Metropolis magazine is shining the spotlight of their Portfolio section on our very own Christian Schwartz this month. Take a look & download the three bitmap fonts available.
See also: A Letter to Schwartz : Amplitude
Get a prominent ad at a reasonable rate. Support Typographica.
Are Christian�s typefaces appropriation � applying a professional gloss to the original work of anonymous, vernacular lettering artists?
No.
Why not?
I think it’s OK because it’s public. But I personally do value more abstract inspiration. Plus I don’t get that bitmap font givaway business – what’s it supposed to accomplish, besides confuse people? It’s like they had to give away some free fonts, but Christian (rightly) refused to give away any “real” outline fonts.
A question: where it says “web exclusive”, does that mean their print issue doesn’t have this article?
hhp
Amplitude?
I wrote to Metropolis and complained a bit about the article — mostly about how lame their showings of his typefaces are. They call it the “Portfolio” department of the magazine, but the work is poorly shown. One glyph per font and no link to his real portfolio site which clearly displays his typefaces.
Nick, you are believing the journalist’s ‘story angle’ too much. Christian Schwartz is just honest about his sources of inspiration. In the case of Fritz it is something by Oz Cooper, and for Amplitude it is Bell Gothic, for Simian it is Bengiat’s titles for ‘Planet of the Apes’, for FF Bau, Grotesque, and for the forthcoming Farnham it is Fleishman. None of these are ‘vernacular’. And he has come up with wonderfully fresh and stylish solutions. Amplitude is really outstanding, I think.
On the one hand, it’s good to get more widespread media coverage for type design, but it is disappointing that this article trivializes it by going for the easily accessible “appropriation” story angle to tie it all together.
But that’s the problem with an eclectic body of work. Sure, “portfolio” suggests a consistent oeuvre, and that’s the way most artists have to brand themselves in the marketplace (if they’re not already that single-minded) — it makes for a more impressive gallery showing — but it’s not really a good access point to designers, whose work tends to be more diverse and client-driven.
And in Christian’s case, fonts for several different foundries. (Foundry specimens in a consistent format are very good at highlighting a designer’s characteristic themes.)
Ed Benguiat has a great slide-show of NY signage that has inspired many of his faces. Wandering round the city, what do the Situationist call that?
I guess the most well-known fairly recent typeface to be derived from the vernacular is Template Gothic. But in all these cases I would really like to see the original as well, and then we could decide for ourselves how much credit the “unconscious” anononymous lettering artist deserves, and how much to admire the interpretive artistry of the professional.
Memo to self: format for a regular magazine “Type Gallery”?
When Metropolis first contacted me about doing this piece, I sent them about 18 different families to look at, to show them a fairly full range of work. Since they are an architecture magazine, naturally they gravitated toward the stuff based on architectural sources – it’s stuff their readers are more likely to relate to. Ink traps and 18th century Dutch punchcutters may be fascinating to all of us, but mention them to an architect and watch their eyes start to glaze over.
Most of my work borrows from things that came before. I’m drawing typefaces – how can it not? So I acknowledge my sources as best as I can and try to bring something fresh to my interpretation. But I don’t think it’s fair to say that I’ve built a career on “applying a professional gloss to the original work of anonymous, vernacular lettering artists”, and I don’t think the article implies anything so cynical.
In the end, I’m happy for any kind of exposure my work, and type design in general, gets outside of our little world, even if the specimens are flawed and the editorial agenda of the magazine comes through louder than anything else.
I like the ideas that Metropolis has, I like the content and the writing and the photography, but the design of it is just so bad. I’m just going to let my suscription run out.
Sorry if my provocative opening comment upset you, Christian, but please note that I phrased it as a rhetorical question — and indeed it is the question which the magazine article suggests and answers with an emphatic “yes”. (You must admit that my question had the desired effect of bringing forth the apologists.)
Despite a brief mention of you mixing highbrow and lowbrow, the overwhelming impression left by the article is not as you say about “architectural sources”, but is clearly encapsulated in the deck as “roadside attraction”, with your design process as a peripatetic search for “visual fodder”, justified by the vague de rigueur mention of Post-modernism, ending with the profound comment “I like looking at that stuff”. Hardly flattering.
The problem is with the magazine, not the subject. They have mixed two formats, interview and review, doing neither justice. If it were a proper interview, a few basic journalistic concepts would have been covered, such as age, location, etc. If it were a proper review, it would have mentioned which of your faces are most used, and where — the kind of cultural context that is normal for movies, music, books.
But to return to the question of appropriation and professional gloss. What’s wrong with that process anyway? It’s all in the phrasing — appropriation (theft), professional (insincere), and gloss (superficial). But the process it describes is time-honoured. Any suggestions for an alternative description?
Something along the lines of “conceptually engineered development”?
What’s important is how much the interpreter adds. For comparison, consider Roy Lichstenstein’s comic book blow-up paintings: it’s now accepted (in some circles) that the paintings where he just copied an unknown comic book artist’s work verbatim were not only a complete rip-off, but (as pointed out by Rian Hughes in Eye recently), bad, wooden renderings. However, original Lichstenstein compositons also derived from the Ben Day world, such as his “Brushstrokes” screenprints, are completely brilliant.
So the question must be asked (if the subject of source/inspiration is raised at more than a cursory mention), what does the new work add?
So again, without malice, as a rhetorical question, and not discounting the well-deserved publicity provided by Metropolis: When you derive work from the vernacular, “mixing high and low”, what exactly, beyond some general post-modernism, are the “sophisticated concepts” (as Ms. Steen puts it) that you add, Christian? Is there anything other than expert font engineering, or is that quite sufficient?
> The problem is with the magazine
You’re too kind. The problem is with journalism. At least.
hhp
There are exceptions, Hrant. John D. Berry recently reviewed one of my typefaces at CreativePro, and I was totally thrilled — he covered the most important parts of what I had written in the press release, and added his own perspective and observations, that’s what really impressed.