Gestalten - News

Francesco Franchi

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:11:40 +0000

On Visual Storytelling and New Languages in Journalism

Francesco Franchi is the art director for IL-Intelligence in Lifestyle, the monthly magazine of Il Sole 24 ORE, Italy’s leading financial daily.

"Embracing new languages in journalism", Franchi is a true master of combining representation and interpretation, creating a visual form that is as graphic as it is narrative, as entertaining as it is informative. His work has been awarded on numerous occasions, including the European Design Awards and at the renowned Malofiej conference. Gestalten.tv met with him last summer in Berlin to talk about his influences, innovative storytelling and non-linear reading in today's editorial design.

Furthermore you will find an extensive printed interview with the Italian designer in Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language.

Francesco Franchi

Marcus Walters

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:06:10 +0000

Screen Print Exhibition

The illustrator will be presenting a selection of artwork from the original Unplanned Magic show alongside some new screen prints.

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Marcus Walters is an illustrator and designer based in the UK. He works across a variety of media and his work incorporates hand crafted elements such as collage and drawing to create simple and enduring images.

The show is opening on Thursday 9th of February at the newly refurbished Red Gallery, 3 Rivington Street, London. EC2A 3DT

Marcus Walters

Where Typography meets Comedy

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:14:57 +0000

Project in Blackpool

Created by artist Gordon Young, and designed in collaboration with Why Not Associates, the Comedy Carpet is a typographic celebration of comedy on an extraordinary scale.

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Referring to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, the carpet gives visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases dating from the early days of variety to the present. Sited in front of Blackpool Tower, the 2,200m2 work of art contains over 160,000 granite letters embedded into concrete, pushing the boundaries of public art and typography to their limits.

Learn all about the project here: comedycarpet

comedycarpet

New Font: Sinews

lucas — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:16:11 +0000

Effortlessly providing both dynamism and durability

A sinew is a strong, fibrous tissue connecting bones to muscle.

Much like its anatomical influence, Sinew Sans—also available in an expanded professional version on Gestalten Fonts—provides that connection: the balance between static geometric construction and the characteristics of dynamic humanist typefaces. The font offers a lot of features and alternate glyphs for many typographical applications.

A self-professed addict—but luckily only to design glyphs, alphabets, and OpenType programming—German font designer Jakob Runge works as a freelance type and corporate designer, runs type workshops, and has set up a platform to encourage and promote type drafts by students. All that, and he's still hard at work on his master's degree. Jakob's style is influenced by a clean and modest approach, which he rightly also considers to be a foundation for fine type design.

Could you give us a brief introduction to yourself and to your work?
I’m completely addicted to design glyphs, letterings, alphabets, and programming OpenType feature. I’m the co-founder of www.26plus-zeichen.de, a web platform to encourage student type drafts, while I continue working on my master’s degree at the Muthesius Academy in the German city of Kiel. Aside from studying, I work as a freelance type and corporate designer and also run type workshops.

Please provide us with a short description of the font.
Sinews Sans is a contemporary square sans, combining a technical armature covered by decent curves and distinctive warmth. Moreover, open apertures provide high legibility in both text and display settings. Its broad typographical palette offers a wide range of applications. To enable a modern typographic standard, Sinews Sans covers West and Middle European languages with some OpenType features for a reasonable price. The professional version Sinews Sans Pro, which is only slightly more expensive, extends the typographic possibilities much more.

What was the main idea behind designing the font?
The fundamental idea while starting the design process of Sinews Sans was to create a modern sans serif characterized by simplicity, but bringing along a lot of decent details and features as well. Furthermore, I had in mind to find a balance between static geometric construction and the characteristics of dynamic humanist typefaces.

How would you characterize your style?
Aside from creating fonts, by designing corporate identities or other visual graphics, I often focus on solutions involving a lot of typography. By now my style is influenced by a clean and modest approach, which is a root for fine type design as well.

How did you come up with the name of the font?
Well, as my typeface is a geometric armature covered by decent curved diagonals that implicate dynamic strength, I chose a name from a topic which is technical, but also organic: anatomy. A sinew (also known as a tendon) is a strong fibrous tissue connecting bones to muscle. This was just the right metaphor to carry the idea of my typeface.

Can you describe some particular mannerism that distinguishes Sinews?
As already mentioned, Sinews Sans has subtle curved diagonals to make the typeface more vigorous and stable. I also pay a lot of attention to every single letter and its details in order to refine the technical construction. Another characteristic are some truncated edges. I cut off some corners to emphasize a calligraphic stroke, even in a technical sans. Also, the missing edges are placed to create fine gray values: They work like ink traps. The typeface in general has a slight masculine appearance, which contrasts with the very wispy hairline weight for larger point sizes, lending the font family an elegant and filigree side.

Can you tell us something about the process of developing Sinews? Did you have some particular inspirations?
Sinews Sans is not the first typeface I created, but it is the first real font family I produced professionally. So I did analyze quite a lot of type milestones to get a feeling for shape and balance. The typeface itself was mainly designed on screen; nevertheless, I used prints for the fine-tuning.

You have made a large amount of special characters. Can you tell us more about those extra signs and the OpenType features?
Indeed, I spend a lot of research on the diacritics, including a lot of currency symbols, while adding some alternate letters and small caps. This involved plenty of additional work during final font production with around 750 glyphs for each weight, but it was worthwhile: There is a single-story a and g, a tailed l for signage, a bellied y, and several alternates for the ampersand. Furthermore, Sinews Sans supports 25 OpenType features like lining and tabular figures, arbitrary fractions, as well as arrows and many others. My favorite is the stylistic set 06: It creates a mixture of small caps and lowercase letters and enables a unicase alphabet for prominent display text.

We have noticed that the italic weights appear with some very unique elements. How did that originate?
Well, to keep up the technical appearance most square sans have an oblique version of the upright font only. With Sinews Sans I decided to create a true italic, which comes with a lot of handwritten characteristics. So nearly every glyph was re-drawn, and previously-existing curved diagonals were amplified to bring up more distinctive charm to the italics.

What is the ideal usage of your font?
Sinews Sans offers a lot of features and alternate glyphs for many typographical applications. The small caps and the ratio between light and bolder weights are optimized for display usage. Therefore, in editorial design and visual identities Sinews Sans will achieve the best scores.

Finally, tell us about your future plans and projects.
I was totally excited while turning the regular weights intp true italic shapes, so my next step is to design Sinews Script. It should become an exaggeration of the italics in a highly playful manner. Independently, for me it's time to take a shot at Antiqua faces.

Sinews Sans

Gestalten Fonts

Aram Bartholl in Conversation with Evan Roth

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Book Launch and Talk at Gestalten Space

To celebrate the release of Aram Bartholl’s first monograph Aram Bartholl: The Speed Book, Gestalten will host a talk with the artist in conversation with Evan Roth.

Fellow artist and researcher Evan Roth will start the evening by introducing us to the experimental work of Aram Bartholl, which explores the place where space and cyberspace mingle and mangle each other—a realm that uses as little technology as possible while still speaking a digital language. Together, they will guide us through wonderfully skewed visions of our society under the influence of the internet. On this occasion, Evan Roth will also present a series of his own new web-based pieces. We'll ring out the event with drinks and music.

Installation Views:

Thu, 02/02/2012 - 19:00

Location of event:

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe, Sophienstraße 21, 10178 Berlin

Clever & Witty

lucas — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:29:55 +0000

Visual Identities for Small Businesses

Independent companies, the self-employed and creative start-ups rely on unique, individual branding to make a mark and stand out.

In the sea of mass marketing and corporate uniformity, it's in fact the smaller enterprises that dare to hire designers with an inspiringly different approach. Their striking logos, packaging and storefronts are smart and never fail to catch attention, thusly, elevating the client's image whilst cementing their personal and grounded attitude. The publication Introducing: Visual Identities for Small Businesses features many more bold examples of innovative, customized design concepts.

Whipping Jesus

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

On Display in Berlin

Solo show Punishment I has openend featuring new works by Julius von Bismarck.

The viewer is presented with photographs and video footage, which document the artist on his recent travels equipped with a whip and mythological inspiration. Opening hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00-18:00.

Julius von Bismarck's work has been featured in A Touch of Code and Urban Interventions.

Julius von Bismarck on gestalten.tv

Science Fiction

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:24:53 +0000

Rational Design Research

Mathieu Lehanneur’s rich creativity obviously stems strongly from a fascination and appreciation for scientific processes.

Nonetheless, the French designer allows a refreshing assortment of imagery to further influence his novel inventions. For instance, an otherworldly character from the cartoon Captain Future leads to the contour of a pollutant reducing, living air filter. Tom Noddy’s bubble performance sparks the idea for an elegant glass-blown lamp. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome structure is extrapolated to construct a beautifully unique leather chair. The shape of an innovative resting pod for healing sleep deprivation is partly based on an etching of stalactites and stalagmites. Karl Blossfeldt’s surreal close-ups of natural design function as blueprint for a playful coat hanger. Many more examples of Lehanneur’s work and its coinciding research can be retraced in his latest monograph.

Mathieu Lehanneur's TED Talk

Ryoji Ikeda

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:54:17 +0000

Exhibition in Berlin

The Japanese composer and visual artist has conceived an exhibition for the Hamburger Bahnhof.

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About: The exhibition's title "db" (abbr. for decibel) refers to this symmetry while simultaneously indicating the complementary relationship between the two exhibition spaces.

  Ikeda has designed the white room and the black room as counterparts, not only physically (brightness, color), but also conceptually and perceptually. The project is a composition in which time and space are shaped through the most minimal use of sound, light and visual elements. It is the artist's first solo exhibition in Germany.  

Since the mid-1990s, Ryoji Ikeda has been among the foremost international composers and artists in the realm of cutting-edge digital technologies and their integration into visual and acoustic presentations.

Ikeda has also collaborated with artist, musician and composer Carsten Nicolai for the Gestalten-published cyclo. id, which is devoted to the visualization of sound.

Ryoji Ikeda

Nothing Lasts Forever

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:20:27 +0000

Discover FAILE’s Inspiration for Temple

You may have already witnessed the New Yorker street art duo’s interactive, architectural urban intervention in the midst of Lisbon’s historic centre during the tenth edition of Portugal Arte festival. However...

here’s a chance to catch a glimpse of the diverse visual research FAILE composed that finally influenced the construction of this bizarre, ornate hybrid of harmonious styles. Combining storefronts and sidewalk fences from Brooklyn with traditional tiling and sacred architecture of the Portuguese, FAILE have managed to create an overwhelming building which is as foreign as it is site-specific.

Their craft invokes a memory drawing on fragmented geography and futuristic decay, leaving the viewer in an appreciative state of dreamlike unreality. The FAILE machine seems to have ingested a southern European place of worship, turned it inside out and left its own distinctive mark of stencilesque graphics juxtaposed with banal, curios slogans and comic-like parodies of biblical sculptures.

The multitude of input and mythological outcome are difficult to describe, in the artists’ own words: "We’ve always been inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and others in 'man’s search for meaning'. This idea of creating a modern-day mythology reflecting our society’s values and temptations has always been appealing. Along with that, there’s always been this appreciation of religious iconography, symbolism, coding, and the objects that come from our reverence for the divine and/or the unknown. Our work tends to have elements of bewilderment and enchantment..."

Temple, the latest publication on FAILE, delivers further insight into these SAVAGE SACRED YOUNG MINDS.

Faile Temple @ Portugal Arte 10