Posts Tagged ‘Typography’

Non-Format

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Home­work­home­work­home­work.  I’ve got lots of it but for the past few hours ended up dick­ing around down­load­ing pat­terns, brushes, and gra­di­ents for Pho­to­shop…  Although, I don’t feel like it has been a com­plete waste of time, con­sid­er­ing some of these will help me do some future home­works.  In the end, I sup­pose it has been pro­cras­ti­na­tion…  Oh well, time to get to work now I suppose.

I’ve been work­ing on a Typog­ra­phy assign­ment.  My inspi­ra­tion?  Non-Format.  Never heard of these guys?  Well, two words: 1)BAD 2)ASS.  They do the coolest work.  Well, maybe I’m get­ting ahead of myself here.  For those of you who have had your head in the sand: Non-Format is a com­pany run by two dudes, Kjell Ekhorn (Nor­we­gian) and Jon Forss (British), who have worked together since the year 2000.  They have done a range of projects rang­ing from art direc­tion all the way down to fash­ion and yes, even typog­ra­phy.  You’ve prob­a­bly seen their work in The Wire, that music mag­a­zine, as they have art directed it in the day.  They are basi­cally just really, really, really good graphic design­ers, in my opin­ion.  Don’t take my word though, see for your­self and check out their site that I linked above.

So, I’ve had the visual inspi­ra­tion for this assign­ment, and you can bet your asses that I’ve also had the musi­cal inspi­ra­tion.  What have I been lis­ten­ing to inorder to design some kick­ass posters?  None other than Mr. Eti­enne de Crécy.  I’ve taken the lib­erty of upload­ing my favourite tune of his (that has been get­ting replayed over and over while I’ve been work­ing on these posters), ‘Fast Track,’ aswell as a live ver­sion he did where he mashes that tune up with Camille’s ‘Some­one Like You’ and Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Never Be Alone.’  Amaz­ing stuff.  Also check out the video that I put up, which fea­tures ‘Fast Track’ and the amaz­ing live set de Crécy toured around with (props to Alfie for orig­i­nally show­ing me this, this set would make Daft Punk proud).  SO COOL!

Down­loads:

  1. Fast Track — Eti­enne de Crécy
  2. Fast Track Live Vs. We Are Your Friends — Eti­enne de Crécy
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Typography

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

So, my edu­ca­tion over here started last Mon­day.  One week has flown by and I’ve already learnt more than I expected to.  On Fri­day I had a Typog­ra­phy class.  When I first glanced over my sched­ule I was sur­prised to see a whole class devoted to Typog­ra­phy…  I thought to myself, “how can we spend hours talk­ing about fonts?”  I’ve seen some pretty stel­lar Typo­graphic work in my day, but didn’t know very much about the craft itself.  Well, let me tell you,  Typog­ra­phy is a fuckin’ sci­ence.  And a com­pli­cated one at that!  Con­trast, Space, Har­mony, Type­face, Type­fam­i­lies, Lig­a­tures, Dichotics, OSFs, Lead­ing, Kern­ing, PICA, 12x14.4/28, an em, and so on and so forth.  No idea what I’m talk­ing about?  Nei­ther do I (I’m work­ing on it, okay!).  I’m sure if there are any Typog­ra­phers read­ing this they are prob­a­bly laugh­ing their asses off.  Shit’s whack I tell you, hah.  Don’t get me wrong though, Typog­ra­phy is inter­est­ing as hell and I encour­age any­one intrigued with the ‘sci­ence’ to look into it.

As an intro­duc­tion to Typog­ra­phy we watched a doc­u­men­tary called “Hel­vetica,” which dealt with the world-renown type­fam­ily: Hel­vetica.  It has always been my favourite font, there’s some­thing so ‘per­fect’ about it.  It’s sexy, mod­ern, and clean.  I love it.  The film inter­views many who hold the same opin­ion and some who don’t.  But it also explores Typog­ra­phy, as an art, a pro­fes­sion, and much more.  It was a fan­tas­tic watch, I rec­om­mend it to any­one, whether you’re inter­ested in design, typog­ra­phy, or are just look­ing for a great movie to watch.  Viva la Helvetica!

Hel­vetica 預告片(紐約篇): 一部關於 Hel­vetica 字體的記錄片 from D.NEWS on Vimeo.

All these classes has meant lots of home­work, which sub­se­quently means lots lis­ten­ing to music while I work!  So, have I ever got a sick bunch of tunes for you all this time around.  Slower songs first: I came across this tune “Bea­man Park” by Col­lar­bones.  Haven’t heard of the artist before, but it reminds me of Toro Y Moi or Washed Out, has ‘glo-fi’ writ­ten all over it.  Also uploaded that remix by Jens Lek­man of Au Revoir Simone’s “Shad­ows.”  Amaz­ing song, down­load it.

Now onto the more ‘dancier’ beats here: “Oh No!” remixed by Grum.  Awe­some, it’s like some sort of 80’s dance tune fea­tur­ing that great voice of Marina and the Dia­monds.  Oh no?  Oh Yeah!  I’ve uploaded a remix of Housse De Racket’s “Oh Yeah!”  I love this song and the french lyrics that seem to drive it, Housse De Racket are a solid act.  New Soul­wax!!!  Well, at least a remix…  Not the great­est but I was hon­estly relieved to hear that sig­na­ture ‘Soul­wax sound’ once again.  One of my favourite uploads this time is a Two Door Cin­ema Club remix of “What You Know” by Cass­ian.  Two awe­some acts col­lide to cre­ate a badass lit­tle tune, you must check it out.  I also uploaded another remix of the same song, by LightsoverLA.  I kind of pre­fer this remix more, they left that awe­some gui­tar track as the main focus and it really does it for me.  Have a lis­ten for your­self and decide which you pre­fer on your own.  New Shinichi Osawa album dropped at the end of June, titled SO2.  Here’s my favourite from it (so far).  True Shinichi fash­ion, if you’re a fan you’ll love this.  Another favourite of mine lately is called “Bliss” by a new guy on the scene, Mix Chopin.  Appar­ently he’s from Toronto, so noth­ing but love for this guy, he’s already mak­ing a fel­low Toron­ton­ian proud (plus he’s using the name of my favourite clas­si­cal artist– man after my own heart).  “Bliss” has a fat bass line going ontop of a really funky beat dri­ven song, it’s a must down­load, it has received many a-repeats.  Last, but cer­taintly not least, is a remix of the Foals’ song “Miami” by Tim Fuchs fea­tur­ing Flight Facil­i­ties.  Flight Facil­i­ties have been superb lately, and this song is no dif­fer­ent.  When it gets to the half way point the song goes all piano dri­ven (Flight Facil­i­ties influ­ence, no doubt), cer­tainly ear­gas­mic mate­r­ial.  But enough of my ram­bling– down­load the tunes and lis­ten to them your­self..  Enjoy!

Down­loads:

  1. Bea­man Park — Collarbones
  2. Shad­ows (Jens Lek­man Remix) — Au Revoir Simone
  3. Oh No! (Grum Remix) — Marina and the Diamonds
  4. Oh Yeah! (Wal­ter Sobcek Remix) — Housse De Racket
  5. You Wanted A Hit (Soul­wax Remix) — LCD Soundsystem
  6. What You Know (Cass­ian Remix) — Two Door Cin­ema Club
  7. What You Know (LightsoverLA Remix) — Two Door Cin­ema Club
  8. Love Will Guide You — Shinichi Osawa
  9. Bliss — Mix Chopin
  10. Miami (Tim Fuchs Remix feat. Flight Facil­i­ties) — Foals
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