Letterpress Workshop

"I'm obviously a Typomaniac. Which is an incurable, if not fatal disease. I can't explain it. I just love looking at type. I just get a total kick out of it. They are my friends, you know. Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, girls bottoms; I get a kick out of looking at type. It's a little worrisome, I must admit, but it's a very nerdish thing to do."

- Erik Spiekermann

This is one of my favourite quotes of all time. I can actually remember making a typographic poster around 3 years ago of this quote. If I get the chance I'll get that posted up here, perhaps even improve it with the skills I've learned in the time gone since. This quote is even more relevant to me today.

Right now we're being shown the ropes of letter-pressing. It's something I've been aware of and wanted to do for years but never had the chance to do until now. So, we've had a letterpress technician come into the studio today and he's showing us the basics. I was lucky as I got to grab my letters first and getting cracking with it. Again the Spiekermann quote I mentioned is very relevant. 

I absolutely love sitting at a computer and designing type so meticulously that I have complete control over the leading, kerning, tracking etc. and today I had the exact same attitude, yet I was using technology that is around 500 years older than what you're viewing this on.

How is it relevant? Well, seen as though the aim of this brief is to promote my website through printed media (whilst considering themes of augmentation and interaction), and my website being about code, perhaps a logo that was made in a very pure and traditional way would make a nice juxtaposition. Either way, it's experimentation that counts towards my design process. Check out the youtube video I made of my process:

You'll notice I took a while arranging the type, with intent to make it look as good as I could.

 I'm afraid I just couldn't help uploading these to Instagram...

Liam's work is all about seeing faces within other things.

Here's what I made. And I'm pretty pleased with it! I think I was a little bit cheeky by putting a little TM sign on the end, but it definitely contextualises it a lot more considering I was experimenting with a logo. The typeface is Futura Bold, and it's bloody gorgeous. I'm pleased I took the time to play around with the type, as the kerning is BANG on.