At the end of November the Typographic Circle hosted an event with Fred Flade of de-construct. The evening was a great chance for me to get to know one of Neoco’s clients better. I was impressed by the welcome and warmth of the event. This was a group of people with a very specific passion that somehow managed to not be at all cliquey. Fred’s talk was an informal walk through sites that had impressed him in terms of their typography. A few cautionary examples but mainly an homage to what can be produced when the power of type design is approached respectfully and playfully. It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of work that deserves more attention. With that in mind I’d like to give you five examples of websites that Fred discussed that really grabbed my interest:
This Mercedes interactive site makes 19 points by playing with relevant typography. Each letter, A-S, says something about the Mercedes S-class in a captivating way so that what should be boring car facts or sales slogans comes to life and resonates a lot deeper.
Mathieu Badimon’s experimental 3D lab in flash begs to be played with. Control perspective and other dimensions, position and distort. I am always left feeling that there’s so much more potential to this site than it actually realises but I never thought that what basically amounts to just dragging shapes around could be this addictive.
For all seasons is a personal project exploring seasonal memories through simple and interactive typographic art. It is beautiful for it’s inspiration, it’s simplicity and the way it associates written memories with the physical. The harsh appearance of black and white text is striking but it fails to capture any of the seasons in depth. Still worth a look.
“Cut up / Code in” is still a bit of a mystery to me. It to pulls text from news sites for you to play with by changing words. The control that the user actually has is minimal and that adds to power of the changing text and meaning. And then you notice that you can type in your own text to play with but what continues to fascinate is the question; ‘what are the rules of the game?’ This is cleverer than it appears and I’d love to know what other people think of it…
Finally Twistori.com is a website that plays with text within the blogosphere. It pulls statements from twitter that feature a word chosen by the user. What I love about this site is the human element – what is being showcased is the ability of the internet in terms of personal communication, its sheer power to let voices be heard but the irony that this freedom also detaches the voice from it’s physical owner. This site is social voyeurism taken one step further and yet it is somehow a comforting place that makes you feel connected.
This is only a very few of the sites that Fred Flade spoke about so I have asked a graphic designer here at Neoco to take a look as some others from a design perspective. In the meantime let me know what you think of the sites I’ve discussed…
Tags Art De-construct Fred Flade Mercedes News seasons text The Typographic Circle twistori Twitter Typocircle Typography web design