History has my vote this year. Peter Bilak’s typeface speaks to the current interest across the design fields in engaging users in the design process.
But he has done it in an astonishingly sophisticated way. By breaking down the typeface into components that can be recombined in endless combinations, he has designed an open situation rather than a fixed product. The results shown in his beautiful type specimen book are fantastic; now the test is whether ordinary mortals will be able to make it work.
Try it for yourself with the online History remixer app.
Ellen Lupton is a writer, graphic designer, and curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Her book Thinking with Type is a basic guide to typography directed at everyone who works with words.
Photograph of “Everybody Dance Now” exhibition at the AIGA in NY by Caren Litherland.
This font is beautiful. It gets my vote by a fonty mile.
Pure genius.
Entertaining and engaging. What more could you want?
It’s nothing new, sorry; this is just mix and match different styles.
I have seen better experiments with type at design schools, and in the swiss design journal TM.
Overheard on Twitter:
Stephen, I wouldnt say so
http://www.typotheque.com/fonts_in_use?filter_family_id=21&filter_language_id=all&filter_application_id=all&filter_country_id=all&filter_output_id=all
Yes, there are some really nice examples of good designers making History sing — just as there are of Avant Garde — but it does take a very good designer.
Great dynamic typeface. Czech people have spread through the world and continue to do great things. It would be awesome to see more of his work in Prague.