Typographic Textures

Marian Bantjes Documentary Review

When observing Marian Bantjes, you get the sense that she detests living life in the rat race for money. She left her digital agency, Digitopolis, to live full time in her small island vacation home off the coast of Vancouver. She kept herself creating with a series of self-guided excersises that were preformed purely for the joy/ challenge of creating. We got to peek inside her dirt collection from all over the world, her process for making her annual valentines cards, and her bedroom were she revives her creativity by sleeping, alot.

One thing that struck me is the slightly occult feeling about her. The clothes that she wears, and the book store that she took us to exudes an old world flavor that reminds me of mythics of ancient craftsman and magical beings. Later, she reveals briefly, that she has been known to have an interest in illuminated texts. "I like to read anything that invokes wonder".

Her work reflects the style of illuminated texts with the use of patterns and symbols that are meant to create a riddle that rewards the viewer when it is figured out. "Marian is often not hired for her style, but her brain". It was her insightfull contributions to the blog "speak up" that caught the attention of the graphic design community. Her deconstruction of Santa Clause and the alphabet brought these seemingly average parts of everyday life into a new perspective, invoking wonder in everything around us.

Textures with Type

 

Jessica Hische Documentary Review

Jessica Hische goes about her day in her San Francisco storefront studio in slippers. When she mentions how graphic designers use the term "type nerds" endearingly, you get the sense that she has surpassed being a nerd and graduated into being a full time obsessive typist. She shows the audience her portfolio of work as a tattoo that reads "type" peaks out from under her sleeve on her upper arm.

It is easy to disappear into the vision of art directors, large firms and clients. As a young female designer who has carved a unique niche for herself, she is an inspiration. She explains that she wasn't always sought for her personality. Her "passion projects" led her to develop her own style.

She challenged herself to create one drop letter every day and publish it online. She also contributes to a blog "friends of type". Neither of these projects seemed to be created with the intention to bring income. What they did do is challenge her to consistently create beyond the boundaries of clients and bosses.

In her words she doesn't just curate elements to put together but "creates her own world from scratch". Authors, businesses and fellow artisans have sough a slice her world which has landed on the pages/covers of books magazines, and websites.

Scale, Depth, Motion

Scale

Sean Adams Documentary Review

The career path untaken, everyone has one. Sean Adams admits in his documentary that history is his chosen discipline, second to graphic design. Luckily design is a field that has rich history. Being up to date on the history of art and design provides a base for progression and references to be inspired, but I can tell that Seans' enthusiasm for history encompasses the world at large beyond design.

Zeitgeist is the German word for the "spirit of the age". Every generation has a unique mood and feel that is shaped by the events and trends of the time. Design is reflexive. It both helps to create historical trends/events and is also created be them. To know to the history of design is to know the history of the world told through a design lens.

Points, Lines, Planes

Margot Chase Documentary Review

I learned a lot from the documentary about Margot Chase, other than the fact that she is a badass.

Margot Chase and her Chief Strategist, Chris Lowery caught my attention when they mentioned their philosophy to let the client have ownership of design. 

The Chase Design Group created Chinese Laundry's visual collateral including logos, graphics and packaging. The graphics in Chinese Laundries' branding design featured flowers, a hummingbird, a women's face and feet that were layered together to create a feminine floral mood. To allow Chinese Laundry to own these elements and use them for later projects, the designers separated each element and gave them the images on a disk. Chinese Laundry could then use the images in the future and achieve the unified floral and feminine mood across multiple projects. This allowed Chinese Laundry to "learn how to fish" instead of only "fishing for a day".

For the designers working on the Chinese Laundry project, "Stephanie" is the imagined persona that represents the demographic that the designers wish to appeal to. Stephanie is a semi-laid back and pampered young woman whom enjoys spending free time cruising around the mall. She is well informed about fashion brands and chooses to remain refined and reasonable. Stephanie exists to remind the designers that they are designing for someone real and should not make stylistic choices that are right for them, but what is right for Stephanie.

Rhythm Balance

100 Iterations