Day: May 13, 2014

Century: 100 Years of Type in Design

This little bit of excitement has taken up a lot of my time and concentration for the last few months, and the last few weeks in particular.

[Century: 100 Years of Type in Design from Monotype on Vimeo.]

From the AIGA, our hosts: “Gathering rare and unique works from premier archives in the United States and London, “Century” will serve as the hub of a series of presentations, workshops and events held at the AIGA gallery as well as the Type Directors Club and the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography at Cooper Union in New York City. The “Century” exhibition features a range of artifacts representing the evolution from typeface conception to fonts in use. Typeface production drawings by the preeminent designers of the last 100 years, proofs, type posters and announcement broadsides are supplemented by publications, advertising, ephemera and packaging.”


And if you’re curious, here is some of the coverage:

[All photos by Bilyana Dimitrova. Video clip by Ben Louis Nicholas. Animations by Pentagram.]

The Reflex

You know when you’ve been noticing something creep up on you over time? Things you begin seeing, filing away, forming into a pattern? Yesterday, I was looking at a bunch of projects by student designers, and a certain trend snapped into focus. It was so instantly, immediately clear the first time I saw an example, and by the 6th I was really frustrated that so many people had veered toward the same solution without thinking much about context. I worry about things like this in design — especially when I see it in student work — because I began to worry that a style becomes a tic, a reflex that may not be questioned or considered well enough.

You try. Can you notice the pattern forming, the approach that has become a kind of template for a certain kind of work?

Continue reading “The Reflex”