Designer and artist Kelli Anderson creates things for everyday life. Things that people will actually use. For Kelli, it’s not so much the final result. She’s more interested in how people will interact with it. These things ranged from book covers to app logos to maps.
Jeff Veen & Typekit once had three days to solve an eight-week problem. Is that possible? According to Jeff, the answer is yes, yes it is. In his lecture titled “Designing For Disaster” Jeff takes us through his recipe to solve a problem/prepare for future disasters in this chaotic world, and how to recover after the disaster hits.
Stephen begins with the development of his interest in type, “How did I get here?” with the definition of synesthesia: the involuntary tying together of two senses. He then shows a series of type samples and into the microphone produces a series of unusual but fitting sounds. “When I see this, my mind hears this.”
Satsuki Shibuya shared an inspiring talk about her experiences, insights and thoughts on how a sudden illness completely changed her way of approaching business and life.
Interfaces allow us to interact with systems that use other languages that are not our own. The process is always a little awkward. Travis illustrates this with the example of a conversation between two people who don’t share a native language, but do both speak english. They get by, but only in a strained manner.
Walking us through her widely diverse array of works, Keetra Dean Dixon delighted and inspired her TYPO audience today. Initially showing some of her past work, her inquisitive nature immediately became evident through her thoughtful, experimental, and sincerely absurd projects, such as The Anonymous Hugging Wall and her Union Sleeve. Keetra then broke up the rest of her presentation into parts titled Thinking Through Making and Making Through Breaking.
Faythe Levine’s latest book and documentary film, both titled Sign Painters, explore the trade of hand-painted signage in America today. Since information on sign painting was scarce, Faythe presented her research for her documentary that ranged from hard-to-find books and magazine on the subject to letters from family members of sign painters that were excited about the upcoming documentary.
In the words of Marian Bantjes, “This is a very strange thing that I’m sucking on here.”
Granted, she was referring to the cough drop a thoughtful audience member had handed to her while on stage, whereas I am referring to wrapping my mind around the detailed and beautiful typographic works she presented and discussed in her 40-minute talk.
Part lawyer, part author, and part designer, Matthew Butterick issued a 40-minute challenge to web designers. One that had the audience asking themselves questions and desiring to be better.
Kali Nikitas, Chair of the Communication Arts department at Otis College of Art and Design, introduced the session as the “highlight of the conference.” She has invited nine friends to speak on what occurs in and outside of school. The speakers represented current faculty, students, and alumni from California College of Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Otis College. This session was a quick, energetic lighting-round presentation from three art schools, three presenters each, five minutes each. I enjoyed seeing the different ways of presenting.
Sex, Communism, and Rock and Roll …
Jens started Type design as a teenager. One of his early designs was from early 90s. He finds curves are harder in type design than segments. Every year he comes up with newly developed type designs. Jensans of 1997 gets rid of idiosyncrasies of Serifs. In 2012, he designed Alfasans that developed from it. He is still toying with how to terminate the ends. He enjoys the back-slanted in Italics. He likes the 7 point challenge: that the type should look good even at 7 points.
