Commentary

Temporary Type at St Bride

Shelley Gruendler on November 12, 2004

After this year’s successful Bad Type conference, the Friends of St Bride announced their call for papers and exhibitors for Temporary Type, 10—12 October 2005.

Temporary type is work that has knowingly been created without longevity, which simply serves the moment. It includes all ephemera, newspapers, street literature and fly-posting. Temporary type may also be that which is seen only fleetingly such as on television, in the cinema, on computer screens or used in video games; it might be found on the electronic departure signs at railway stations or the score boards at sports events. Temporary type could include lettering on the move such as the graphics found on the side of transit vans, on the tail-wings of aircraft, or the advertising on the side of buses. It might also encompass graffiti or body painting. Perhaps temporary type is a fount that has found short-term acclaim but then descended into obscurity.

We are looking not only for Conference speakers, but also for people who might wish to exhibit material or who would like to create graphic or art-installations on the theme of Temporary Type.

If you have a topic that fits the theme, then we would be delighted to hear from you. Please send an outline of your proposed talk in not more than 300 words to conference@stbride.org.

Closing date: 1 February 2005

11 Responses to “Temporary Type at St Bride”

Mike Langlie says:

11.12.04 at 4:42 pm

Ha, I won a prize for my photo entry to the Bad Type contest. Thanks to Shelly and Caroline for the nifty postcards!
Hrant says:

11.12.04 at 6:11 pm

You know what’s great about the St Bride conferences? They don’t just think of a theme for “validation” with no intent to make the content actually relate to the theme; their themes are real, not hype.

hhp
Dan Reynolds says:

11.13.04 at 3:48 am

I prefer conferences without themes.
shelley gruendler says:

11.13.04 at 10:49 am

Thanks guys!
We are proud of what the St Bride Conference has grown into for we think of it as the conference where people can explore their quirky interests (the quirkier the better), therefore expanding the ‘realm’ of typography. Well, Tom Phinney labelled it his ‘favourite conference’, so we must be doing something right!
si says:

11.13.04 at 12:08 pm

>I prefer conferences without themes.

Such as? All the recent type conferences I recall had a theme, even if no one remembers what it was.
Dan Reynolds says:

11.13.04 at 1:50 pm

Hmm� the old FUSE conferences didn’t have themes, I think. I believe that the themes came along when they renamed them the TYPO-Berlin (insert year here) conferences.

Also, Linotype’s conferences don’t have themes either. And I’m pretty sure that the smaller German conferences have done away with themes as well (Forum-Typografie, Typo Tage in Leipzig, etc.). This is because, sort of like last year’s TYPO-Berlin, the theme is just “type” (or �Schrift� as was said conference’s actual theme).

Do TypeCon conferences really have themes? Type High is a cool phrase, but does it really mean anything? (I do know what “type high” is�)

If no one remembers a theme, did it ever actually exist? Wouldn’t the recent Prague ATypI conference have been a crossroads of civilizations, even if the theme wasn’t “Crossroads of Civilizations”?

(I am trying to be light-hearted here, please don’t hate me ;) The St Bride conferences have great concepts for their themes).
si says:

11.14.04 at 10:38 pm

Fuse98 may not have had a theme, but it had a charter…

“Their (the presenters) specific charter at FUSE98 will be to catalyze a new and vital vision of the fundamental nature of the communications world, and to inspire a renewed understanding of the technological context in which that world is embedded.”

I think the theme vs no-theme will require some further research.

Si
Thomas Phinney says:

03.29.05 at 1:54 pm

I don’t remember saying it, but I probably did say that St Bride was my favorite type conference. The primary reason for that sentiment is the smaller and more intimate nature of the conference, compared to TypeCon and ATypI.

Of course TypeCon started out much smaller. Unless membership is capped, it’s possible that the St Bride conference, too, will some day grow to 250-400 people, at which point it will be a big conference, too.

The Linotype Typotechnica conferences have an inherent theme of type technology. The ATypI conferences have themes which generally seem pretty much theoretical. While it is a very different experience going to a strongly themed conference such as St Bride, I like both strongly- and weakly-themed conferences. (Though if it were up to me I might drop themes altogether rather than have weak ones.)

T
shelley says:

03.30.05 at 6:36 pm

thanks, tom. i can assure you that we do have a cap on attendance – i doubt we’ll ever go beyond the 150 mark because we too like the intimate nature of smaller conferences and anyway, the bridewell hall can only hold that many people!
. . . and we try to pick ‘quirky’ themes rather than ‘open’ themes for the talks are far more interesting that way!
Amanda Smith says:

06.26.05 at 4:46 pm

Gosh. I attended two years ago and would like to travel to London again but the dollar is just so weak.

$273 for a three day conference plus plane fare? It’s just too much.
Si says:

07.02.05 at 10:50 am

Amanda, you don’t mention where you’re located but often conference organizers will have unpublished lower fees for those in developing countries. Costs can also be kept down by sharing accommodation with other attendees.

Si