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10 February, 2014

Play at Play: Happy Chinese New Year!

plog_10_FEB_2014

 Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. —The White Queen to Alice

We are committed fans of the impossible here at Design is Play. In fact, our very existence as print designers in twenty-first century San Francisco seems dubious at times, but we intend to thrive here nonetheless. For those of you whose Chinese is a little rusty, the character in the upper-right corner of our card reads wealth. We wish our friends and colleagues much success in this New Year, regardless of the persistence of the “Print is Dead” crowd.

As with our 2013 Valentine, our New Year card was screen printed by Kevin Giffen at Wranch Studio in Santa Monica, California. Kevin printed the design in three colors: two metallics and a black on a ridiculously heavy chipboard stock. Angie set the Lewis Carroll passage on the back of the card in Marian 1742, a monoline slab serif and close relative of Marian Black, the face we used for our Valentine.

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1 July, 2013

In Memorium: Irving Oaklander, 1924–2012

(left) Irving Oaklander, proprietor of Oaklander Books in New York City, on December 23, 2010. Irving holds a rare copy of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1923 book For the Voice (Dlia Golosa) which was designed by El Lissitsky. (right) Angie holds a page of For the Voice up to the light to reveal the compositional correspondence between pages 17 and 18.

(left) Irving Oaklander, proprietor of Oaklander Books in New York City, on December 23, 2010. Irving holds a rare copy of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1923 book “For the Voice” (Dlia Golosa) which was designed by El Lissitsky. (right) Angie holds a page of “For the Voice” up to the light to reveal the compositional correspondence between pages 17 and 18.

Irving was curious and notably generous—two qualities that made him a natural teacher. (Not surprisingly, Irving taught in New York City’s public schools for many years before opening Oaklander Books.) Angie and I were fortunate to spend long hours on two separate occasions in his crowded Chelsea shop poring over his singular collection of design and typography books. Not only did Irving let us handle Mayakovsky’s For the Voice, but also, memorably, one of the Million Mark banknotes designed by Herbert Bayer in 1923.

Although Irving died one year ago this August, Angie and I think of him frequently, especially when Angie brings our type specimens to school to share with her students. Among the letterpress specimen books we bought from Irving are those for Trump-Deutsch (1938) designed by Georg Trump and released by H. Berthold, AG; Ingeborg Antiqua (c. 1909) designed by Professor F.W. Kleukens and released by D. Stempel, AG; and Ehmcke-Mediaeval (1924) designed by F.H. Ehmcke and released by D. Stempel, AG.

(left) A page from the Trump-Deutsch specimen book. (right) The title page from the Ingeborg Antiqua specimen book.

(left) A page from the Trump-Deutsch specimen book. (right) The title page from the Ingeborg Antiqua specimen book.

Steven Heller, who also frequented Oaklander Books, wrote a remembrance of Irving for Print Magazine in August of 2012 which can be read here. Swann Galleries in New York auctioned off some of Irving’s rare books in May of 2013, many of which can be seen in the auction catalog. Incidentally, Irving’s copy of For the Voice sold for $7,500. [MF]

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1 April, 2013

Cate and Lukas at Play: Puffoglyphs

A complete showing of the Puffoglyphs by Lukas, 2012.

A complete showing of the Puffoglyphs by Lukas, 2012.

Cate’s drawing examining the relationship between the “sacred” glyphs O, P and Q, 2012.

Cate’s drawing examining the relationship between the “sacred” glyphs O, P and Q, 2012.

Each of the twenty-six upper- and lowercase letters in our alphabet has a distinct structure, but all are comprised of only four elemental strokes: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and curvilinear.

It was the Greeks who created this system of standardization approximately 3,500 years ago. In addition to imposing geometric order on the irregular letterforms they adopted from the Phoenicians, the Greeks established the use of a baseline and uniform letterspacing. (It would be another two millennia before the Frankish king Charlemagne mandated the adoption of three additional guidelines still in use today: ascenders, descenders, and a common x-height.)

As a natural extension of their play, our children Cate (age 11) and Lukas (age 8) created a code for their own use they call the Puffoglyphs. They intuitively broke down the Latin alphabet into its four stroke variants and then recombined the component parts to create new, “encoded” typographic forms.

“Elementary letterforms and signs composed of vertical, horizontal, slanted and curvilinear strokes.” Detail from Typography: Formation + Transformation by Willi Kunz.

“Elementary letterforms and signs composed of vertical, horizontal, slanted and curvilinear strokes.” Detail from Typography: Formation + Transformation by Willi Kunz.

 

American designer Willi Kunz explores the four elemental strokes in his 2003 Typography: Formation + Transformation. Of the illustration we feature from his book, Kunz notes that “Even though the individual forms are abstract, the forms begin to suggest a typographic composition.” The dynamic that Kunz articulates, Cate and Lukas experienced through an act of play. [AW]

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11 March, 2013

Angie at Play

Angie Wang’s photographs (1:25)
Amsterdam, Paris, and St. Petersburg, 2004–2007.

Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look. —John Cage

Prior to a trip to Paris in 2004, Mark asked me to return with responses to the following prompts:
The best visual contrast;
The most beautiful piece of type;
The most lush color combination;
The most memorable bite (flavor);
A fifth sensation of note.

These images are the result of what has become an ongoing exercise in my paying attention. Whether with photographs, sketches, or journal entries, I’ve learned to document my travels in an active way because it heightens my awareness of what I see and experience.

Mark and I incorporated a version of this exercise into our 2007 summer study abroad class in Amsterdam. As we stated in our syllabus, “The act of seeing is made more acute by the act of recording.” [AW]

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4 March, 2013

Design School Wisdom

Our friend and colleague Brooke Johnson from Chronicle Books in San Francisco is working on a new title with Jennifer Tolo Pierce called Design School Wisdom, a compilation of quotes from teachers and students. Brooke asked us to submit some quotes for possible inclusion in the book which we share below.

(left) Jeff Wasserman outside his studio in Santa Monica, 2009. (right) Mark Fox photographed by Michael Schwab for one of Michael’s posters, 1986.

(left) Jeff Wasserman outside his studio in Santa Monica, 2009. (right) Mark Fox photographed by Michael Schwab for one of Michael’s posters, 1986.

Being self-taught as a designer, I didn’t attend design school. I did, however, work at a few jobs during and after college that exposed me to some workplace wisdom.

One of my jobs in college—around 1982—was to work for Wasserman Silk Screen Co. in Santa Monica, California. Jeff Wasserman set up the original screen printing shop at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, and has printed for a number of well-known artists, including Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, Claus Oldenberg, Frank Stella, and Billy Al Bengston, among others. His work is extremely precise, and he is a master at what he does. Nonetheless, one of the maxims Jeff often uttered to me was, “Don’t make a religious experience out of it.”

A few years later, in 1985, I worked for the designer and illustrator Michael Schwab in San Francisco who is especially well-regarded for his poster work. Michael has always been successful—or so it seemed to me!—and his oft-repeated advice usually followed negotiations with clients. He would say, “There’s always more time and more money.”

This is my twentieth year teaching courses in graphic design at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I give my students no end of advice, I’m sure, but the one question I continually ask them that seems worth sharing is this: “Where does your eye go?” If you know where the eye goes when you look at work, and why, then you understand true hierarchy—regardless of the design intention. If you remain unaware of hierarchy, of what the eye sees and in what order, your work will remain indistinct and forgettable. [MF]

(left) Michael Manwaring photographed by Christopher Manwaring. (right) Angie at the RE:DESIGN / Creative Directors Conference in Palm Springs, 2011. The title of our presentation was “Get Back: Working Analog in a Digital World.”

(left) Michael Manwaring photographed by Christopher Manwaring. (right) Angie at the RE:DESIGN / Creative Directors Conference in Palm Springs, 2011. The title of our presentation was “Get Back: Working Analog in a Digital World.”

If you have to ask the question, you already know the answer. —Michael Manwaring

Michael Manwaring was my Graphic Design 2 instructor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco. Michael’s pedagogic model seemed to be based on questioning—he deliberately responded to our questions with more questions. While this resulted in a dialogue of evaluation, it didn’t necessary yield a definitive answer—at least not immediately.

Needless to say it was maddening at the time. Ultimately, though, I learned from Michael how to actively—and critically—distill my ideas and formulate my opinions.

Work hard—the rest will come in time. —Steve Reoutt

I entered the CCAC graphic design program in 1993 and had the good fortune of having Steve Reoutt as one of my first instructors. For Steve, the discipline of working steadily and making progress every day was more important than the “success” of our final work. Steve made us sketch in large pads of newsprint every day, whether we felt like it or not. At the end of every assignment he would take the time to meet with us individually to go through our newsprint pad.

Final crits were led by students: we would put our work up and the students would choose which pieces to critique. More often than not my work would be the last to be chosen for discussion—or sometimes, not at all—leaving Steve to monologue about my project. He always managed to tease out some positive aspect (like the thoughtfulness of my approach) despite the awkward final form.

During one of his reviews of my sketch pad he looked at me and said, “You’re a good problem solver and you work hard. I know form-making doesn’t come easily for you, but no one has it all. Work hard, and the rest will come in time.”

His faith—and the rigor of his approach—had a profound impact on me as a student. It encouraged me to be patient and it allowed me to grow as a designer at my own pace. I have been teaching Typography 1 in the graphic design program at CCA for seven years now and, like Steve, I collect and review my students’ process sketches at the end of every assignment. [AW]

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Books


PREVIEW OR PURCHASE
Symbols: A Handbook for Seeing
Mark Fox and Angie Wang
The Monacelli Press, 2016

Published Interviews

BecomingADesigner_Interview
DOWNLOAD
Becoming a Graphic & Digital Designer
Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne
Wiley, 2015

CA2015_Interview
DOWNLOAD
“Design is Play”
Jessica Carew Kraft
Communication Arts, May/June 2015

DesignFirms_Heller
DOWNLOAD
Design Firms Open for Business
Steven Heller and Lita Talarico
Allworth Press, 2013

Typography Sketchbooks Heller
DOWNLOAD
Typography Sketchbooks
Steven Heller and Lita Talarico
Princeton Architectural Press, 2011

Published Articles


DOWNLOAD
“Inhale, Exhale”
AIGA SF, June 2008


DOWNLOAD
“Greg Clarke”
3×3, Spring 2007

CA Design Annual 40
DOWNLOAD
“Logos=God”
Communication Arts, Nov. 1999

CA Illustration Annual 35
DOWNLOAD
“Please Pass the Effigy”
Communication Arts, July 1994

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