Conference Project Process

This was a great project to learn visual typography. What we ended up with was a beautiful poster graphic made from type, which was our objective in the very beginning of the program. Score! The combination of experimenting with type over a long period of time, documenting that work and then using that documentation to create a logo mark for a conference and graphics for that event proved to be a very productive method. The resultant graphic/poster for the conference I think accurately conveys a sense not only of experimentation at the event itself but other attributes of the event such as getting away from the noise into the outside and being inspired by the created order and the peace therein.

Input from the three guest critiques on Friday proved to be valuable, particularly one comment-filming the stop motion from different angles to create more intrigue and anticipation. The construction of type from leaves and broken machine parts was something Luke and I both struggled with initially but the results were clearly good enough to inspire others. I believe because we pushed through and 'kept going' blindly (learned from the first Junior semester) our efforts eventually yielded some great results. These results were things neither of us had ever seen before, which made us both very excited. Luke is a great worker I think, one who is able to leave doors open enough for new things to happen and ideas to come through. He's got some guts in terms of pushing the envelope and staying the course without baulking and that steady character is good for design. Go Luke!

The copy for the conference was written by both of us. As Luke and I had similar experiments in the beginning, our writing really did fit together well for the second part of the semester. The words we both wrote spoke to the same audience and felt the same way. The design and layout of each artifact came from one basic principle that we both carried, as a team - we wanted conference participants to engage in type experimentation in a totally open minded way, that they would get excited about using all kinds of materials and be excited by getting outside to be inspired (an idea that our graphics conveyed beautifully). The speakers we chose bolstered these values, Karl Hyde is first and foremost a musician but studied in design. His crazy creative experiments in music and art would feed so well into an off the wall event like this. Neville, Phillip and Philip would all bring a more serious, professional tone to the event but equally expressive in terms of wild experimentation and original results.

In terms of applying typographic knowledge to the artifacts/images that we made, we were successful because we integrated the two rather than kept them separate. The graphics fed the type and visa versa. The stop motion piece fused type with moving objects creating more of a sense of integration than if they were apart. After Luke had built this animation we spent time fine tuning pace, fades and transitions, things like that. The understanding and knowledge learned from all of the type lectures was good matter to employ on the motion piece, Journal and poster bringing them all into professionalism in terms of technical detail.