Typeradio Podcast

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Sardines by Jac Le Bailly 2) Sound piece by Corinna Schneider 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Emma Laiho The sound piece that Emma got was full of visual clues, like sounds of the sea, the waves, boats and seagulls. It sounded like a carnival at the sea; the repeating sound reminded her of a ferris wheel. She started looking at carnival wood type, but she missed the complexity which was in her sound. She came up with a three layered type system, which actually didn’t quiet work out for her. She still had to include the sea part and the feeling of it should be more sad, like a carnival in the winter. Thus Emma ended up with a wood type, which can be dressed up for the summertime. left: Sardines by Jac Le Bailly, right: Chinese Whispered Sardines by Emma Laiho

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Documenta by Frank Blokland 2) Sound piece by Whitney Williams 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Kunihiko Okano Kunihiko was struggling to find an idea, so he tried the double pencil technique. This technique he uses more often to analyze the origin of the letter. He drew the double lines and improved these lines into finer sketches. This resulted in an one stroke typeface that looks as if it were double lined. This calligraphic typeface he ended up with is just the beginning. He’s planning to make a extensive typeface family out of it. left: Documenta by Frank Blokland, right: Chinese Whispered Documenta by Kunihiko Okano

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Salmiak by Erik van Blokland 2) Sound piece by Hannah Scherber 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Jan Gerner In the sound piece Jan got he heard parts of ‘The Entertainer’ by Scott Joplin. Jan’s interpretation of the sound was of a pianist sitting in a boring environment trying to have some fun by drinking and playing the piano. And therefore getting more drunk by the minute. Jan thought of certain typefaces he thinks are quite boring. For him these are typefaces in the Bodoni and Didot styles. Jan’s idea was to put some fun into these classicist typefaces. He did this by adding balls. Balls that try desperately to be funny and are put in strange places, so that some characters become completely out of shape. These balls are for example sticking out at the top and bottom of the M. This illustrates the drunkenness of the pianist. In the end Jan added a layer by connecting the letters through lines. Even across multiple letters. left: Salmiak by Erik van Blokland, right: Chinese Whispered Salmiak by Jan Gerner

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Liza by Underware 2) Sound piece by Stefanie Thümmler 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Alpkan Kirayoglu When he heard the music, Alpkan tried to literally illustrate the various elements he heard. After some try-outs he decided to capture the overall theme, which is love. He did so by drawing two different styles of a typeface. Keeping the idea in mind of two people in a romantic relationship. The first one a hairline italic and the second a bold stencil version. By layering the two styles on top of each other, a third style appears. This is the bold italic. left: Liza by Underware, right: Chinese Whispered Liza by Stefanie Thümmler

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Mata Hari by Max Kisman 2) Sound piece by Mesa Wong 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Yassin Baggar Yassin first analyzed the content of the sound piece and discovered that one part was Churchill speaking about the war and another part was taken from a movie. The movie is situated in Venice, Italy, so Yassin decided to move in that direction with his typeface. He started with sketching some italics. He transformed the love story from the movie in round shapes and curves. For the more dramatic part, the part about the war, he used more edgy angles. So in the end the letters are connecting and somewhat hurting each other. left: Mata Hari by Max Kisman, right: Chinese Whispered Mata Hari by Yassin Baggar

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Feisar by Paul van der Laan 2) Sound piece by Manuel Wesely 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Colin Ford Colin found his sound very abstract. He put it back into a sound program and analyzed the sound waves and beat, which created a regularly, steady, vertical movement. Collin took that formal element and combined it with the overall feeling he got by listening to the given sound. He described this feeling somewhat spacey, stretching sounds. So he put some Sci-Fi into his typeface and ended up with a SF display typeface which comes in three weights. Something a Martian would like to put on his spaceship! left: Feisar by Paul van der Laan, right: Chinese Whispered Feisar by Colin Ford

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: History by Peter Bilak 2) Sound piece by Martin Kalle 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Malte Herok Malte was completely blown away by the complexity of the music. The sound was full of contrast, which he describes as a modern take on a classical rock theme. He tried to capture the essence and therefore focused on this rock hymn feeling. He started with a slightly modernized broken script but he missed the tragic and also the playful elements in the sound. He went back to his original approach and added more swashes, more round and flowing forms. After this he wanted to combine the two elements as one, because he still missed the layered parts that he heard in the music. By making different layers of faces he managed to achieve this. left: History by Peter Bilak, right: Chinese Whispered History by Malte Herok

November 2010 Typeradio held a two day workshop in cooperation with Indra Kupferschmid and 12 students of the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste (HBK Saar) in Saarbrücken, Germany. Each student was assigned a typeface designed by a Dutch designer with the question ‘How do you interpret the typeface into a one minute sound piece?’ The resulting 12 sound pieces were the starting point of a new workshop in collaboration with Jan Willem Stas and 12 students of the Type and Media master coarse, The Hague, The Netherlands. Each student was allocated an (anonymously labelled) sound piece and their challenge was to ‘create a typeface inspired by the sound’. The results were quite a surprise! 1) Original typeface: Schulschrift by Just van Rossum 2) Sound piece by Noemi Merkle and Julia Scheid 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Florian Schick His sound piece confused Florian a bit, so he wrote down everything he heard. What really got him was the sound of a person writing on a chalkboard. He pictured a teacher arriving at school, opening the window and preparing the lesson by writing something on the blackboard. He tried to visualize how this chalkboard writing could look; a mix of round and edgy strokes which sounded really controlled. Florian tried various scripts and writing styles. Eventually his eyes set on an old German script called Sütterlin. For Florian this embodied a typical school script. He made a quite condensed upright Sütterlin, with long ascenders and descenders. left: Schulschrift by Just van Rossum, right: Chinese Whispered Schulschrift by Florian Schick

Robert Bringhurst is the author of the quintessential typographic reference book ‘The Elements of Typographic Style’. He is also a poet, book designer, historian and linguist, living in Vancouver Canada. Robert tells us how his interest in typography began. And how typography is the cross section of all his interests. Since Robert is active in more disciplines we talk about the differences between them. We continue to discuss his views on and knowledge of the real cultural history of America and he tells us how studying these native languages makes him feel more in touch with the country he was born in. Recorded at the ATypI 2010 conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Discussion based on the text ‘The Authenticity of the Experience’ by Rob van Kranenburg: ‘Cities across the world are about to enter the next phase of their development. A near invisible network of RFID is being deployed on almost every type of consumer item. These tiny, traceable chips, which can be scanned wirelessly, are being produced in their billions and are capable of being connected to the internet in an instant. This so-called ‘Ambient intelligence’ promises to create a global network of physical objects every bit as pervasive and ubiquitous as the worldwide web itself. Some are already calling this controversial network the ‘internet of things’, describing it as either the ultimate convenience in supply-chain management, or the ultimate tool in our future surveillance. This network has the power to reshape our cities and yet it is being built with little public knowledge of consent.’ Here Rob van Kranenburg examines what impact RFID, and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society; while also ruminating on what alternative network technologies could help safeguard our privacy and empower citizens to take power back into their own hands. It is both a timely warning and a call to arms. Participants were Noortje van Eekelen, Simona Kicurovska, Janneke de Rooij, Seungyong Moon, Yuri Veerman, Donald Beekman, Michelle Champagne and Guido Giglio. Recorded at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam on September 28, 2010.

Marian Bantjes is a Canadian designer, typographer, illustrator and writer working internationally from her base on a small island near Vancouver. Marian explains us why she dropped out of art school after one year. How she regrets this decision and how she believes it’s important to have a proper education in design. Marian likes to do things herself and therefore doesn’t like being art directed too heavily. This shuts down her creative process. The more freedom she has the better the work is. We wonder how projects like the wooden folding chairs for Droog and the Laser Sailboat for Wallpaper come about. The project for Droog for example, was an unusual experience for her and the first time that she didn’t actually physically put her hands on the work that was been made. Furthermore we talk about how she started on her own and how the writing for the ‘Speak Up’ blog is related to this. We end the interview with the recently published book ‘I wonder’ and her plans for the future. Recorded at the ATypI 2010 conference in Dublin, Ireland.

In this second part of the interview we talk more about the projects Jo has been and is working on. In 2009 he got his PhD in Typography at the University of Reading with his thesis on Tibetan typeforms: an historical and visual evaluation. Jo explains how he approaches such a project and talks about follow-up projects on Javanese and Mongolian typefaces. Recorded at the ATypI 2010 conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Belgian multilingual type designer and researcher Jo De Baerdemaeker graduated in 1999 at the art academy Sint Lukas in Brussels. He continued to study at the Plantin-Moretus Society in Antwerp and University of Reading. Jo talks about his exchange program in Iceland and how he got introduced for the first time to a different kind of writing system. We ask him about the various aspects of designing the Lungta type family which holds Tibetan and Latin scripts. We were also curious about his motivation to choose for the type design course in Reading instead of the one in The Hague. Recorded at the ATypI 2010 conference in Dublin, Ireland.

MNP was founded in 2003 by Vasilis Marmatakis and Katerina Papanagiotou, who met while working together at advertising agency Upset. They’re based in Athens, Greece. We ask Vasilis what’s his opinion regarding globalisation and its effect on design. Is the local design culture losing it’s character because of that? As Vasilis studied in London we ask if he thinks it’s important to study abroad. Katerina studied in Athens and we wonder what is the difference between the two of them and how this is related to their work. We also talk about the current economic recession. What’s the situation like in Greece? Recorded at the European Design Awards 2010 in Rotterdam.

Yurko Gutsulyak, born in western Ukraine, graduated as a specialist in the field of marketing and management. Initially he worked in different advertising agencies and design studios and by 2005 he began his own graphic design studio.
We discuss the quality of design in the Ukraine, and the influence of folk art, and how competitive the design industry in the Ukraine can be. Recorded at the European Design Awards 2010 in Rotterdam.