Graphic Design

Wearable Letterform for kangurus

2010-04-09T14:58:08Z

: Photo credit: Rita Botelho & Arthur Corr

: Euro RSCG Lisbon for Optimus

Euro RSCG Lisbon found a nice use of my wearable typography for their latest campaign, check it out here!

In vino veritas

2010-04-06T23:04:41Z

In vino veritas (wine reveals the truth) is a plain white tablecloth that only reveals its damask pattern
as wine is spilled on it. (Perfect for clumsy guests!)

This is part of a research on ephemeral stencils, looking into “programming” a shape or word to appear, evolve and disappear according to changesin its environment. Traditionally, damasks were woven in a single colour, with a glossy warp-faced satin pattern against a duller ground, causing the thread to reflect the light differently according to the position of the observer. I liked the idea of a pattern that would only be revealed under certain circumstances, just as truth and secrets would.

The tannin can be fixated by washing the tablecloth in cold water with 1kg of salt instead of laundry powder, although this may cause the color to change accordingly to the wine used. (See below)

In vino veritas tableclothes will be shown and sold during the Milan Furniture Fair, in the Foodmarketo pop-up shop/gallery. FoodMarketo is a joint project by Apartamento magazine and DesignMarketo.
Where: Milan, Via Masera in front of n.10
at the Kaleidoscope space.
When: 13-18 April 2010

Type should move

2010-01-23T20:01:51Z

“All is flux, nothing stays still, no man ever steps twice in the same river“, observed Heraclites.
This intelligent (because human) letterform allows a message to change from an instant to another, in an attempt to reflect on the fleeting quality of the moment.
It is flexible enough to keep the message relevant and up to date as its context changes, but also has the visual presence of a giant billboard.

Letterform for the Ephemeral/Pirating

2009-12-16T21:42:18Z

As seen on webcam on http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/visit/ on the 29/10/2009 between 14h07 and 14h37 GMT

In this phase of the project, ephemeral typography is used to induce people to feel the weight of passing time,
with its flow symbolically interrupted by halting the traffic.
This typographic performance was only recorded by taking screenshots of the images transmitted by a public webcam (showing the iconic Abbey Road crossing) onto a computer.

As this medium displays one “real-time” image every 4 seconds, a fraction of second seems to be extended
for the length of time necessary for the image to be refreshed.
Using a public webcam to display a message also considerably broadens its audience.

Letterform for the Ephemeral

2009-12-16T21:33:18Z

An everlasting choreography referencing the (real) passing of time, people standing as the Hours moving only once every 60 minutes, while the one acting as the tenths of Seconds executes a very fast routine in a continual move.
This image is a screenshot of this work.

In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau creates a relationship between the metropolis and its inhabitants on one side, and the practice of writing and speaking on the other side, and how they are “writing an urban text
as they move through it”.

A given message evolves in perpetual flux and its context is permanently shifting, regardless if its support is an advert or public signage.

Who is its audience? Where is it read? What is the weather like? What is everyone talking about on that day?
Are they in a hurry? Does it smell of hotdogs as they’re reading it?
A static printed message cannot adapt to a changing situation; it therefore belongs to the platonic ideal world rather than the hic et nunc (here and now) of the real world.

Referencing the passing of time

2009-12-04T22:08:02Z

Recently, a bomb-sprayed piece of graffiti on a wall, reading “Time doesn’t exist, clocks exist”, drew my attention to two layers coexisting in the perception of time. One refers to the flowing entity, while the other invokes the intellectual, man-made structure that we use to sequence events and place them in a chronology.
The notion of time also opposes the mathematical abstraction calculating periods of time and the concrete mechanism of clocks counting its passage.

This begs the question: is there something called Time, other than the counting activity? Isn’t the consciousness of time a typically human experience?

The final experiment of this research took place in a busy train station during rush hour, in order to reflect the flow characteristic of the place. It involved eight people mimicking a digital clock in real time with their arms and shoulders. Standing in line side by side in the middle of the station, two of them acted as the hours units, two for the minutes, and another two for the seconds. The two other performers were acting as the colons separating each unit of time. The wearable letterform, with its specific flexibility, allowed the message (in this case Time) to change from one second to the other, following more or less accurately the ticking of the station’s clock.
The numbers each of the performers enacted were enhanced by day-glow long-sleeved boleros, which besides making them visible, also echoed the yellow of the train schedule boards above them.
Used in this specific context and by using people as a medium, this temporary letterform confronts the economic value of time (as in time is money) with the individual perception of it.

As seen at Liverpool Street Station on the 23/10/2009 between 18:00:00 and 19:00:00

The final outcome of this experiment is its recording, in the form of a set of photographs fixing the message in the time, space and audience (commuters in a rush) it was addressed to. The letterform was contextual at the actual moment it was mimicked. What is left is a trace of it, as the message displayed (the time the photograph was taken) will not be accurate anymore when looking at the photograph. What was achieved with this latest experiment of wearable type was a hic et nunc letterform, a letterform for the here and now, finding its raison d’être when used in real time.

Wearable lettering

2009-12-16T23:53:18Z

This is an experiment on wearable lettering.
It started as a series of three day-glow and black tee-shirts, each with a slightly different pattern that becomes different highly visible letters when seen from a distance, providing that the wearer places his arms and body in a specific way.

When wearing these tee shirts, a group of people can form a word, a sentence or a statement. Because a single person can mimic a whole set of letters, the message can change, from one movement to another.

The flexibility of this letterform being slightly jeopardized by the fact that one single tee shirt couldn’t be used to make every letter, I started to think the wearable typography as a bolero instead: a pair of day-glow sleeves attached together by a strip of fabric that could be worn across the front or the back of the wearer.

This new pattern allowed the wearer to become any letter, number or punctuation mark in a small move.

Ephemeral Stencils: Salt

2009-11-15T22:28:25Z

While staying in Canada last winter, I became curious of the side effects of salt being used on snowy roads, and then dumped along with tons of snow in the nearest river. After laying a stenciled word on the grass, I covered it with salt, and then removed the paper. What was left was the word always neatly traced in the grass by the white crystals, bound to melt and disappear.

For weeks, I regularly went back to the site to photograph the evolution of the letterform. I noted that as the salt letters were slowly fading away, the grass surrounding it started to die, burnt by the sodium, leaving a well defined scare in the green surface, where I don’t expect anything to grow for a while.

It seems that although the word disappeared, the mark will always be there, unlike the grass which will never grow again.

Ephemeral stencils: Birdseeds

2009-11-15T22:29:26Z

Confronting the notion of ephemeral stencils to the semantic field of tattoos. Tattoos understood as the contrary of temporary messages in both their form and their message, with words and promises such as Love, Forever, Always.
Using the word Always for its double-meaning of repetition and eternity.
Ephemeral stencil made with birdseeds.
More here.

Light type

2009-11-15T22:29:56Z