I probably should have found the time to write about Typecon daily instead of trying to remember it all now, but here we are. Overall the conference was really interesting, and I met a lot of great people. As an artist and graphic designer my knowledge of type is quite superficial in comparison to type designers. Peering into their world is fascinating, you get to overhear people say things like: "Did you see the spacing on the lowercase, it's brutal," or "That angle on the right side of the loop on the lowercase g looks like a mistake." Anyway, six consecutive nights of drinking and talking about design has left me exhausted.
It should be said that Typecon would not have been in Buffalo if not for my friends Rich Kegler and CarimaelBehairy, they are the driving force behind P22 Type Foundry and the non-profit Western New York Book Arts Collaborative. I really appreciate their efforts to make things happen in this town.
There was a lot of nicely designed, beautifully printed ephemera floating around the conference, here are a few of my favorites:
This is from Matter, a print and design studio run by Rick Griffith. Rick was one of my co-presenters at PechaKucha, he does amazing work and was a lot of fun to hang out with.
James Grieshaber, a great graphic and type designer and all around nice guy, designed this letterpress piece (on thick card stock) for the Sagmiester talk. The event was in an old church, the cards were placed in the hymnal racks on the back of every pew.
A spread from Rob Keller's Smallest Specimen Book Ever (it's 4" X 2 3/4")
I have been busy attending Typecon events this week so I am a bit behind on blog posts. Cousin Toby and I were out until well after four a.m. (finishing at the Old Pink, for those who know B-lo.) trying to show the visiting typographers and graphic designers a good time, as a result we are skipping the conference talks for the morning.
We went to see Stefan Sagmeister on Wednesday Night at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum. He showed a few of his client projects and then moved into the work he began several years ago when he closed his studio for a year to work on personal projects. The acoustics of the huge hall made it hard work to hear what he was saying but overall he is an engaging speaker. I think Sagmeister is a great graphic designer, but I am not a huge fan of his big personal project, Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far. He made a list of maxims that sum up things that he has learned in his life so far, he then elaborately constructs or somehow builds each word of the phrase and photographs them (see below). I like a lot of the project visually, and I admire his use of materials, but I really don't like the Jenny Holzer truism approach (apparently they collaborated at some point). All of these lines read like dull platitudes, and often the treatment he gives each individual word doesn't seem to relate in a convincing conceptual way to the maxim. That is my impression anyway, I should probably go through the whole book.
THINGS HE HAS LEARNED:
Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
Being not truthful works against me.
Helping other people helps me.
Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Assuming is stifling.
Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Worrying solves nothing.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Having guts always works out for me.
On Thursday night we went out to UB to see NLXL, a fantastic dutch graphic design group they showed a lot of their work and talked about their process in a loose friendly kind of way. One of their weirdest projects involved using live flies to be film actors by gluing little poles to their backs. They made a tiny knit sweater for the fly and a bicycle, if that sounds crazy it is and it was, I'm still not sure exactly what it was all about. The three guys from NLXL had seen my Pecha Kucha presentation and seemed enthusiastic about the Shopping Carts and Spiders, we are going to do a poster exchange, very cool. Check out their site here.
Last night we went to a great talk by Erik Spiekermann, a famously passionate type designer. I will have to go into that in a later post, but in the meantime watch this:
Last night's Pecha Kucha got off to an embarrassing start for me. I had it in my head that the presentations started at 9:00 while in reality they were set to start a little bit after 8. We (Cousin Toby was with me) got there at 8:30, I told the woman at the admission table that I was one of the presenters, she said "Oh you must be the one everyone is waiting for..." I dashed downstairs and found the Hallwalls theater packed to the gills with people watching a presentation, thankfully after waiting a bit they had started without me. I went on second and my presentation basically went well, probably better than my last one and a bit smoother than my "rehearsals."
Overall the event was really great, it was an interesting group, with a broad range of practices. I'm looking forward to getting to know the non-local presenters over the course of Typecon. Tonight I am off to see Stefan Sagmiester, it should be good...
This week Buffalo is hosting "Punkt: Typecon 08", a major typography conference with an all-star line-up, including Stefan Sagmiester, Eric Spiekermann and dozens of others. I'm going to be attending the full conference. The week's events start tonight with a Type-themed Pecha Kucha Night at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. Pecha Kucha (if you haven't heard) is a presentation format where each presenter is allowed 20 slides that each will be shown for 20 seconds, the ridged structure keeps things moving.
I'll be presenting tonight along with Rick Griffith, Mark and Jill Wisz (OtherWisz), Stephen Coles, Greg Meadows, Mark Brickey (Hero Design Studio), Shasti O'Leary Soudant, Mark Byk and Kristine Tortora (AmpersandAmpersand), Brian Maloney, and Emily Luce.I'm showing some of my graphic design work, and elements of The Stray Shopping Cart Project and To Know the Spiders. I've presented at a Pecha Kucha Night before and have gotten into trouble with the 20 second format. What happened to me (and I have seen it happen to many others), is that I either had too much to say about a slide and had to cut myself off or I would finish what I had to say in 10 seconds and then stand there in silence. Worse than the silence is when you make a stupid joke or comment to fill the void. Anyway, this time around I am actually going to take the time to prepare.
Tuesday Night, July 15 Type-themed "Pecha Kucha Night" an Evening of Mini Presentations From Design Legends and Rising Stars Hallwalls Cinema 8:00 pm
This is from Matter, a print and design studio run by Rick Griffith. Rick was one of my co-presenters at Pecha Kucha, he does amazing work and was a lot of fun to hang out with.
James Grieshaber, a great graphic and type designer and all around nice guy, designed this letterpress piece (on thick card stock) for the Sagmiester talk. The event was in an old church, the cards were placed in the hymnal racks on the back of every pew.
A spread from Rob Keller's Smallest Specimen Book Ever (it's 4" X 2 3/4")
Process Type Foundry
