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Vol. 24, Number 3, Winter 1997]
The International Journal of Graphic Design and Digital Media, published by International Typeface Corporation.
The Winter, 1997 issue of U&lc celebrates “unslick” graphic design — an esthetic and an attitude devoid of ornamentation or ostentation which appeals on a level that ranges from the vernacular and naive to the emotional and visceral. This issue, designed by Modern Dog in Seattle, the masters of grunge design, features articles covering a 118-year-old letterpress in Nashville, the granddaddy of the unslick genre, Art Chantry, the improvisational Attik Design, and the indigenous graphics of South Africa. In addition, a case study of Plazm's type development for MTV appears, along with a report on the latest ATypI conference. U&lc also announces its first type design competition.
This issue’s cover features original art by Robynne Raye Modern Dog in Seattle, a design firm profiled in the U&lc article, “Talent, Unleashed” in the Spring, 1996 issue (Volume 22, Issue 4) by contributing editor Peter Hall. This studio was founded in 1987 with a start-up investment of $750 and a portfolio of work with a “raw, naive quality” says partner Robynne Raye, that eventually became inimitably Modern Dog. “We tried to mask that part,” Raye states, “but now we think it’s cool.”
Typography and Language
A report on the annual ATypI conference held in September at the University of Reading in England by Margaret Richardson and Joyce Rutter Kaye. Read all about encounters of the typophilic kind, the world’s largest hamburgefonts, speaking in tongues and rock 'n roll type.
New South Africa
With I-Jusi magazine, Orange Juice Design in Durban celebrates the ebullient spirit of the emerging South Africa. An overview of this inspirational display of indigenous art and design with an interview with principal Garth Walker by Margaret Richardson. She writes, “Garth Walker and his collaborators project a feeling for South Africa and its future, and they are forging a uniquely South Africa design style. It is as revolutionary as the country it represents.”
Art Chantry: Ascent Into Unslick
At age 43, Art Chantry, Steven Heller writes, is the “master of grunge, monarch of messy and messiah of vernacular. For almost 30 years he has resisted the cold professionalism of Modern design with his unorthodox methods...his rejection of low budget, yet never minimalist, methods has exerted a lasting impression on all those who purport to be design iconoclasts.” Heller’s interview with Chantry provides a timeline, in Chantry’s voice, of his career in searingly honest terms.
Pump Up the Volume
“Controlled unruliness” best describes the work of The Attik Design, a technologically savvy firm with offices in London, Huddersfield and now New York. Their self-published books, Noise 2 and the recently released Noise 3 showcase their “vivid, dimensional and densely layered” art and design for such clients as Kodak Professional, ESPN2 and Sony Playstation.
Hatch Show Print
For 118 years, this Nashville letterpress has created posters for acclaimed stars of the Grand Ole Opry, as well as traveling minstrel shows, circuses and magic acts. Today, its unique esthetic has been discovered by the graphic design profession who have seized the “happy accidents” created by wood type on paper for their commercial clients. In recent years, the press has collaborated with work for RayGun magazine, numerous rock bands and advertising agencies, and Jim Sherraden, the general manager, recently spoke at the AIGA conference in November in New Orleans.
Fresh Faces
ITC introduces 11 new typeface designs from handwriting fonts to geometric styles to a primitive design font. Typefaces include ITC Arid™, ITC Blair™, ITC Korigan™, ITC Pious Henry™, ITC Tapioca™, ITC Underscript™, ITC Motter Sparta™, ITC Stenberg™, ITC Abaton™, ITC Portago™ and ITC Ancestor™.
Mtvpe
Creating a new typeface for MTV required Plazm in Portland to rethink the fundamentals of typeface designand to endure countless hours of cable-TV watching. A look at the development of a typeface, created at breakneck speed, from the point of view of the creators, Joshua Berger, Pete McCracken, and Yariv Rabinovich.
U&lc Type Competition
U&lc announces is first annual type design competition, inviting entries of original, unpublished designs. Submissions will be judged in March by a distinguished panel of judges, including Roger Black, Mark van Bronkhorst, Colin Brignall, Tobias Frere-Jones, Jonathan Hoefler, George Ryan, Carlos Segura and Ilene Strizver.
Managing Editor Joyce Rutter Kaye presents her personal view on collaborating with the stellar designers of U&lc in the July/August issue of Print Magazine. Kaye’s “Creative Collaborations” elaborates on the process (and problems) of working over six years with a roster of talented designers from WBMG (Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser) to Words + Pictures (Laurie Haycock Makela and P. Scott Makela).