Google Books is starting to be like drinking from a firehose. It occurred to me to search for less specific stuff, not just business graphics that I need for a current project. What happens when one searches for ‘typography’ in the public domain of books. One example is The Art and Practice of Typography.
Whoa! If you need specimens for lectures or projects, there is undoubtedly something in here for everyone.
Enjoy.
From The American City
Google Books is blowing my mind. So many texts we might not otherwise get our hands on are available for full PDF download. At first, I thought it meant I wouldn’t go to the library so much. Now I realize I can go to the library in a more focused way. I have a framework for understanding some of the things I will find there, and I can start using the visuals from old books immediately. Which means I’m more likely to read, process, and use knowledge from the copyright-expired part of publishing history. And that is thrilling.
I’ve been trying to read up on what the dialogue is around the work I’ve been referring to. What did people say about First Things First at the time? What do they say now?
What about Tibor? What about other designers who do work that can be labelled as activism?
One of our critics, Dmitri Siegel, has written about just these issues. I was recently referred to his Fuck Tibor essay posted on Typotheque and originally published in ante magazine in 2002.
I really appreciate that there are so many books on Kalman’s work for reference for those of us who didn’t get to know him. They are a way we can know him now. But I think Siegel is so right to point out that worship is the wrong response. Instead of asking ourselves What Would Tibor Do with the specific forms in a design, we should consider the spirit with which Tibor approached his work. Then we should use the forms and voice that are our own. No one will copy him well. But we can try to match him in spirit and effort.
Thanks, Dmitri.
Just talking to one of our Grad Elective teachers, Adam Michaels, about materials and open designs. I am particularly interested in forms that are left open for the viewer/reader to interact.
Adam mentioned a project his studio with Prem Krishnamurthy, Project Projects, did in New York using chalkboard paint on the walls. The project is called Into the Open: Positioning Practice. The primary typography was done by the studio. Secondary messages and type by the audience.
“The exhibition focuses on socially-engaged architecture practices who are redefining American architecture.”
The French artist JR's images from communities, projected back into those communities via wheatpasted portraits.
JR’S PORTRAITS OF WOMEN, PASTED BACK INTO THE WORLD. Click image for his website. Click here for Flickr feed of his work in Paris.
Many, many thanks to Chris Barclay in Tom Wedell’s section of Senior Studio at RISD. He and I have been talking about his interests and his work in class (I’m the teaching assistant). In the process, we have found that we are interested in similar things. Today we swapped references.
The artists David Ellis and Blu collaborate on a motion mural.
DAVID ELLIS AND BLU in a motion mural in a courtyard. Blu’s site here. David Ellis here.
Chris’ suggestions are blowin my mind. Here’s the takeaway for me based on the artists whose work he showed:
my thesis work needs to
GET BIG
GET CLOSE
BE BEAUTIFUL
6 billion Others: Typologies from around the world include interviews that ask questions like "What have you learnt from your parents? What do you want to pass on to your children? What difficult circumstances have you been through? What does love mean to you?"
In other recent talks, some new key words have come up. With Lucy, I discussed the broadest themes of my thesis. We kept coming back to DIVERSITY and BIODIVERSITY.
Last week Nancy said it’s time to make work that is TACTILE and SEDUCTIVE. She suggested that instead of trying to organize an experience that I try to make something that elevates everyone, not just a specific group. I think seeing these inspirational works today will help me get closer to addressing all of these themes with form.
HOPE project in Rwanda to set up a teeshirt-making studio in which war orphans can work.
Trying to add influences to the blog.
Here is Pixnit, an artist working in Boston. Love the ornamentation.
This is the only grafitti I have ever loved.
Living in an area with so many creative neighbors is such a thrill. While my upstairs neighbor was headed to pick up his laundry, a funny thing happened. We started talking about one of my projects and he referenced a lovely neighborhood-y barter project from his old ‘hood in Chicago.
Check out the Logan Square Book Exchange by Ryan Duggan, a recent graphic design grad of the Columbia College.
HIS OTHER WORK
Do you know of any other systems like this one that are designed to encourage barter and trade among anonymous neighbors? Should we have a book exchange in Providence?
Can anyone point me to the creator of that wonderful bike trailer for zines that I’ve seen around? I think it’s in the Waste Not Want Not space right now. Will try to stop in and ask who made that sweet thing!
Proposal
With one foot in the studio and the other in the daily life of Providence, I plan to explore ways to design for the greater good in partnership with local communities. Design can be a kind of activism, but it is also a way of being active in a community. I am interested in exploring and defining the role of designer as local citizen.
This statement was written in May of 2009. I still agree with this statement, so I’m marching forward with projects to put it into action.
My three key words are: collection, participation, circulation.
Book online here: http://issuu.com/lindsaykinkade/docs/lindsaykinkade_thesisproposalbook
If you have ideas or want to collaborate, let’s talk!
Now that the thesis process is formally underway, I am trying to read too many books at the same. If you have ideas of other books I should be reading, please do tell! Thanks in advance!
The stack right now:
Rules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky
Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher
Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People by Emily Pilloton
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans
Participation ed. by Claire Bishop
Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud
A Guide to Democracy in America by Yates McKee, Anne Pasternak, Gregory Sholette, and Liam Gillick
What is Graphic Design For? by Alice Twemlow
Droog Event 2: Urban Play by Droog
Citizen Designer by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne
Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings on Graphic Design by Michael Beirut, William Drenttel, and Steven Heller
The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History by Dolores Hayden
Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and Timothy Hursley
The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life by Nato Thompson, Gregory Sholette, and Joseph Thompson
Plop: Recent Projects of the Public Art Fund by Susan K. Freedman, Tom Eccles, Dan Cameron, Katy Siegel, Jeffrey Kastner, and Anne Wehr
also, and perhaps, most importantly (though not pictured)
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
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October 14, 2009
I don’t have anything to say. Yet. [still reading to form an opinion]
The list of primary texts for the reader has been narrowed down. I’m compiling and designing an open document (magazine?) with readings on what it means to do social good. I am particularly interested in the idea of commentary from Biblical and Talmudic traditions. In both of these longstanding traditions, a scholar prepares a section of text (can be a page in a book or on a poster, etc.). The text is set on the paper in such a way as to leave intentional areas for commentary by others.
Peter Hocking recently told me about a project like this that he collaborated on at Brown University. The director of Hillel there did a series of posters with texts chosen by him. He then had scholars write in certain areas of the poster to document the dialogue between them about the text at hand.
I am particularly interested in using this form to document differing points of views and departures that contributers may find interesting. I am hoping to design an ‘open’ way of setting the commentary in motion. I want each person who encounters the primary and secondary texts to be able to respond with her own perspective or criticism. I want to set the stage for commentary.
[NOTE: In my own process, I have always used the idea of commentary without thinking of it as such. I think of the notes in the margins of my books as a kind of quick index of my own responses, a shortcut back to my own ideas. I have never imagined anyone else then responding to my responses. I am interested in opening this process up for further reflection by more people. Prem Krishnamurthy referred us to a project in which a designer scanned pages with notes from a particular book at libraries all over a country in Europe. The resulting project is a compilation of many commentaries. Still looking up the details on that project.]
PRIMARY TEXTS for my commentary document
Rules for Radicals
First Things First Manifesto (both versions for comparison)
The Gift
Relational Aesthetics
Work for the Public Domain
Design for the Real World
NEW TO THE BOOKSHELF for general thesis reading
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
The Lure of the Local by Lucy Lippard
Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich
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Filed under Process, Research, Thoughts
Tags: commentary, Process, thesis