plural blog

School is out, TypeCon is in
It must be strange to take time off, including a full weekend, to attend a conference in Buffalo, NY, about typefaces. Yes, three full days talking about typefaces, and it’s amazing how much there was to talk about.

I thought three days were not really enough, so I arrived early and attended two-full day workshops. The first one: Experimental Type with Michelle Bowers, on thursday. Where we made a big mess creating type from all sorts of different materials, from pipe cleaners to bagels. The idea was to experiment freely in the morning, playing with our hands, the afternoon was spent focusing on finishing one idea.

I played with pipe cleaners, foam, the hot glue gun and the photocopier.

Grass Type Made with Clean Pipers

Upper Case A Made with the Hot Glue Gun

The word “eca” means “yuck” in Portuguese. Made with the hot glue gun.

Photocopied hot glue letters.

Foam letters

Foam letters turning evil

Photocopied foam letters

Thinking about thinking
The next day’s workshop was with designers from NLXL from the Nederlands. We spent the day “Thinking About Thinking” over a series of 5 exercises where we had a problem and an idea for the approach to find different solutions. By taking different approaches, the brain finds different patterns of association, therefore giving out different outcomes.

But wait there is more
The rest of the conference was a mix of unusual topics (at least if you are not a type designer), famous faces and inspiring lectures. We were all inspired by Stephan Sagmeister, NLXL and Eric Spiekerman, but it was during the day were the hidden gems were unvailed. Here are just some things I learned in a weekend in Buffalo.

Movable type
Jakob Trollbäck from Trollbäck + Company presented “Choreography for Type”  filling the otherwise silent and static room with their beautiful work. A very good excuse to watch more television.

Type DNA
This was so amazing you had to wonder why no one thought of this before—a simple system of glyphs to annotate DNA strings from father and son: Anthony Rozak (University at Buffalo) David Rozak (United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, MD). Some photos here.

Go to beer to get this type
If you don’t know Sudtipos from Argentina, you should. They sell most of their typefaces on Veer. Or as they pronounce it down south “Beer”. Their niche is script, or as Alejandro Paul said on his lecture, typefaces for packaging, but of course you can use it on anything else. Their new typeface Affair has so many alternate characters it will make your head spin.

Type critiqued
Sunday came too soon and I had signed up for the famous TypeCon TypeCrit. This year Matthew Carter did not attend and instead Mr. Mike Parker from Font Bureau took the expert chair along side Mr. Akira Kobayashi (Linotype) and John Downer. I had the first spot of the critique and showed my type hesitantly. It was a humbling and encouraging experience. (photos Frederico Antunes and Eben Sorkin).

On my way to the Type Critique

Taking notes

Happy it’s over

Plural at Typecon
Our Ampershirt was sold at the typeCon store.

Plural also had work exhibited at the Type Gallery
(sponsored by You Work For Them)