Beyond Words

I realize this video project from Facebook's Creative Director Ji Lee is making the rounds everywhere, but yes, it is that good. You can see the stills of his visual puns at his website, Please enjoy. Or, get the print edition. This time the book is just as good as the film.
:: Thanks Nici!

Text Appeal

Readers, writers, typographers, and printers take note. The 6th annual Text Ball—the lettered stepchild of Portland, Oregon's annual literary Wordstock Festival—will take place on October 1st at p:ear Gallery. The theme this year is In Poetic Fashion and it is a benefit for the non-profit Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland which promotes literacy through DIY publishing. There will be live music by indie-folk heroine Laura Gibson and poetry readings, word games, giant crossword puzzles, dirty limerick challenges, a silent auction and more, including a parade of well-lettered fashions and prizes for the text-dressed. Come dressed as your favorite poem, book, letter, story, or word, enjoy the letterati and support a great cause. Advance tickets for $12 can be purchased here or $15 at the door.
      The photo above is last year's grand prize winner for Best Text, Erica Hijazi. She constructed a fashionable bow from a 1939 Williamette College newpaper she unearthed while picking up a VCR purchased on Craigslist. Soooo Portlandia! Her date wore a tie constructed from the same newspaper.

Mark Anen came dressed as a Government G-Man.

Aimee Pedretti's vision of Hell was Dante's Inferno.

Runner-up for Most Literary is writer and author Myrlin Hermes, featuring the entire text of Shakespeare's Sonnet 129: "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action..."
::All photos from the last year's text-dressed are taken by Georgia Perry.

The Man With a Beard

The English translation for the title of this 1961 Czechoslovakian book, Monolecky, Muze s Plnovousem translates to Monolecky, Man With a Beard. It was written by Jiri R. Pick (1925-1983) and brilliantly designed by Milos Noll (1926-1998) who took great liberty with the display of the text.
      The book is quite small at 5x7 inches, and has 144 pages filled with such playful typography, one could easily mistake it for a children's book at first glance. Noll plays with combinations of advertising cuts and printers' ornaments throughout the book and manipulates the mostly sans serif letterforms in every direction to create his images. At times he even weaves the actual text into some of his illustrations. Everything was fair game to Noll. Even the publisher's logo, MF (Mlada Fronta), on the back of the dust jacket is taken hostage. The endflaps of the dust jacket as seen below are remarkable, if only for the challenge of setting large text in such narrow, justified columns (hence all the hyphens) and they boldly bookend the entire text quite nicely. Sorry, but I have no idea what the significance of the border of 8s are doing there on the endflaps. Matter of fact, I don't even know how to characterize this story, except that I've read that it's sort of a comic satirical verse about music, writing and theater. If anyone knows differently or can read and discern some of the story from the text in these images, please let me know.    

Title page.

Chapter opening which I believe translates to complex, or it's complicated.

The impressive Table of Contents which curiously appears near the end of the book. 

The copyright | publisher's page on last page. 

The hardcover binding which Milos Noll also designed.
:: Via the Letterology Archives.
Apologies for the lack of diacritical spelling in the Czech names. Blogger was choking on them today. 

Lay on Ground Light Fuse and Retire Quickly

 

I will admit I am not the least bit fond of firework's noise, however I am easily amused with old firecracker labels. Especially like the sort of treasures you see above, with the mis-registered printing, odd little drawings of children and animals, circus clowns, goofy names and funky typography. It doesn't get any better than the PS, Po Sing Factory label at top. The PS should stand for Pretty Sweet! And don't forget—lay on ground, light fuse and retire most quickly. Happy 4th!
:: Top 7 labels belong to Exposur3 Flickrstream. The rest belong to Mr. Firecracker.

Sign Spotting

As seen in the hood recently and posted on FB by an apparel design student. Gotta love the telephone pole dialog prompted by one bad ass type crime. Thanks for sharing Dorothy! 

Typewriter Portraiture

As the news today of the last typewriter manufacturer calling it quits, I want to stop for a moment to champion the typewriters' analog charms—such as the noise it makes, the monospaced characters it imprints on paper, and the many ways it can be manually manipulated with a bit of dexterity—and no one does this better than British artist Nadine Faye James. I first became acquainted with Nadine's type-infused artworks about 5 years ago after finding full page color illustrations of her work in the British magazine, Waitrose Food Illustrated. Her work was littered with letters. Typewriter o's, would become snowfall or a fruit bowl, an italic cap B might be a real cap on someone's head, and a D could be a pot of soup when on it's face. Charming stuff.    

        Recently Nadine was on my radar again when I discovered she occasionally did typewriter portraits while-you-wait. I made mention of this last December in another post, but have since learned more about Nadine and her ascii artwork. She is very much an analog artist and believes in using the post office to send mail. I recently received the most wonderful package from her which made my heart sing. Inside was a handwritten note with 4 small books—2 very sweet notebooks and 2 more filled with typewriter portraits she had illustrated from willing patrons. Nadine tells me she began doing the typewriter portraits in 2000 when she was working on her MA in Communication Art and Design at the Royal College of Art in London. She began typing things like crocodiles and bears and eventually her friends until she realized she had a knack for it. Later she would set up an old school desk and electric typewriter at various artist book fairs and type on a duplicate till roll so she could give one copy to her sitter and keep the other. As this other half of the till roll continued to grow, she would use it to make books of portraits. These days Nadine tells me she has taken to painting and drawing landscapes and considers herself "an amateur watercolourist". With some upcoming exhibitions in the works, she promised we can expect to see an updated website of new work soon. I suspect if she ever wanted to set up her typewriter again somewhere, she would find a long line of very willing type sitters to be her loyal subjects. Or perhaps the Royal newlyweds should become Nadines' next subjects. Surely they will need an official Royal typewriter portrait. Long live the typewriter <:^)

Nadine's typewriter till roll above. From Lee Shearman.

Nadine at her typewriter. From Lee Shearman.

The 3 images above from Waitrose Food Illustrated.