Do we still need it?
Coexist — Call for Submissions
COEXIST—to live or exist together, in peace, at the same time or in the same place.
The first time in our lives the world is changing fundamentally. We need to rethink what all this is about. Higher, faster, and further at the expense of others cannot point the way to the future. We need to question ourselves, how we want to coexist, show consideration, and take a step back. How do we reconcile ego and common sense? How do we meet poverty where a few have everything? How can we face climate change, political madness, religious wars, and other paradigm shifts? How do we want to live in a society that is politically divided? How do we face government decisions that affect civic freedoms and human rights?
We are inviting you to submit a work that looks beyond Covid19. Please don’t submit posters telling us to stay at home and wash our hands etc. The topic is COEXIST.
SUBMISSION (ONLY BLACK & WHITE)
Instead of showing off with opulence we want to shine with modesty. Therefore, this issue will be produced exclusively in 1 color.
Graphic designers, illustrators, photographers—you’re very welcome to submit your artwork exclusively in black & white and add a statements that might guide us and others beyond status quo. Journalists, authors or poets, we would be very happy if you contact us by email and talk with us about your text submission. Text contributions are highly appreciated!
Submissions can be uploaded until June 5th, 2020. The issue will be published in October 2020. We will then review all contributions and get in touch with you. Thank you so much for being part of this!
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
What are illusions? Illusions trick you into perceiving something differently than it actually exists, so what you see does not correspond to physical reality. While scientists and doctors are studying how pathological illusion arises, our excellent designers are also working on how to trick your eyes with graphic illusion! In Optical Illusions in Graphic Design, it’s unbelievable to see how simple elements create extraordinary effects that attract your attention, make you doubt, and fall for their “tricks.” Waves and mazes formed by simple lines, overlapping images that cannot count the layers, stereoscopic vision from graphic to space, you will experience what optical illusions in graphic design does with your own eyes! Be prepared, and welcome to the “dizzyland!”
Wang Shaoqiang is a professor and graduate supervisor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China). He is a prolific editor whose works focus on international design, architecture, branding, communication, trends, and culture. Also, he is the editor of Design 360° magazine and Asia-Pacific Design. He has been invited to lecture at numerous universities, design academies, and organizations, and he has also been a jury member for China’s most prestigious design and illustration awards. Mr. Wang is also director of the Guangdong Museum of Art and professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Arts and Humanities within the Macau University of Science and Technology.
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
Publisher: HOAKI BOOKS
Editor: Shaoqiang Wang
Language: English
Volume: 240 pages
Format: 21 × 28.5 cm
Brand: Promopress
Bookbinding: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-84-17412-29-6
Price: € 35.–
Buy
Adelphi
Adelphi was conceived in 2012, at a time when when the UK was enjoying something of a cultural renaissance, following the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. In that age of optimism and a resounding sense of national pride and togetherness, a charismatic entrepreneur was preparing to launch a handmade leather footwear business and required a logotype to reflect the twin values of quality English craftsmanship and stylish desirability. And so began an exploration into geometric uppercase letterforms to suit the brief. The resulting collection of capitals was crying out for an accompanying lower case that would begin to take on a life and direction of its own, laying the foundations for Adelphi.
Rooted in twentieth century modernism, Adelphi is a geometric sans with a difference; the rigid constraints that define the genre have been adjusted. The elementary square and circular shapes of the Bauhaus are merely implied which means Adelphi feels much more relaxed and approachable than other typefaces bound by geometric conventions. The uncomplicated letterforms also occasionally reveal a subtle naïveté associated with the early Grotesques, adding to both the undoubted charm and usefulness of the typeface.
But Adelphi is by no means nostalgic; it is a contemporary, comprehensive, and durable system with a pragmatic set of features, including not only its wide array of weights but also ‘duplex italics’ and variable extenders across three typographic variants, from tall and flat in Adelphi Text (suitable for immersive reading at small sizes) to short and sharp in Adelphi Display (intended for larger headlines) with default Adelphi finding the ‘sweet spot’ between these two extremes.
Adelphi—the name originates from the Greek word for ‘brothers’—provides comprehensive language coverage for three scripts; Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek. The shapes in each script inform one another where appropriate and with cautious sensitivity. Such pan-European support—with small caps included—already makes for a vast character set, but Adelphi takes things a step further by including alternate glyphs to satisfy the DIN1450 legibility norm, a range of ordinals that can be used to create specialist compositions in all three scripts and two kinds of fractions and arrows.
Adelphi can be used simply as-is, or one can immerse oneself in the pleasing array of alternates. Choose the all-inclusive variable font or the individual styles (three variants packed together and priced as a single font). Either way, this understated beauty will carry you through.
Adelphi
Foundry: Rosetta Type Foundry
Designer: Nick Job
Release: October 2019
Scripts: Cyrillic, Greek, Latin
Format: OTF, TTF, webfonts, variable (weight, slant, optical size)
Weights: 3 × Thin, Extralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Extrabold, Black and corresponding Italics
Price: € 50.– per style (3 fonts), € 500.– for the bundle (3 × 16 fonts)
Free trial fonts available
Buy
Şimdi heißt jetzt—Momentaufnahmen aus Istanbul. Eine Sammlung
“The first thing a big city does to us is sneak into their language, and if we don’t curse, the curse will fall on our cells.” Şimdi heißt jetzt (”Şimdi means now”) is a collection of personal essays. Fifteen authors tell of their encounters, adventures, and crises in Istanbul—lively, honest, humorous, and sometimes melancholic.
The interplay of atmospheric illustrations and background information on everyday Turkish culture creates a complex picture of this city in which so many cultural influences, social ideas and individual dreams mix together.
Şimdi heißt jetzt is intended to make encounters possible. Encounter with new impressions and personal perspectives that arouse curiosity and create connections between Turkey and Germany.
We are far away from each other. We are close to each other. And we care about each other.
With contributions from Tuğba Yalcınkaya, Carina Plinke, Matthias Wechsler, Seda Sina, Neslihan Yakut, Marie Hartlieb, Navid Linnemann, Onur Sesigür, Zeynep Ünal, Seden Filiz Güleç, Onur Sekmen, Derya Reinalda, Marlene Resch, Uğur Ugan, Sabrina Raap.
Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Editor: Maviblau e. V., Berlin
Idea and editing: Navid Linnemann
Design & Illustration: Eva Feuchter
Format: 16.5 × 22.2 cm
Volume: 192 pages
Workmanship: Hardcover, full color
Language: German
ISBN: 978-3-948440-06-0
Price: € 25,-
FIESTA
Fiesta: The Branding and Identity of Festivals is a compilation of remarkable branding designs and campaigns for a variety of renowned festivals from around the world. The festivals examined span the worlds of music, cinema, design, gastronomy, culture, and art. The identity and communication campaign strategies deployed by festivals encompass an endless array of design techniques, from graphic elements such as logos, posters, web pages, advertisements, mobile apps, tickets, and wristbands to collectible items like T-shirts, bags, and cups.
Fiesta will inspire and serve as a useful tool for graphic designers and branding agencies that seek to handle challenging and wide-ranging festival projects with the highest degree of creativity and imagination, as well as for festival organizers and anyone interested in visual culture in general. The events featured show that the success of a festival has a close connection to its tailor-made branding and design and that no matter what the subject of the festival is, it is essential to have a coherent identity strategy.
Wang Shaoqiang is a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China), where he is Professor and Graduate Supervisor. He is a prolific editor, whose titles focus on international design, architecture, branding, communication, trends and culture, and the editor of Design 360° magazine and Asia-Pacific Design.
FIESTA
Publisher: HOAKI BOOKS
Editor: Shaoqiang Wang
Volume: 240 pages
Language: English
Format: 21 × 28.5 cm
Brand: Promopress
Bookbinding: Hardcover
ISBN 9788416851362
Price: 45.– Euro
Buy
Moon Exhibition—Lockdown special
The renowned Forward Festivals for Creativity, Design & Communication has started an open call for the Moon Exhibition—Lockdown special. For the time of the Covid19-Lockdown Forward Festival invites the creative community to use their platform to help in this situation that affects us all.
Creatives from all disciplines are invited to pitch their ideas for a special of the “Moon Exhibition,” which has been Forward’s platform for featuring young talent over the last years. Since many creatives lost their jobs due to the crisis, Forward decided to offer some of its ad budget as a “first aid kit” for the community.
Financial help as a “first aid kit”
“The current situation is hard enough already but it is even harder if you have financial problems due to the circumstances. This is why we want to help out our community in the creative industries not only by connecting them and giving them a platform but also by supporting them a little bit financially.” Forward writes in their statement on the call. The criteria for the call is not very strict, it’s more about pitching a “good idea” to present in a slot of Forward Magazine (examples mentioned are live-painting-videos, tutorials, articles). As it is a curated call, participants will need to apply with a concept of what they would want to do with the slot and Forward will publish what fits best.
Moon Exhibition—Lockdown special
Check out the details at the Forward Website and visit their Instagram and Facebook channels for more info.
Typeface of the Month: Game Time
All passion and frenzied heads blasting flecks of au jus into the faces of the temporally confused because it’s our Typeface of the Month: Game Time, all the time, and they aren’t what they eat, just an orange getting squeezed.
A raw sense of energy, strength and determination. It’s bold and quick-stroke style was created by hand with a chisel tip marker providing harmony within the angles as strokes change direction, while also achieving a natural flow and texture to the aesthetic to the font. The stylistic handwritten approach along with slight imperfections in its execution achieves an appealing contrast of structure and looseness within the design. The overall style of the lettering is influenced by retro artwork of the 1980’s in combination with modern urban art and graffiti culture.
Typeface of the Month: Game Time
Foundry: BLKBK Inc.
Designer: Derek Campbell & Justin Graefer
Release: 2020
Font Formats: OTF / TTF
Weight: Regular Bold
Price: $ 28.–
Buy
Motion graphics
Motion graphics—a digital technique that combines the language of traditional graphic design with the creative visual language of film and animation—has become a fast growing area within the practice of graphic design. With the function of storytelling, it evokes a strong emotion and creates a connection between the message and the watcher. It collects the outstanding projects from across the globe. All the striking works are divided into three categories, namely commercial, cultural, and experimental. Motion graphics will serve as a valuable inspiration for young graphic designers and anyone who have interest in learning more about the technique.
Motion graphics
Publisher: HOAKI BOOKS
Editor: Shaoqiang Wang
Volume: 240 pages
Language: English
Brand: Promopress
Bookbinding: Hardcover
ISBN 9788416851294
Price: 45.– Euro
Buy
form 287—Frauen und Design
The facts are completely banal: women make up half of the world’s population and some women design. The vast majority of them use designed products daily. And yet, like in many other male-dominated industries, women are still less visible in design than their male colleagues. Even as users, in the design process they regularly disappear in the shadow of the standard white male. form 287—Frauen und Design is dedicated to the diverse perspectives that feminism opens up for design. It collects brilliant feminist design projects as well as outstanding designers and design experts. form talks to them about their work and experience in the industry and learn that design is never gender neutral.
Since form edition 287 Anton Rahlwes and Nina Sieverding are the new chief editors. Both were previously part of the form editorial team. Anton Rahlwes took care of the art direction, Nina Sieverding was text and picture editor. Also due to Anton’s background in product design and Nina’s strength in communication and integrated design, they form the perfect team to lead form into a new era of design-relevant content.
The current form 287—Frauen und Design (Women and Design) editorial gives us a glimpse in which direction the new editors are heading: Does a contemporary design magazine need an editorial? Just one of the many questions we asked ourselves in the process of creating this issue. Other questions were: What will a design magazine look like in 2020? Who do we want to show? What can you say without hurting others? What is a good topic? Is “women and design” a good topic? Do we still need print? Do we still need magazines? What is design again? What is good design? And why should we of all people know that?
“With the new alignment we want to reach young people interested in design, but of course we also want to inspire long-established readers. We have tried to make exactly the design magazine that we wanted to make as students: queer and feministic, with many good stories and interesting personalities from all design disciplines.
I think our first issue has also become a good mix: there are topics that you would have found just as well in the previous form (such as the Everything-Else-Other-than-Vegan cluster, the material section on algae or the article on furniture designer Otto Zapf) and then there are topics that are really completely new for us, such as the personal essay by type designer Charlotte Rohde and the caricature by Rán Flygenring.” – Nina Sieverding
form 287—Frauen und Design
Editors in Chief and Art Direction: Anton Rahlwes and Nina Sieverding
Editors: Jonas Bornhorst, Mateja Huff, Jonas Aaron Lecointe
Release: March 19th, 2020
Pages: 180
Language: German
Price: € 15.– (DE)
Buy
Novelties from Little Gestalten
Isn’t this the perfect time to take a stroll through the Slanted Shop? Among other publications you will find various new publications of Little Gestalten Publishers, which belongs to the publishing house Gestalten. Little Gestalten’s picture books, nonfiction, illustrated stories, and pop-ups are addressed to the young readers.
Garbage Dog (German: “Streuner, der Straßenhund”)
A heartwarming tale about a dog that makes his way from the streets to a new home, discovering the true meaning of family and friendship along the way. It’s a tough life for a dog living on the streets. It’s no picnic having to fight for scraps, and no fun trying to find a dry spot to rest your head. But even in the darkest of times, Garbage Dog keeps his spirits up and looks after his animal friends. Gorgeously illustrated and written in humorous rhyme, Garbage Dog is a sweet tale about kindness and what it means to be a true friend.
A sweet tale that shows how kindness and sympathy is something that we create, no matter the cruel environment in which we live in. The book offers ways for parents to initiate conversations with their children about homelessness, neglect and fear. Many animal shelters offer to take out their dogs for a walk on the weekends—a fun activity for children to play with dogs and to learn taking over responsibility.
About the Author
Robbie Wilkinson is an English author based in Amsterdam with a deep love for animals, creatures, monsters, and ghouls. He has worked for Nike, Google and Nickelodeon. The author is also available for interview upon request.
About the Illustrator
Eleni Kalorkoti is a Scottish illustrator who now lives in London, where she spends her days looking after her dog Peanut, and drawing for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Google, NBC, and Penguin Random House.
Written by: Robbie Wilkinson
Illustrated by: Eleni Kalorkoti
Release: July 2019
Recommended for: Ages 5 and up
Features: Full color, hardcover, stitch bound, 26 pages
Format: 22 × 29 cm
Language: English, German
ISBN: 978-3-89955-832-6
Price: € 14.90, £ 12.95, $ 19.95
Buy
Beyond the Horizon (German: “Bis zum Horizont”)
Just like the ungraspable horizon, each of us is limitless. Uncover the infinite potential of your imagination with Beyond the Horizon. The world’s horizon is considered a limit to the vastness of our planet. For a little girl with a boundless imagination and irrepressible curiosity, it’s more than a frontier, it’s an invitation to explore and pursue what is ever-present but always just out of reach. Told poetically through her eyes, Beyond the Horizon is a beautiful tale that encourages us to grasp the invisible—both within and beyond ourselves. Playing with different fields of vision in multiple microstories and looking at the world from every angle, it takes us on a color-filled journey, reminding us all the way that how we see challenges and opportunities is just a matter of perspective.
About the Illustrator
Lisbon-based illustrator Carolina Celas works as a freelance author who uses different mediums in her storytelling, where fiction and reality regularly overlap. Through her humor and attention to detail, the reader is taken into the realms of the fantastical and surreal.
Illustrated and written by: Carolina Celas
Release: February 2020
Recommended for: Ages 4 and up
Features: Full color, hardcover, stitch bound, 40 pages
Format: 19 × 28 cm
Language: English, German
ISBN: 978-3-89955-840-1
Price: € 14.90 (D), £ 12.95, no U.S. Distribution
Buy
A Map of the World—The World According to Illustrators and Storytellers
The world of contemporary mapmaking is brought up-to-date in this revised and expanded edition of a best-selling book.
For centuries we have used the tools of cartography to represent both our immediate surroundings and the world at large—and to convey them to others. In our age of satellite navigation systems and Google Maps, personal interpretations of the geography around us are becoming even more relevant. Contemporary maps have evolved into platforms for cutting-edge illustration, experimental data visualization, and personal visual storytelling.
A new generation of designers, illustrators, and mapmakers has been discovering their passion for various forms of illustrative cartography and A Map of the World is a compelling collection of their work. It showcases specific regions, characterizes local scenes, generates moods, and tells stories beyond sheer navigation. From accurate and surprisingly detailed representations to personal, naïve, and modernistic interpretations, the featured projects in this updated version range from maps and atlases inspired by classic forms to cartographic experiments and editorial illustrations.
About the CO-Editor
Antonis Antoniou is fascinated by the ways in which material things can be brought to life through immaterial visualizations. He grew up in Cyprus, where he was interested in colors and forms from an early age. When not obsessively designing maps and lists, he makes his living as an architect.
Editors: gestalten & Antonis Antoniou
Release: January 2020
Features: Full color, hardcover, stitch bound, 256 pages
Format: 24.5 × 33 cm
Language: English
ISBN: 978-3-89955-881-4
Price: € 39.90 (DE), £ 35, $ 60 (US)
Buy
Six Little Birds (German: “Sechs kleine Vögelchen”)
What do six little birds do once they’ve learned to fly? One bird nibbles on a sunflower, another flies dangerously close to a hawk, and one little bird says goodbye to all of the birds who are flying south. During winter, another little bird meets some new friends, and finally, the the story finishes in the spring in a full circle, right where it all began. Simple rhymes and colorful illustrations make Six Little Birds a charming pop-up for small children. The book gives children counting skills, and it teaches them about the four seasons, nature and the cycle of life.
Rhymes and colorful illustrations make Six Little Birds a charming pop-up for small children.
By Olivia Cosneau & Bernard Duisit
Release: March 2019
Category: Pop-up book
Recommended for: Ages 3 and up
Features: Full color, hardcover, stitch bound, 16 pages
Format: 16 × 29 cm
Language: English, German
ISBN: 978-3-89955-828-9
Price: € 17.90, £ 16.95, $ 19.95
Buy
Monograph of Michelangelo Penso
The graphic design studio Multiplo from Padova, Italy, designed the Monograph of Michelangelo Penso. The Publication was written by Leo Lecci, Andrea Daffra, and Daniele Napolitano, and edited by the venetian Galleria Alberta Pane.
Michelangelo Penso is an artist who works with various materials and is specialized on sculpture, installation, and drawing. The artist’s work research a connection between art and science. His forms that fill the space are large configuration of organisms as they appear under the microscope.
Multiplo is a graphic design studio focused on print, identity, and digital media for a diverse range of clients and fields, from individual to commercial and institutional.
Monograph of Michelangelo Penso
Title: Michelangelo Penso
Design: Multiplo
Authors: Leo Lecci, Andrea Daffra, Daniele Napolitano
Editors: Luca Fattore, Lorenzo Toso
Publisher: Edizioni Alberta Pane
Release: November 2019
Volume: 128 pages
Format: 21 × 28 cm
Language: English, Italian
Production/Finishing: Embossed canvas hardback
Print: 4c offset print, uncoated paper
Printed and bound by: Grafiche Aurora, Verona, IT
ISBN: 978-2-9554761-3-0
Price: 25.– Euro
Buy
New Queer Photography
Art, more than anything, opens up the possibility of approaching one’s own sexuality beyond the limits imposed by taboos. Not only does it allow for a risk-free, playful exploration of gender and forbidden desires, but it is unique in capturing its contradictions.
In recent years, a young and active queer photography scene has emerged, helped in large part by social media. Indulging their desire for self-presentation, affirmation, and reflection, many photographers portray male homosexuality in particular as a private idyll. At the same time, they shine a critical light on their own and society’s approach to transsexuality and gender roles and expose the corrupting but also affirmative power of pornography.
Films, series, and mainstream cultural appropriation suggest that society has largely embraced queer lifestyles. However, a number of documentary photographers provide evidence that being gay or lesbian can still lead to marginalization, isolation, stigmatization, and violence in certain countries and communities. Their works also take the regime of sexuality itself into account and show that many bans on same-sex contact have colonial origins.
This carefully researched and richly designed book introduces around 40 contemporary photographic positions, including those of well-established photographers as well as plenty of unknown and less well-known talent.
New Queer Photography
Editor: Benjamin Wolbergs
Publisher: Verlag Kettler
With texts by: Ben Miller from Schwules Museum Berlin
Release: August 2020
Volume: 304 pages
Language: English
Format: 24 × 30 cm
Workmanship: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-86206-789-3
Reduced price: 45.– Euro (Until March 31st, 2020)
Retail price: 58.– Euro
Buy
Be quick and get your copy of the Book New Queer Photography for the subscription price of 45.– Euro until March 31st, 2020. (Retail price: 58.– Euro)
Forward Festival Munich 2020
Forward Festival Munich 2020 took place at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München from March 12th to 13th. Unfortunately the event was canceled after the first day, as a result of the current health crisis.
Forward Festival is an annual festival for the entire creative industry, which took place in Munich for the fifth time. This years event was dedicated to the challenges of the digital world and the human need for the analog counterpart. On this occasion, the organizers invited distinguished speakers and hosted various workshops.
Starting with Artefact Studio, who had developed an Augmented Reality App for the Forward Festival, to the triumphant finale, which was presented by Mirko Borsche, head of the graphic design studio Bureau Borsche and creative director of the ZEITmagazin—it was a great first and unfortunately also last day of the Forward Festival Munich.
The next Forward Festival in Vienna unfortunately won’t take place in April as originally planned, but probably at a later date in autumn. You will find news about that on Slanted Blog.
Photos by Laura Müller
Bedow Head and Bedow Hand
Design studio Bedow turns 15 years this month and is celebrating with two new typefaces: Bedow Head and Bedow Hand interpret the studio’s working process and the variable typeface creates a seamless marriage between thinking and making.
In honor of this approach, the two faces are named Head and Hand, two siblings in the same family with distinct personalities. Bedow Head is a rational sans serif—a pure strategist with an oversized head to match its intellect. Bedow Hand, by contrast, is a sensitive type—calligraphic, irregular, and the total opposite of its sibling. Though on the surface they’re so different, they adapt to each other very well. Bedow Head is suited to use as an everyday workhorse for body copy, captions and callouts. Bedow Hand gives personality to those irregular flourishes; for headlines and pull quotes.
Both typefaces were developed in collaboration with the Swedish type designers Tor Weibull and Alexander Örn of Kanon foundry and can be seen in action on Bedow’s website.
Bedow Head and Bedow Hand
Foundry: Kanon Foundry
Designer: Bedow Studio, Tor Weibull, Alexander Örn
Release: January 2020
Styles: Head & Hand
Soviet Design—From Constructivism to Modernism
The Soviet Union left behind Soviet Design that is largely unknown in the West. Unlike Soviet-era architecture and graphic design, interior design from this period has not been thoroughly investigated. For the first time, Soviet Design—From Constructivism to Modernism offers a comprehensive survey of Soviet interior design from constructivism and the revolutionary avant-garde to late modernism.
Based on extensive research and drawing on archives that were inaccessible until recently, Kristina Krasnyanskaya and Alexander Semenov document seven decades of interior design in the Soviet Union. They demonstrate that, while often discredited as monotonous, the work of designers, architects, and manufacturers behind the Iron Curtain, in fact, comprises a remarkable variety of original styles. With some four-hundred illustrations and a wealth of previously unpublished material, Soviet Design will become the definitive reference on the subject.
Kristina Krasnyanskaya is an art historian and founder of Heritage International Art Gallery in Moscow. She was curator of the 2015 exhibition Soviet Design: From Constructivism to Modernism, 1920s–1960s in collaboration with Moscow’s Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow. Alexander Semenov is an expert in Soviet design and a research associate at Saint-Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design.
Soviet Design—From Constructivism to Modernism
Authors: Kristina Krasnyanskaya and Alexander Semenov
Publisher: Scheidegger & Spiess
Bookbinding: Hardcover
Language: English
Volume: 448 pages, 257 color and 171 b/w illustrations
Format: 24.5 × 30 cm
ISBN: 978-3-85881-846-1
Price: 77.– Euro
Buy
May, The Victory Font
Berlin, May 1945. Victorious soldiers leave inscriptions on the Reichstag walls. Today most of these inscriptions can be seen only in photo archives and museums. On the 75th anniversary of the victory, they are brought back to life with May, The Victory Font.
RT and Contrast Foundry have created a unique font compiled from hundreds of original historical inscriptions. Behind almost each font character there is a real letter, hand-written by soldiers 75 years ago. Only certain missing glyphs in order to make a functional font for today’s standards are created from scratch. Like the # and @, for example.
Animography took on the task of creating an animated version of this typeface. All 493 glyphs are carefully animated in the correct stroke order. This animated version can be used in Adobe After Effects.
These inscriptions are the voices, words and memories of the victors. With its handwritten characters and symbols, calligraphic and rough, neatly styled and expressively sharp, the May typeface creates a visual link between the past and the present, between the victors and us.
This (animated) typeface is part of #VictoryPages, a social media documentary project. It offers an opportunity to look at the historical magnitude of May 9, 1945. A story of victory told for the young and by the young, using the language of modern media.
May, The Victory Font
Foundry: Contrast Foundry
Release: May 2020
Price: Free
Animated font
By loading the video, you agree to Vimeo’s privacy policy.
Learn more
Multitalent Gouache
The German-Russian illustrator and artist Aljoscha Blau presents in his new book all the need to knows about the underdog Multitalent Gouache.
Diluted, working with gouache is almost like with water color. Used as a paste, the paint is applied in opaque layers with a matte surface reminiscent of pastels. Soluble in water, it forgives “mistakes” and allows for corrections and revisions. The fine grain of the pigments makes detailed drawings possible. Gouache dries quickly, is non-toxic and inexpensive. Multiple international award winner Aljoscha Blau shares his many years of experience in this book, offers shopping and material recommendations, tips for swift success, suggestions on composition, tools and work steps. And he spices it all up with his own illustrations, which are both an incentive—and a feast for the eyes …
Multitalent Gouache
Author: Aljoscha Blau
Designer: Eva Finkbeiner
Publisher: Verlag Hermann Schmidt
Volume: 184 pages
Craftmanship: 220 colored illustrations, printed 4/4-colored consistently, thread-stitched hardcover with round spine and foil embossing
Format: 21 × 24 cm
Price: 32.– Euro
ISBN 978-3-87439-916-6
Buy
New Kansas
To celebrate the centennial of Cooper Black, one of the world’s most famous and best loved typefaces, Newlyn releases the first refresh in its 100 year history.
Cooper Black
Cooper Black shows up everywhere: movie and album titles, jewelry, airlines, and a range of shops from doughnuts to salons to tire repair, and everything in between. Cooper Black does not discriminate and this is what makes it an icon of pop-culture.
Oswald Cooper
Oswald Cooper (1879–1940) was a lettering artist who was trained by and enjoyed friendship with some of the top type designers and calligraphers of his day, such as W. A. Dwiggins and Frederic Goudy. He was raised a midwesterner in Coffeyville, Kansas, on the border of Indian Territory and on the edge of the Wild West. Oz, as he was always known, was a very lovable and mild mannered man, who’s wife once wrote of him “Many times have I seen wrens sitting on his shoes, singing, as he sat weeding the flowers … they too must have sensed his gentleness.” In 1899 Oz moved northeast to work in a print shop in Chicago, his midwestern humility and warmth was a part of his personality that transferred into his work, Cooper Black is the most enduring example.
Cooper Black’s Disadvantages
Made in 1920, Cooper Black has an unmistakable tone but was not the product of our modern technology. It is a neglected relic that has now undergone a deep clean and thorough restoration in order to create a fully fledged type family for wide use.
Many classic typefaces and styles have undergone numerous revivals and reinterpretations. But as one of the world’s most famous and most used typefaces of the past century, it is surprising that Cooper’s bulbous, oval serifs had not been modernized. There has been very little professional reappraisal of Cooper as a font family, and even less in that elliptical serif style.
Introducing the New Kansas Typeface
The New Kansas font family takes the idea of this populist, brash, and colorful typeface to a new level. Its seven weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, and Black) were designed to take on headlines, but they can also find their voice in paragraph text. It is far more consistent as a family than Cooper. Its distinct personality is visible throughout the weights, an improvement over the original, whose lighter weights have become dated.
Comfortable Everywhere
New Kansas, like Oswald Cooper himself, doesn’t have a trace of irony or aspiration, but speaks everything as matter-of-factly as possible. What New Kansas is is comfortable with itself. And it invites you to get comfy with it, too.
New Kansas is the type family with a tone for everything. It ignores trends for the greater benefit of being itself, it’s everything that current corporate branding isn’t. I hope you’ll find its advances to your liking—the better balance, sumptuously crafted curves, and extended character set—and use this everyman font family everywhere.
New Kansas
Foundry: Newlyn
Designer: Miles Newlyn
Release: February 2020
Weights: Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold, Bold, Black
Price desktop version: £ 40,– per weight
Trial Fonts
Buy
26. Leipziger Typotage
On Saturday, April 25th, 2020, the 26. Leipziger Typotage will focus on typography as a medium for orientation in digital and analog contexts. Not only do questions about individual type design will be addressed, but also the role of typography as an information carrier for (controlled) communication processes. The lectures will address user interface design, gaming, cartography, generative design and visual communication, which reflect a broad spectrum for typography as a navigator.
Speakers
Claudia Friedrich (zweigrad, Hamburg); Julian Jarosch (Digitale Akademie—Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz); Daniel Kuhnlein (Standardabweichung, Munich); Nadya Kuzmina (Interface Designer, Berlin); Jana Moser (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig); Benjamin Schöndelen (Deutschlandfunk, Berlin) and Nico Wüst (Strichpunkt Design, Stuttgart / Berlin).
26. Leipziger Typotage
When?
April 25th, 2020, from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Where?
Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig
Nonnenstraße 38
04229 Leipzig
For more information and application click here.
Additional Events
Friday, April 24th, 7 p.m.
Opening of the “Typo_Play” exhibition. Cooperation with the Leipzig SpielKulturLabor lalalab.
On Sunday there’s the possibility to join a guided tour or a letterpress workshop.
Adapter World
Adapter World is a design program involving an international team of designers and consultants who work with Rosetta Type Foundry to provide a modern, coherent, and reliable design for a wide range of the world’s languages. Adapter follows a number of successful multi-script font releases including Skolar, Skolar Sans, and Nassim and collaborations with global clients such as the BBC, LG, and Google.
Adapter already supports languages using Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Greek scripts. Adapter’s language skills keep on growing with the upcoming Arabic script extension due for release in early March 2020. This will amount to over 330 languages used by approximately 3.54 billion speakers* around the globe. Rosetta’s long-term goal is to extend Adapter to support languages of Africa, Georgia, Armenia, Thailand, as well as the many Indian languages.
Providing typefaces that are visually harmonized across diverse language contexts is no small feat as different languages and cultural environments pose many design challenges. For example, the aesthetics of the Latin script may not easily be translated to Arabic or Hebrew environments. This is a challenge that lies far beyond the abilities of an individual designer. Thus, Rosetta always works collaboratively, employing specialized consultants. The goal is to deliver fonts that are both visually pleasing and culturally valid. The quality of Adapter Cyrillic has already been recognized in the respected Modern Cyrillic 2019 competition.
Adapter World
Foundry: Rosetta
Art-direction: William Montrose, David Březina
Design: William Montrose (Latin), Sláva Jevčinová (Cyrillic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew), Borna Izadpanah (Arabic)
Release: 2019–2020
Language support: Cyrillic (62 languages), Greek (1 language), Latin (254 languages), Hebrew (6 languages), Arabic (31 languages)
Format: OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2
Styles / Weights: Text in Extralight, Light, Medium, Bold, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold + Italic and Display that also includes Thin and Black + Italics
Price: starting at 50.– Euro
Available at: Rosetta Type
Trial Fonts: here
Typotable No.5
Typotable No.5 —Lettering meets Lettering is part of the independent lecture series Typotable, where current type design and typography positions are shown and discussed. The lectures are held by established type and graphic designers as well as by young designers and students.
The two lettering artists Chris Campe and Mark van Leeuwen present their diverse projects and provide deep insights into drawing and the digitization of letters, letterings and complex artworks. The spectrum ranges from self-initiated projects to extensive commissioned works and collaborations. Mark van Leeuwen’s lecture will be held in English.
Typotable No. 5
When?
Thursday, March 26th, 2020
from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.
Where?
Großer Drucksaal im Museum für Druckkunst
Nonnenstraße 38
04229 Leipzig
Tickets: 7.– / 9.– Euro via tixfor gigs
For more information click here.
Note: Photo and film recordings are made for the event. By participating, you agree to the use of the recordings for documentation and advertising purposes.
Slanted × Kickstarter Mentoring & Publishing Program
International design magazine Slanted & Kickstarter are teaming up to launch an open-call for graphic designers, typographers, photographers, illustrators, editors, and art directors who seek funding for a project in the wider field of print publications in 2020.
This spring, 10 selected candidates will receive one-on-one mentoring sessions with Kickstarter’s team to help them successfully build & promote their campaign, as well as editorial and promotional support on Kickstarter and Slanted channels. Slanted will chime in with their expertise on the creative and entrepreneurial side of things.
The most outstanding projects are granted a chance to get published by Slanted Publishers. Slanted’s publishing program reflects their own diverse interests, focusing on contemporary design and culture. They work closely with their editors and authors to produce outstanding publications with meaningful content and high quality.
Applications
Applications will be open for 6 weeks until April 19th, 2020. Once we reach this date, we’ll begin the review process to select 10 projects. We will then get in touch individually to discuss the next steps.
What is there to win?
If you’re part of the selected candidates, Kickstarter & Slanted will be offering:
• Mentorship and advice from Kickstarter experts on planning & promoting your campaign.
• Promotion of your campaign through both Slanted & Kickstarter channels.
• Mentorship and advice from Slanted on the production phase.
• A chance to be published by Slanted Publishers, which means:
◦ Integration into the publishing program
◦ ISBN number
◦ Worldwide distribution
◦ Listed at German National Library
International promotion on all channels, e.g. Slanted blog (100K users monthly), Instagram 92K, Facebook 54K, Twitter 10K, Newsletter 35K ≈ appr. 290K reach
◦ Assistance with final artwork
◦ Professional proofreading
◦ Fair financial conditions (individually by project)
What are we looking for?
• Unique, creative, and bold print publications
• Within the fields of Art, Design, Photography, Illustration, Typography, Visual Journalism
• In form of zines, magazines, books; especially welcome master and bachelor theses in the mentioned fields
• Minimum planned print run of 300 copies
• Chosen candidates must be willing to make modifications on their work, if they are picked for the publishing program
Karl-Heinz Drescher—Berlin Typo Poster, Texts, and Interviews
Karl-Heinz Drescher (born on October 7, 1936 in Quirl; died on May 19, 2011 in Berlin) was a graphic artist working at Bertolt Brecht’s world famous theater Berliner Ensemble as a graphic designer for almost 40 years. In addition to his work at this house, Drescher also worked for other organizers, museums, galleries, and theaters, amongst others the Akademie der Künste der DDR, the Maxim-Gorki-Theater, and the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin. His catalog of works today comprises over 400 posters, about one third printed with letterpress.
In a one-year research, the designer Markus Lange contacted Drescher’s family and conducted various interviews with companions and friends to find out more about this talented designer, who studied from 1955 to 1960 in the former GDR at the same school as he did (Burg Giebichenstein, formerly Hochschule für industrielle Formgestaltung).
For the first time, this book summarizes most of Karl-Heinz Drescher’s (typographic) posters in one comprehensive volume and contains texts and interviews by various authors such as Dr. Friedrich Diekmann, Dr. Sylke Wunderlich, Helmut Brade, Niklaus Troxler, Gerd Fleischmann, Jamie Murphy, Erik Spiekermann, Ferdinand Ulrich, Götz Gramlich, Peter Kammerer, Vera Tenschert, Cesarina and Alessandro Drescher. “Karl-Heinz Drescher—Berlin Typo Posters, Texts, and Interviews” serves as a review of the life of an extraordinary theater graphic designer but also as an inspiration for the here and now.
Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Editor & Design: Markus Lange
Final Artwork and Production: Julia Kahl, Clara Weinreich
Project management publisher: Lars Harmsen, Julia Kahl
Release: February 2020
Format: 19,5 × 26,5 × 2,5 cm
Volume: 272 pages
Language: English, German
Printing & Embossing: Stober
Cover material: WestRock Crescendo, C1S 300 g/sm by WestRock
Paper: Holmen TRND 2.0, 80 g/sm by Holmen Paper
ISBN: 978-3-948440-00-8
Price: € 40,–