Elliot Ulm
Elliot is an Australian freelance designer whose bold, type-based design and irreverent sarcasm has landed him a large internet following. I stumbled across him on instagram through the recommendation of a friend after expressing an interest in playing with design tropes and sarcastic copy for my manifesto project. The self-deprecating humour, cutting observational comedy about the design industry and minimalist approach to his work instantly appealed to me and became a heavy influence for this project. It was particularly interesting to see a young, current designer that made "simple" "basic" work that still clearly upheld key design principles. His use of typeface's as a statement within themselves, or as an example of GOOD or BAD design - framed in the millennial humour/meme format is something that i want to take further and translate into print. His pieces spark the question of what IS good design in a modern context, and who is defining the criteria as such. Riot Grrrl
Riot Grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that grew out of America in the 1990s. It has been regarded as a catalyst for third and fourth-wave feminism, with music, writing, and publications that address the issues of domestic violence, rape, sexuality, racism, and other inter-sectionalist issues. With its roots in music, Riot Grrrl became a subculture involving a DIY ethic, zines, art, political action and activism. The vibrant zines and Internet-based nature of fourth-wave feminism content definitely shaped the concept of what zines are, and how they are formatted - the art style of these works paired with their strong activist message act as a strong suggestion of how manifesto can be presented. It is this subculture of zine-making that I want to focus on in my final outcome. In particular, the work of Kathleen Hanna, from the band Bikini Kill, can be seen to bridge the gap between art, music, activism and publication. The general style of Riot Grrrl zines includes illustration, rough handwritten additions, and lots of collage - combining newspaper clippings and images of raw female sexuality. the rough, authentic nature, and easily distributable material helps to spread the message further and wider in the modern era, and acts as a physical representation of the movements aims and goals. Desmond Jeffrey
Jeffrey is a contemporary letterpress printer and typography teacher who was active in London in the 1950s and 60s. His work was introduced to me in one of our workshops with Jono, and the use of bold, block background colours and sans typefaces instantly resonated with me and my aims for this project. The reactive, personal way that Jeffrey cerated typefaces from home called to the "everyman" aspect of type and zine making - I wanted to represent in my outcome the concept that ANYONE can define design practice, and aesthetics are not universal. “If Desmond’s letterpress typography is worth making a fuss about (which he himself did not), it must be for both truthfulness of purpose and his vital, true eye for type and space. He picked up a 500 year-old technology in its very last working years, just before it vanished into antiquarianism, and put new life into it. At the time of his death he was looking for what might come next. ”– SALLY JEFFERY, TYPOGRAPHY PAPERS 8 (2009) Fonts In Use
https://fontsinuse.com/ Fonts in use is a great resource to see how fonts have been previously utilised in professional and personal projects. It helps to categorise different typefaces based upon their purpose - for example, Serif fonts tend to be used for academic writing or legal firms, where as thin, sans serif fonts are often used for high-class, quality branding, and within the technology sector. Seeing fonts in their greater setting of branding, used as logos, or for publication projects helps to better ground my understanding of where and when certain fonts are deemed appropriate, and how I can play with this in my project, It is also rather interesting to see the range of different uses and edits of the same typefaces - and how its setting, manipulation of the tracking or weight, and using upper/lowercase can change its "feel". |
The Dada Movement
Dada was an art movement formed during the First World War in Zurich in negative reaction to the horrors and folly of the war. The art, poetry and performance produced by dadaists is often satirical and nonsensical in nature, and the reactionary nature of the work; intended to create a subversive view on WHAT is important, heavily influenced my project. The various manifestos published highlight using abstract design techniques, going AGAINST the rules of the contemporary art and political world - everything about Dada is a question, a reaction, an ineffable state of being. The manifestos show odd, abstract choices of font and text placement, overlapping characters, and playing with format and classic design concepts. The radical-left politics, paired with the anti-war and anti-bourgeois intention behind the work relates exceptionally well to zine-making, and underground press as a force for change to the norm. Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values and to create a new art to replace the old. "Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While the guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote poems with all our might." - Hans Arp The almost "devils advocate" approach to making their point through art is exactly what I want to encompass in my own work. I aim to use "terrible", reactionary typefaces and placement to evoke a sense that design principles are unimportant, toeing the line between "ugly" and "aesthetic". Primarily, I focussed on the later manifestos published in Paris - being able to translate the french made these more accessible to me than their german predecessors. The tone of writing is particularly interesting, with writers using pointed pseudonyms, including sound effects, inside jokes, and asides - everything adding to the sense of "reality" as one big joke, and calling for change. Below is an excerpt from Dada Manifesto 1, from Tristan Tzara, writing as 'Monsieur Antipyrine' (an interesting choice in name due to the strong painkiller antipyrine's use to treat soldiers with PTSD after WWI): The 1st DADA Manifesto: By Monsieur Antipyrine. DADA is our intensity: it erects inconsequential bayonets and the Sumatral head of German babies; Dada is life with neither cosy slippers nor parallels; it is against and for unity and definitely against the future; we are wise enough to know that our brains are going to become flabby cushions, that our anti-dogmatism is as exclusive as a civil servant, and that we cry liberty but are not free; a severe necessity with entire discipline nor morals and that we spit on humanity. DADA remains within the framework of European weaknesses, it's still shit, but from now on we want to shit in different colours so as to adorn the zoo of art with all the flags of all the consulates. We are circus ringmasters and we can be found whistling amongst the winds of fairgrounds, in convents, prostitutions, theatres, realities, feelings, restaurants, ohoho, bang bang. Ellen Lupton - Thinking With Type
http://thinkingwithtype.com/ The key information from Lupton's renowned book "Thinking With Type" is included open-source on the website, and goes into great lengths of detail about technical aspects of type. This resource has helped me to better understand the differences between kerning and tracking, helped me to identify the correct terms to refer to different parts of letters, and think about using the grid structure to layout type for print. Using Lupton's explanations, I now have a more critical understanding of what makes up a font, and how manipulating letters, text, and layout respectively can enhance or detract from the overall design of a type-based outcome. how to make a zine from nicki sabalu on Vimeo. Nicki Sabalu - How to make a zine
A short instructional video I found online about formatting a zine - linked for ease of reference. |
I began by simply adding all content to the pages with the titles and body content formatted within the margins and using Proxima Nova. You can see above as I start to play with isolating certain words to give emphasis/ meaning through font choices, and exploring graphic elements such as the "hill" line
Building on the interaction of image and text, I used iconography as a callback to information design theory - but substituted the O in "You" for the icons head. This helps to illustrate my ability as a designer to make cohesive, visually balanced work and highlights that the image has been place with intention - despite the inclusion of the transparency grid. I intentionally left this "png" background in the image - an homage to terribly placed or imposed photos that indicate a lack of design experience or thinking; my aim is to point out design flaws, but make them WORK - in order to display the gatekeeping/ inaccessibility within design practice.
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I wanted to use actual photos/images alongside vector shapes to really push the limits of design. a lot of my inspiration comes from formatting childhood documents in Word - the awful wrapping of text around images, and justification of font. The way that text interacts with the images and graphics is essential to creating a cohesive design style that comes off as ironic and intentional - rather than just poorly made.
Moving on from the last image, you can see above me exploring the boundary between INTENTIONALLY "BAD" design, and coming across as unskilled/unplanned. Based on including the transparency grid in the 'Trash" image, I exploited another design/photography faux pas - using stock images with watermarks. This approach was too on the nose, and genuinely does look as though I have put something together in under 5 minutes, so I abandoned this graphic and concluding that the use of one "poorly chosen" graphic would be enough to convey my message. I learned a valuable lesson in terms of the boundary concerning the extent of constructing purposefully "ugly" layouts before they appear as just ugly.
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I created a collaborative environment on Padlet for out MA group to share work since we cannot physically see each other and keep up with peer work. I requested feedback from others on which layout they preferred from the above selection, in order to ascertain what was "too far" in the eyes of others. This was essential, as although my ironic intent was obvious to me, I had to ensure it was clear to an audience.
When it came to creating "flourishes" to bring in the primary colour scheme, and evidence knowledge of design principles, I worked in Illustrator with polygons and the pen tool to create abstract and structured paths. I explored different strokes, and overlaying brush lines as outlines, to combine the post-modern/abstract with something more illustrative. I layers these graphics with my photos and trialled different effects (drop shadows, outer glows, etc.) to see how I could tie the REAL and the DESIGNED elements together cohesively. Again, there was a careful line to tread between too simple and too "curated", and only through practice and visualising the elements could I determine what worked.
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