were elephants with their long trunks, a peaceable herd roaming a dry river valley at the foot of a steep mountain massif The cross, the registration

mark of the printer, was the intersection of north, south, east, and west. The letter Y was a dichotomy, the arid desert strewn with colorful tulips. Pages of bold points and vertical lines were abstractions of photographs brought back from journeys in the Near East.

This phase of my work may well have been influenced by Serial Art, or by Repetition Typography practiced in the class of Emil Ruder during the sixties. The typeface Univers designed by Adrian Frutiger of Swit-

zerland, a longtime friend of Ruder, offered Basel a progressive approach to the arrangement of typography. The design of Univers was ideal for Ruder's own typographic work and that of his students, especial-

ly favored by Hans-Rudolf Lutz who studied at the Basel school for one year from 1963 to 1964. Lutz and a few of his colleagues designed typographic pictures that would have been difficult to compose in any other typeface.

Since the invention of book printing, Univers was the first entire font system to be designed with interchangeable weights, proportions, and corresponding italics. In the design of older typefaces visu-

al alignment among such variations was not a standard consideration. For a given size of type all twenty-one variations of Univers, whether light, regular, medium, bold, condensed, expanded, or italic, had the same X-

height (the height of lowercase letters without ascenders or descenders) and the same baseline. This simplified letterpress printing and increased the possibilities for visual contrast in tone, weight, width, and direc-

tion, available in eleven sizes for metal typesetting. When I came to the Basel School of Design the coarse Berthold Akzidenz- Grotesk, so rarely used, was fast asleep in the type drawer under a blanket of dust. I woke it up.

Wolf

gangq

WOLFGANG WEINGART TURNED A REBELLIOUS EYE TO SWISS RATIONAL TYPOGRAPHY, RESCUING IT FROM WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS "THE THRESHOLD OF STAGNATION.

" While studying under the Swiss masters, Armin Hofman and Emil Ruder at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel in the 1960s, Weingart reacted to existing standards by pushing typography to the limits of legibility and beyond. He narrowly escaped

expulsion. Combining extreme letterspacing, slant, weight, size, and repetition with a fierce practical knowledge of printing, Weingart dismantled the rational methodology of his elders. Out of this radicality emerged a design movement appropriate to

the changing postmodern times. New Wave was born. Weingart and the students he later taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, including April Greiman and Dan Friedman, used their intimate knowledge of Swiss

modernism to open its unrelenting structure to the dynamic experiments of a new era. His audacity urges us to look deeply at our own time and, in so doing, "to question established typography standards, change the rules, and to reevaluate its potential."

In an era when lead type was virtually obsolete, the environment of a traditionally equipped type shop—

its elements and tools in metal, wood, or synthetic materials—was the context, in fact, the impetus that enabled me to develop a progressive curriculum for the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel.

Swiss typography in general, and the typography of the Basel school in particular, played an important international role from the fifties until the end of the sixties. Its development, howev-

er, was on the threshold of stagnation; it became sterile and anonymous. My vision, fundamentally compatible with our school's philosophy, was to breathe new life into the teaching of typography by reexamin-

ing the assumed principles of its current practice. The only way to break typographic rules was to know them. I acquired this advantage during my apprenticeship as I became expert in letterpress printing. I as-

signed my students exercises that not only addressed basic design relationships with type placement, size, and weight, but also encouraged them to critically analyze letterspacing to experiment with the limits of readability.

We discovered that as increased space was inserted between letters, the words or word groups became graphic in expression, and that understanding the message was less dependent upon reading than we had supposed.

Our activities challenged the viewpoint of Emil Ruder and his followers. In the mid-sixties he wrote a succinct manifesto, a part of which I typographically interpreted ior the cover ofTyfograpKiscKe Monatsblfltter, Number 5/1973:

"Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. A print-

ed work that cannot be read becomes a product without purpose. More than graphic design, typography is an expression of technology, precision, and good order."

Founded by Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, the Weiterbildungsldasse for Graphik, the international Advanced Program for Graphic Design, was scheduled to begin in April 1968. Ruder's heartfelt wish was to teach typography, but because of

additional obligations as the school director, he would need a teaching assistant He asked me, and I readily accepted. Tragically, his unexpected illness and regular hospital confinements in Basel precluded the chance of ever working together.

The first seven students came from the United States, Canada, England, and Switzerland, expecting to study with the masters Hofmann and Ruder. When I showed up as the typography teach-

er, theii shock was obvious. Because of my training and radical experiments, and because we were around the same age, the students began to trust me. Eventually, disappointment gave way to curiosity.

The teachers agreed on common themes for the initial two years of the advanced program, the symbol and the package. Feeling more confident by the second year, bolstered by the students' enthusiasm, I risked further experimentation, and my classes became a laboratory to test and expand models for a new typography.

It was a major undertaking to organize my extremely diverse typographic ideas when I was asked to exhibit at the Stuttgart gallery Knauer-Expo in December 1969.1 designed eleven broadsides relating to thoughts

and fantasies about my life. One of them, entitled "was ich morgen am liebsten machen wiirde" (what I would most like to do tomorrow), was a list of wishes and dreams, and it has become one of my favorite works.

Accelerated by the social unrest of our generation, the force behind Swiss typography and its philosophy of reduction was losing its international hold. My students were inspired, we were on to something different, and we knew it.

FIFTH INDEPENDENT PROJECT: TYPOGRAPHY AS ENDLESS REPETITION

Years after our explosive rebellion against the prevailing status of Swiss typography and all the values that it had come to embody, my work, too, became repetitive. Disheartening as it was, I had to admit that our school

type shop, although well stocked in metal type, rule lines, symbols, and ornaments, flexible in all possible techniques, no longer offered creative potential, not for me personally and not in the professional practice of design.

Since the invention of printing, typography had been the domain of craftsmen. The artists and designers of the twenties and thirties, the so-called pioneers of modem typography, El Lissitz-

ky, Kurt Schwitters, Piet Zwart, whose work anticipated a future direction in graphic design, perhaps came to a similar dead end due to the inherent limitations of perpendicular composition in lead typography.

In my case the crisis came at the beginning of the seventies when the student unrest had subsided, when many of us were tryiijgto envision a new life. The renewed challenge to find other possibilities in my work, to find my way out of a leaden typographic cage, seemed futile.

It was too soon to imagine the potential of layering lithographic films. Nor could I predict that in the darkroom another world of surprise awaited: transparency and superimposed dot screens.

From a feeling of nowhere to go, a low point and a standstill, I set repeated, single type elements. The pictures conjured up many associations: the endless expanse of the desert, the steps of archaeological sites, the discipline of my apprenticeship, and, from

childhood, the drudgery of survival in a postwar economy and a report card with the failing grade that would never improve— in Germany, the number i. Lines that spanned a double-page spread reminded me of first grade in Salem Valley and my practice notebook

for handwriting. The word "schön," set in bold with two fine points above it, defined my idea of beauty. The rows of Rs were elephants with their long trunks, a peaceable herd roaming a dry river valley at the foot of a steep mountain massif The cross, the registration

mark of the printer, was the intersection of north, south, east, and west. The letter Y was a dichotomy, the arid desert strewn with colorful tulips. Pages of bold points and vertical lines were abstractions of photographs brought back from journeys in the Near East.

This phase of my work may well have been influenced by Serial Art, or by Repetition Typography practiced in the class of Emil Ruder during the sixties. The typeface Univers designed by Adrian Frutiger of Swit-

zerland, a longtime friend of Ruder, offered Basel a progressive approach to the arrangement of typography. The design of Univers was ideal for Ruder's own typographic work and that of his students, especial-

ly favored by Hans-Rudolf Lutz who studied at the Basel school for one year from 1963 to 1964. Lutz and a few of his colleagues designed typographic pictures that would have been difficult to compose in any other typeface.

Since the invention of book printing, Univers was the first entire font system to be designed with interchangeable weights, proportions, and corresponding italics. In the design of older typefaces visu-

al alignment among such variations was not a standard consideration. For a given size of type all twenty-one variations of Univers, whether light, regular, medium, bold, condensed, expanded, or italic, had the same X-

height (the height of lowercase letters without ascenders or descenders) and the same baseline. This simplified letterpress printing and increased the possibilities for visual contrast in tone, weight, width, and direc-

tion, available in eleven sizes for metal typesetting. When I came to the Basel School of Design the coarse Berthold Akzidenz- Grotesk, so rarely used, was fast asleep in the type drawer under a blanket of dust. I woke it up.

Wein-tgart

p

17

David carson

You cannot NOT communicate

p

It was David Carson, however, more than any other designer, who, in the early 1990s, was most active and effective in popularizing these approaches. For many young designers, his work as art director of Ray Gun magazine from 1992 to 1995, supported by lectures and workshops around the world, provided an introduction to experimental design - one so overwhelming for some viewers that it tended to obscure his work's relationship to earlier experiments. Ray Gun also delivered the first experience of this type of design to many non-designers, especially outside the US, and it was often assumed, in media coverage, that Carson's approach was entirely without precedent. Certainly, the success of Ray Gun's design as a hip signifier of 'Generation X' youth culture encouraged the deconstructed style's rapid take-up up by corporate advertising and Carson himself created ads for Pepsi-Cola, Nike and, later, Microsoft. By 1997, a British newspaper was hailing him, in a headline, as 'A Hero of Deconstruction'. In Carson's body of work, the rule-breaking impulse seen in punk and deconstruction became the central idea. No convention was too unassuming to challenge andfany structural principle could be disregarded in the cause of expressive design. In his first book, The End of Print (1995), he describes his way of working as a 'loose, intuitive, no-formal-training kind of approach'. You

cannot NOT communicate

O H M Y F U (*+ +I N G GOD GOOD

He goes onto explain: 'Maybe at some

subconscious level things are done to upset somebody - part of me

continues to see no valid reason for many of the accepted rules

of design. Perhaps that is why I have not bought into many of the accepted rules... I'm not anti-school, but when I became

interested in design I really didn't know what those-rules were and so I just became fascinated

by exploring the look and feel of the subject.'

Echoing designers from Cranbrook and

CalArts, Carson argues that the rationalism of grid systems and other

kinds of typographic formatting is 'horribly

irrational' as a response to the complexity of the

contemporary world.

19

O H M Y F U (*+ +I N G GOD GOOD

Carson's repudiation of design and editorial conventions began in earnest at Beach Culture magazine, where, in 1991, he first abandoned page numbers. On the fifth issue's contents page, the now role-less numerals become ingredients in a thick stew of typographic matter, with no definite top or bottom which also attempts to generate interest

from the 'worst typeface at hand'. At Ray Gun, typographic material was treated with an even more painterly and emotive degree of freedom. In a feature on a band called Deconstruction, published in 1994, the columns are carved into irregular shapes, angled fracture lines run through the text, forced justification is used to space out the last

line of each paragraph and one of the columns is pushed out to the edge of the page so that the page trim (never totally predictable) cuts off some of the letters. The second half of the final paragraph, beginning mid-sentence, is placed at the start of the article. Carson's word pictures were often evocative. On the opening spread of an interview

with the reclusive British rock star Morrissey, titled 'The Loneliest Monk', a pull-quote from the piece - 'I have no interest in any aspect of whordom [sic]' - is broken into three irregular type-clusters which revolve around a photo of the singer, who is about to move out of shot, returning the viewer to the image. At other times, in a challenge to fixed editorial hierarchies still unthinkable in most publications, though never far from the surface in 1990s postmodern design, Carson interposed himself unavoidably

between reader and story. In one famous case, he replaced a feature I about the singer Bryan Ferry with two columns of unreadable dingbats (the text

was printeddnpFull, for those who cared, at the back of the magazine). The assumption with all these devices was that readers would readily enter

into the process of disentangling, deciphering or dismissing the text. At a time when young people were reading less, Carson suggested (as did many

others at the time) that such devices were necessary to compete with other media attractions and that material designed to this degree might be better

absorbed and remembered, if the reader had to work at it.

O H M Y F U (*+ +I N G GOD GOOD

Carson's repudiation of design and editorial conventions began in earnest at Beach Culture magazine, where, in 1991, he first abandoned page numbers. On the fifth issue's contents page, the now role-less numerals become ingredients in a thick stew of typographic matter, with no definite top or bottom which also attempts to generate interest

from the 'worst typeface at hand'. At Ray Gun, typographic material was treated with an even more painterly and emotive degree of freedom. In a feature on a band called Deconstruction, published in 1994, the columns are carved into irregular shapes, angled fracture lines run through the text, forced justification is used to space out the last

line of each paragraph and one of the columns is pushed out to the edge of the page so that the page trim (never totally predictable) cuts off some of the letters. The second half of the final paragraph, beginning mid-sentence, is placed at the start of the article. Carson's word pictures were often evocative. On the opening spread of an interview

with the reclusive British rock star Morrissey, titled 'The Loneliest Monk', a pull-quote from the piece - 'I have no interest in any aspect of whordom [sic]' - is broken into three irregular type-clusters which revolve around a photo of the singer, who is about to move out of shot, returning the viewer to the image. At other times, in a challenge to fixed editorial hierarchies still unthinkable in most publications, though never far from the surface in 1990s postmodern design, Carson interposed himself unavoidably

between reader and story. In one famous case, he replaced a feature I about the singer Bryan Ferry with two columns of unreadable dingbats (the text

was printeddnpFull, for those who cared, at the back of the magazine). The assumption with all these devices was that readers would readily enter

into the process of disentangling, deciphering or dismissing the text. At a time when young people were reading less, Carson suggested (as did many

others at the time) that such devices were necessary to compete with other media attractions and that material designed to this degree might be better

absorbed and remembered, if the reader had to work at it.

Man

y le

tter

s fr

om re

ader

s di

d se

em to

bea

r thi

s ou

t, at

leas

t in

the

case

of R

ay G

un, t

houg

h th

e ar

gum

ent i

s at

odd

s w

ith th

e su

gges

tion

by C

arso

n an

d ot

hers

that

muc

h of

the

writ

ing

in th

e m

agaz

ine

was

not

wor

th re

adin

g in

the

first

pl

ace,

and

its

appl

icat

ion

in m

ore

gene

ral r

eadi

ng c

onte

xts

was

dis

pute

d by

crit

ics.

Whi

le R

ay G

un's

art

dire

ctor

and

cas

t of y

oung

des

igne

rs e

mpl

oyed

gra

phic

dev

ices

that

bor

e a

rese

mbl

ance

to

earli

er d

econ

stru

ctio

nist

wor

k, th

e m

agaz

ine'

s su

cces

s si

gnal

led

the

emer

genc

e of

a n

ew g

raph

ic s

tyle

- g

rung

e -

that

in s

ome

way

s lo

oked

bac

k ev

en fu

rthe

r, to

pun

k's

torn

edg

es a

nd d

irty

grap

hics

, jus

t as

the

grun

ge ro

ck o

f th

e ea

rly 19

90s

part

ly re

kind

led

the

spiri

t of p

unk

rock

. Gru

nge,

like

pun

k, w

as e

nerg

etic

, dis

resp

ectf

ul, t

ngry

(or

perh

aps

just

ang

ry-s

eem

ing)

and

sub

cultu

ral i

n or

igin

, tho

ugh

this

cou

ld n

ot la

st. '

The

'Cle

an G

rid o

f Mod

erni

ty'

has

been

form

ally

reje

cted

by

the

nihi

lism

of I

ndus

tria

l You

th C

ultu

re',

wro

te Jo

shua

Ber

ger,

art d

irect

or o

f Pla

zm,

publ

ishe

d in

Por

tland

, Ore

gon,

and

sec

ond

only

to R

ay G

un a

s a

prod

uct o

f the

gru

nge

sens

ibili

ty. T

ypef

aces

by

Amer

ican

com

pani

es s

uch

as P

lazm

Fon

ts (a

n of

fsho

ot o

f the

mag

azin

e) a

nd H

ouse

Indu

strie

s di

spla

y ra

vage

d ou

tline

s an

d de

caye

d, c

rum

blin

g ed

ges,

whe

re c

hunk

s ap

pear

to b

e m

issi

ng. E

lliot

t Ear

ls' d

ysfu

nctio

nal t

rio o

f ty

pefa

ces

- D

ysph

asia

, Dys

plas

ia a

nd D

ysle

xia

- sp

rout

str

ange

, uns

eem

ly e

xcre

scen

ces.

Luc

(as)

de

Gro

ot's

font

, Je

sus

Love

s Yo

ur S

iste

r, sp

urts

liqu

id tr

ails

from

eve

ry a

vaila

ble

surf

ace.

The

ess

entia

l diff

eren

ce b

etw

een

1970

s pu

nk a

nd 19

90s

grun

ge w

as o

ne o

f tec

hnol

ogy.

21

EXPERIMENTALJETSET

o punk e a utopia do

moderno,

o punk e a utopia do

moderno,

O atelier que faz design eterno: Entre

este atelier holandês mostrou em Portugal que é mais do que uma

nota derodapé na história do design gráfico. O atelier de design gráfico

Experimental Jetset é conhecido em todo o mundo por causa de uma

T-shirt. A sua lista de quatro nomes John & Paul & Ringo & George

composta em Helvetica fez parte de uma série que criaram em 2001

para a editora de T-shirts japonesa 2K/Gingham. Ninguém previa no

entanto que, nos anos seguintes, o fenómeno a que chamaram Tshirtism

tivesse tanto impacto no universo do design gráfico e não só. Todas

as semanas recebem exemplos de “visões” da sua T-shirt vestida por

celebridades, ou de citações/alterações desta mesma lista, mais ou

menos pirateada. O que é já um ícone do design gráfico do séc.

23

o punk e a utopia do

moderno,

o punk e a utopia do

moderno,

twenty-twenty-twenty- four hours to go i wanna be sedatednothin’ to do and no where to go-o-oh i wanna be sedated

O design políticoOs Experimental Jetset ficaram conotados, desde os seus primeiros anos, com o uso extensivo do tipo de letra

Helvetica, e com a sua idiossincrática reinterpretação da herança modernista no design gráfico. Através do uso deste

superlativo símbolo do “estilo internacional” pretenderam, especialmente no início dos anos 90 – altura em que

dominavam as correntes pós-modernas e radicais lideradas por nomes como Neville Brody, David Carson e Katherine

McCoy –, afirmar a sua identificação com a herança moderna, socialdemocrata, liberal e progressista que construiu o

Estado holandês, com o qual se identificavam e onde gostavam de viver.

Em vez de se colarem a tendências radicais “emprestadas” – apesar de citarem o manifesto futurista, o movimento

punk e teorias da conspiração como influências –, exploraram o seu próprio património gráfico, cultural e social, e

atribuíram ao seu trabalho um significado político. Este Estado a que se referem é o mesmo que, através dos fundos

de apoio às artes praticadas nos Países Baixos – os célebres Fonds BKVB –, permitiu que várias gerações de artistas,

arquitectos e designers, incluindo eles próprios, pudessem fundar os seus ateliers e iniciar as suas carreiras graças

a subsídios atribuídos a fundo perdido. Falam também de uma cultura que reconhece no design (gráfico) uma das

forças do progresso de uma nação.

IDIOSSINCRÁTICA

REINTERPRET

AÇÃO DA HERANÇA

MODERNISTA NO

DESIGN GRÁFICO

twenty-twenty-twenty- four hours to go i wanna be sedatednothin’ to do and no where to go-o-oh i wanna be sedated

25

Sa

gm

eiS

ter

St

ef

an

Hell

er:

It h

as b

een

over

two

year

s si

nce

you

took

-off

fro

m th

e pr

ofes

sion

al g

rind

for

a

year

to d

o yo

ur o

wn w

ork.

Are

yo

u gl

ad to

be

back

? Is

grap

hic

desi

gn s

till a

n ex

citin

g wa

y to

sp

end

your

cre

ativ

e tim

e?

Sagm

eist

er:

Yes,

it is

. I

lear

ned

shitl

oads

in m

y ye

ar

with

out c

lient

s, in

clud

ing

maki

ng

up m

y mi

nd a

bout

all

the

fiel

ds

I di

d no

t wan

t to

get i

nto

(but

ha

d im

agin

ed p

revi

ousl

y th

at I

woul

d). I

sur

pris

ed m

ysel

f by

ge

tting

up

ever

yday

at 6

am to

co

nduc

t litt

le ty

pe e

xper

imen

ts

(with

no

dead

line

loom

ing)

. I

love

this

fie

ld.

Hell

er:

But,

be h

ones

t. W

hat

don’

t you

love

abo

ut th

is f

ield

?

Sagm

eist

er: I

love

limi

tatio

ns

when

des

igni

ng a

pro

ject

. I

don’

t lov

e lim

itatio

ns w

hen

they

are

rev

eale

d on

ly a

fter

we

desi

gned

the

proj

ect.

I do

n’t

love

uno

rgan

ized

clie

nts.

I do

n’t l

ove

that

per

iod

when

the

dead

line

is lo

omin

g an

d th

ere

is no

idea

yet

with

the

pres

sure

sl

owly

mou

ntin

g.

Hell

er:

This

may

see

m lik

e an

un

fair

que

stio

n (it

s ce

rtai

nly

dema

nds

eith

er m

odes

ty o

r im

mode

sty)

, but

can

you

de

scri

be w

hat y

ou b

elie

ve is

yo

ur c

ontr

ibut

ion

to th

e gr

aphi

c de

sign

fie

ld o

ver

the

past

de

cade

?

On the occas i o n of h i s f i r s t New York retrospect i v e ,

SAGMEISTER:MADE

YOU LOOK

wh i ch runs at the Schoo l of V i sua l Arts (601 West 26th Stre et , 15th f l oor ) from November 9 -

December 1 1 , 2004, the art i s t a nd des i g n er was a sked to ref l e c t on h i s past and rec ent accomp l i shments .

Sagm

eist

er:

I ag

ree

this

doe

s se

em li

ke a

n un

fair

que

stio

n. T

he

unfa

ir a

nswe

r: I

hav

e no

clu

e. I

thin

k I

woul

d lik

e to

thin

k th

at

mayb

e I

made

an

impr

essi

on:

Mayb

e by

bri

ngin

g ha

ndma

de ty

pe

(aga

in) t

o th

e fo

refr

ont (

one

of

my s

tude

nts

at S

VA M

FA D

esig

n me

ntio

ned

that

hal

f of

her

un

derg

radu

ate

clas

s wa

s do

ing

writi

ng o

n fa

ces)

, or

mayb

e by

po

intin

g to

ward

s th

e im

port

ance

of

des

ign

area

s th

at d

on’t

simp

ly p

romo

te a

nd s

ell.

And

I ca

n sa

y th

at th

e qu

estio

n of

my

cont

ribu

tion

to th

e de

sign

fie

ld do

es n

ot k

eep

me u

p at

nig

ht.

Hell

er:

Supe

rfic

ially

, yo

ur w

ork

has

some

of

the

conc

eits

of

the

age

– a

marr

iage

of

art/

expr

essi

on a

nd

desi

gn/c

ommu

nica

tion

– bu

t re

tros

pect

ivel

y it

is n

ot j

ust

fash

iona

ble,

tren

d-sp

otte

r st

uff.

You’

ve n

ever

fal

len

into

the

styl

e ub

er a

lles

trap

, as

some

ha

ve. H

ow, p

artic

ular

ly g

iven

yo

ur m

ore

cultu

ral c

lient

s, h

ave

you

avoi

ded

this

?

Sagm

eist

er:

Whe

n we

sta

rted

ou

t in

1993

we

had

a st

yle

= fa

rt si

gn h

angi

ng in

the

stud

io (i

t is

no m

ore)

– w

e ve

ry c

onsc

ious

ly av

oide

d an

y st

ylis

tic tr

aps.

In

the

mean

time

I ha

ve le

arne

d th

at

good

(and

if n

eces

sary

eve

n tr

endy

) sty

le (a

nd w

onde

rful

form

) pla

y an

impo

rtan

t rol

e in

deliv

erin

g co

nten

t to

the

view

er.

But I

nev

er th

ough

t tha

t gra

phic

desi

gn h

as to

be

timel

ess.

With

ver

y fe

w ex

cept

ions

(say

hi

ghwa

y si

gnag

e) I

love

the

fact

th

at d

esig

n st

arts

to lo

ok d

ated

af

ter

a wh

ile.

Hell

er:

So, w

hat d

o yo

u th

ink

is y

our

most

dat

ed lo

okin

g wo

rk,

and

why?

Sagm

eist

er:

Amon

g ot

hers

, th

at M

arsh

all C

rens

haw

CD lo

oks

rath

er o

ld n

ow, b

ecau

se o

f its

ho

logr

aphi

c pr

intin

g on

the

disc

(in

199

6 th

is w

as f

resh

), its

op

art p

atte

rns

as w

ell a

s th

e ty

pe

set i

n ri

gid

boxe

s.

Hell

er:

Is th

ere

a pi

ece

of

work

that

you

wis

h yo

u’d

neve

r pu

t int

o th

e wo

rld?

Sagm

eist

er:

Fore

most

our

pa

ckag

ing

for

the

comp

uter

sh

oot-

them

-up

game

s De

athd

rome

an

d Sl

amsc

ape.

The

y we

re b

ad

game

s, C

D’s

pack

aged

in (l

arge

ly em

pty)

cer

eal-

box-

size

d bo

xes

in or

der

to c

onve

y he

ftin

ess

and

a re

ason

for

the

$60.

00 p

rize

tag.

We

made

man

y mi

stak

es, f

irst

by

taki

ng o

n a

job

I ha

d no

inte

rest

in

(I a

m no

t int

o sh

ot-t

hem-

up

game

s), s

econ

d by

pre

sent

ing

lots

of

dire

ctio

ns (t

he c

lient

pr

edic

tabl

y ch

ose

the

wors

t) a

nd

last

by

not i

nsis

ting

to p

rese

nt

to th

e de

cisi

on m

aker

, so

chan

ges

kept

on

comi

ng w

ithou

t me

bei

ng a

ble

to d

o an

ythi

ng

abou

t the

m.

Hell

er:

With

you

r Sc

hool

of

Visu

al A

rts

retr

ospe

ctiv

e ex

hibi

t it is

eas

y to

see

wha

t you

’ve

prod

uced

and

for

who

m. B

ut w

hat

do y

ou a

ctua

lly w

ant t

o ac

hiev

e?

Wha

t do

you

want

out

of

grap

hic

desi

gn?

Sagm

eist

er:

Ultim

atel

y, it

woul

d be

gre

at to

use

it p

urel

y

as a

lang

uage

: To

prod

uce

cont

ent t

hat l

ends

itse

lf w

ell

to b

e sp

oken

in th

at la

ngua

ge.

Ther

e is

a c

erta

in c

onte

nt th

at is

best

spo

ke in

a c

erta

in la

ngua

ge

(say

love

is e

asie

r de

clar

ed

in th

e la

ngua

ge o

f a

pop

song

than

in a

rchi

tect

ure

– th

e Ta

j

Maha

l not

with

stan

ding

). I

thin

k

we m

ade

a go

od s

tart

with

that

whol

e “T

hing

s I

have

lear

ned

in m

y lif

e so

far

” se

ries

(the

curr

ent S

VA s

ubwa

y po

ster

is

part

of

this

).

Hell

er:

So is

it s

afe

to a

ssum

e

that

you

are

abl

e to

exp

ress

all

that

you

wan

t to

“say

” th

roug

h

the

grap

hic

desi

gn m

ediu

m? O

r

do y

ou f

ores

ee o

ther

med

ia a

s

pote

ntia

lly m

ore

effi

cien

t?

Sagm

eist

er:

I wi

ll st

ick

with

gra

phic

des

ign,

and

if I

woul

d di

rect

a m

ovie

or

write

some

mus

ic, i

t lik

ely

woul

d st

ill

qual

ify

as g

raph

ic d

esig

n, m

e

bein

g a

grap

hic

desi

gner

and

all.

Hell

er:

I as

ked

befo

re w

heth

er

this

is a

n ex

citin

g wa

y to

spe

nd

time,

but

is it

a s

ocia

lly v

alua

ble

way

to s

pend

it?

27

In one sentence: You look at a piece of graphic design and you have a moving experience. All of us were moved at one point or another by a piece of art

Sagm

eis t

er:

I t i s

as

v al u

a bl e

a s t h

e i n

d iv i

d ua l

de s

i gn e

r w a

n ts

t o m

a ke

i t . J

u st a

s y o

u c a

n b e

a

s oc i

a ll y

co n

s ci o

u s l a

w ye r

( o

r n o

t ), o

n e c

a n c

h oo s

e t o

be

a s o

c ia l

l y v

a lu a

b le

d es i

g ne r

( o

r n o

t ).

Hel l

er:

O ka y

t he n

, wh a

t is

a s o

c ia l

l y v

a lu a

b le

d es i

g ne r

?

Sagm

eis t

er:

M il t o

n G l

a se r

i s

a s

o ci a

l l y v

a lu a

b le

d es i

g ne r

. H i

s p e

rso n

a a n

d h i

s d e

s ig n

s a r

e v a

l ua b

l e ( a

n d b

e lo n

g ) t o

t he

c it y

o f

New

Yo r

k i n

a s

i mi l a

r w a

y L o

u R e

e d’ s

so n

g s a

re a

n d d

o . I

rem e

m be r

go i

n g t o

a h

o rs e

ra c

e a r

o un d

No v

emb e

r 2 0

0 1, -

ha l

f o f

t h

e 5 0

, 00 0

pe o

p le

a t t h

e t r

a ck

w ore

t he

I H E

A RT

N Y b

u tt o

n , w h

i ch ,

so

c lo s

e a f

t er

9 /1 1

, it

w as

a n i n

c re d

i bl e

ou t

p ou r

i ng

o f s

u pp o

rt, a

t ru l

y t o

u ch i

n g

e ve n

t . M i

l t on ’

s s y

m bo l

t oo k

on

a ll t

h e b

e st (

u ni f

y in g

) att r

i bu t

e s

o f a

gre

a t f

l ag

w it h

o ut a

n y o

f i t s

wo r

s t ( e

x cl u

d in g

) on e

s . H

i s c o

n tr i

b ut i o

n s, a

s a

f ou n

d er

o f N

ew Y

o rk

m ag a

z in e

, - t h

e B l

u ep r

i nt f

o r d

o ze n

s o f

ci t y

m a

g az i

n es

w or l

dwi d

e , P

u sh p

i n S t

u di o

s -

t he

b lu e

p ri n

t fo r

h u

n dre

d s o

f d e

s ig n

st u

d io s

w o

r ldw

i de

a nd

c ou n

t l es s

p o

l i ti c

a l a

n d s

o ci a

l cam

p ai g

n s g

o w e

l l b e

y on d

t he

c it y

of

N ew

Y or k

a n

d t h

e f i

e ld

o f g

r ap h

i c d

e si g

n . H e

i s v

a lu a

b le

t o s

o ci e

t y.

Hel l

er:

D o y

o u t r

u ly

b el i e

v e

t ha t

wo r

k y o

u ’v e

do n

e o n

be h

a lf

o f B

e n C

o he n

ha s

ma d

e a n

i mp a

c t

on th

e pu

blic

con

scio

usne

ss?

Sagm

eist

er:

I do

thin

k Be

n’s

camp

aign

had

an

impa

ct.

True

Majo

rity

was

suc

cess

ful i

n se

tting

up

one

of th

e ea

rlie

st

oppo

sitio

ns to

the

war

in I

raq

(at a

time

whe

n fe

w ma

inst

ream

gr

oups

cam

e ou

t aga

inst

it),

they

wer

e in

stru

ment

al in

un

cove

ring

the

comp

uter

vot

ing

mach

ine

prob

lem

(the

comp

uter

at

e my

vot

e), a

nd n

ow, t

oget

her

with

Mov

eon.

org

play

a r

ole

in vo

ter

regi

stra

tion

and

gene

ral

oppo

sitio

n to

the

curr

ent r

egim

e. It

is im

poss

ible

for

me

to

eval

uate

how

muc

h ou

r gr

aphi

c ma

teri

al h

elpe

d th

em, I

’m s

ure

it di

d no

t hur

t.

Hell

er:

And

as a

fol

low-

up

do y

ou th

ink

of th

e pu

blic

goo

d wh

enev

er y

ou c

reat

e a

piec

e of

wor

k?

Sagm

eist

er:

No. A

nd I

don

’t ev

en h

ave

a se

t lis

t of

crite

ria

eith

er. B

ut w

e do

take

on

jobs

wi

th th

e qu

estio

n “I

s th

is so

meth

ing

the

worl

d ne

eds”

in

mind

. And

err

ed a

num

ber

of

times

, tur

ned

out t

he w

orld

did

not n

eed

it af

ter

all.

Hell

er:

You’

ve p

rofe

ssed

, an

d yo

u’ve

taug

ht, t

he id

ea th

at

desi

gn s

houl

d in

deed

touc

h ot

her

huma

n be

ings

. Wha

t doe

s th

is ac

tual

ly m

ean

in a

pra

gmat

ic w

ay?

Sagm

eist

er:

In o

ne s

ente

nce:

You

look

at a

pie

ce o

f gr

aphi

c

desi

gn a

nd y

ou h

ave

a mo

ving

ex

peri

ence

. All

of u

s we

re m

oved

at

one

poi

nt o

r an

othe

r by

a

piec

e of

art

, str

uck

to th

e co

re

by a

mov

ie, c

hang

ed b

y a

book

, to

uche

d by

a p

iece

of

musi

c. Fe

wer

of u

s ex

peri

ence

this

in

fron

t of

a pi

ece

of d

esig

n, -

it

is p

ossi

ble

neve

rthe

less

. The

la

st ti

me it

hap

pene

d to

me

was

a co

uple

of

mont

hs a

go, w

hen

I wa

s to

uche

d by

a p

iece

two

of m

y st

uden

ts in

Ber

lin w

ere

maki

ng.

Hell

er:

How

did

they

touc

h yo

u?

Sagm

eist

er:

We

held

our

fin

al cl

ass

exhi

bit i

n a

build

ing

calle

d th

e lig

ht to

wer,

a 1

0-st

ory

reno

vate

d fa

ctor

y bu

ildin

g wi

th a

n ad

ded

5 st

ory

glas

s cu

be o

n to

p, s

ituat

ed in

the

Frie

dric

hsha

in s

ectio

n of

Eas

t Be

rlin

, a y

oung

are

a co

mpar

able

to W

illia

msbu

rg in

New

Yor

k. T

he

piec

e in

que

stio

n wa

s a

little

ki

osk,

inst

alle

d 1/

4 mi

le f

rom

this

towe

r, n

ext t

o on

e of

the

busi

est s

ubwa

y st

atio

ns.

The

kios

k ha

d tw

o op

enin

gs w

ith

light

s sh

inin

g ou

t of

them

, whi

ch

invi

ted

pass

ersb

y to

look

in. A

s so

on a

s yo

u di

d, m

acro

cam

eras

in

side

the

kios

k fi

lmed

you

r ey

es, b

eame

d th

e da

ta to

the

light

towe

r, a

nd p

roje

cted

a f

ull

stor

y hi

gh im

age

of y

our

eyes

in

rea

l tim

e fr

om in

side

ont

o th

e lig

ht to

wer,

tran

sfor

ming

the

entir

e bu

ildin

g in

to a

fac

e wi

th

fami

liar

eyes

. Whe

n yo

u bl

inke

d, your

eye

s on

the

towe

r bl

inke

d.

I wa

s to

uche

d by

the

expe

rien

ce

itsel

f an

d al

so b

y ho

w mu

ch th

e

popu

latio

n of

Ber

lin lo

ved

it:

Peop

le s

topp

ed a

ll ni

ght t

o lo

ok

insi

de, w

atch

ing

thei

r fr

iend

’s

eyes

tran

sfor

m th

e lig

ht to

wer

into

a f

ace.

For

the

peop

le w

ho

were

in th

e ex

hibi

tion

spac

e

insi

de th

e to

wer,

the

expe

rien

ce

was

tota

lly d

iffer

ent b

ut

touc

hing

nev

erth

eles

s, w

hene

ver

some

body

look

ed in

to th

e ki

osk,

thes

e gi

gant

ic e

yes

appe

ared

in th

e sp

ace—

like

King

Kon

g lo

okin

g in

.

Hell

er:

Whe

neve

r I

view

a

retr

ospe

ctiv

e of

art

or

desi

gn, I

try

to s

um u

p wh

at a

ll th

e wo

rk

mean

s. I

s it

simp

ly a

col

lect

ion

of d

ispa

rate

item

s th

at b

y its

criti

cal m

ass

has

rele

vanc

e as

a bo

dy, o

r is

ther

e an

ove

r-ar

chin

g ph

iloso

phic

al, e

thic

al, o

r

what

ever

fou

ndat

ion.

As

you

look

at y

our

colle

cted

wor

k, w

hat i

s

the

answ

er to

this

?

Sagm

eist

er:

I th

ink

we

are

back

into

unf

air

ques

tion

terr

itory

. You

mig

ht tr

y to

sum

it up

, I c

ould

not

. I c

an b

adly

misq

uote

one

of

our

clie

nts:

Oh

fine

, its

onl

y gr

aphi

c de

sign

. But

I lik

e it,

like

it, y

es I

do.

29

ELLE

N LUP

TON

‘Pen

sar c

om T

ipos

’ C

rime

Tipo

gráf

ico

RICK

POY

NOR

‘No

Mor

e R

ules

: Gra

phic

Des

ign

and

Pos

tmod

erni

sm’

PH

ILIP

ME

GG

S‘T

exts

on

Type

: C

ritic

al W

ritin

gs o

n Ty

pogr

aphy

’

RO

LA

ND

BA

RT

HE

SKATHERINE MCCOY

APRIL GREIMAN

CRANBOOK ACADEMY OF ARTS

CO

MP

UT

AD

OR

‘pro

duto

r e le

itor d

igita

l’

DO

CU

MEN

TÁR

IO:

HEL

VÉTI

CA

por G

ary

Hus

twi

HEL

VÉTI

CA

por M

ax M

iedi

nger

AK

ZID

EN

ZG

RO

TES

Kty

pe fo

undr

y B

erth

old

Dan

Frie

dman

TOM

ATO P

ROJE

CT

FIR

ST

T

HIN

GS

F

IRS

T2

00

0M

AN

IFE

ST

Opo

rIrm

a B

oom

Chr

is D

ixon

Ste

ven

Hel

ler

Elle

n Lu

pton

Kat

herin

e M

cCoy

J. A

bbot

t Mill

erR

ick

Poy

nor

Erik

Spi

eker

man

...

FIR

ST

T

HIN

GS

F

IRS

TM

AN

IFE

ST

Opo

rK

en G

arla

nd

NE

VIL

LE B

RO

DYM

ovim

ento

Pun

kA

rena

The

Face

Mag

azin

e

DAVID

CARSON

Ray

Gun

Mag

azin

e

Ed

wa

rd

Fel

la

EXPERIM

ENTA

LJE

T-SET

STE

FAN S

AG

MEIS

TER

‘Thi

ngs

I hav

e le

arne

d in

my

life

so fa

r’

MO

DE

RN

ISM

O

ES

TILO

INTE

RN

AC

ION

AL

NE

W W

AVE

PÓ

S-M

OD

ER

NIS

MO

WO

LFG

AN

G W

EIN

GA

RT

Tip

ogra

fia

Exp

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ELLE

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SKATHERINE MCCOY

APRIL GREIMAN

CRANBOOK ACADEMY OF ARTS

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31

Índice

1//Introdução2//Wolfgang Weintgart + Neville Brody

8//Ellen Lupton12//WW,

16//Wolfgang Weintgart18//David Carson

22//Experimental Jet-Set26//Stefan Sagmeister

30//Diagrama

Referências

WEINGART, Wolfgang (2000); My Way To Typography; Lars Muller Publishers

__O NASCIMENTO DO USUÁRIOLUPTON, Ellen (2006); Pensar Com Tipos; Cosacnaify, São Paulo__

WORLD OF SIGNS AND PICTURESEYE MAGAZINE #37 (2004)

TypographyWolfgang Weingart

Reviewed by Eric Kindei__

POYNOR, Rick (2003); No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism; London: Laurence King__

Experimental Jet-SetPublicado originalmente no suplemento P2 do jornal Público (2007)

por Frederico DuarteFonte: http://www.05031979.net/publico/experimental-jetset

__Stefan Sagmeister: Style + Fart = LanguagePublicado originalmente no site AIGA (2004)por Steven Heller Fonte: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/stefan-sagmeister-style-fart-language?searchtext=stefan%20sagmeister__

+

Neville BrodyKatherine McCoy

The Ramones

Faculdade de Belas-A

rtes . Universidade de Lisboa

Design de C

omunicação IV

3º Ano - 1º S

emestre // 2010 - 2011__

Bernardo C

aldeira // 4768