Summary: 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: Sheriff by Peter Verheul 2) Sound piece by Birte Spreuer and Daniela Spinelli 3) Chinese whispered typeface by Lauri Toikka The first thing Lauri heard listening to the sound were noises of horses and several guys breaking out of jail. Then followed police cars and he heard some shooting. At the end everybody’s dead and the sheriff rides into the sunset. The typeface Lauri had in mind had to have an American and Western feeling. And for sure the jail breakout had to be visible in the typeface. These jail bars are now significant elements in the font. left: Sheriff by Peter Verheul, right: Chinese whispered Sheriff by Lauri Toikka
