Cambridge Collection

I spent this Wednesday in Cambridge with a very lovely bunch of photography students (Hello! Yes – you are on the internet but not on Facebook!) and I took my humble camera (very poor by the standards of the equipment that was being toted around me that day!) to do a little work of my own. These were all originally colour images and have been modified in PhotoShop – there has been no editing of the content but just a black and white conversion, along with a small number of appropriate specific tonal balances to achieve a more concentrated effect. 

These first images were taken from the tower at Great St. Mary’s where you are rewarded by these excellent panoramic views only after climbing a hundred and twenty or so steep, cramped, spiral stairs, and a few minutes rest to gather your sensibilities! The view above shows  the very impressive facade of King’s College and it’s immaculately manicured lawns. I took a couple of close up images of the grass last year which can be found on my Flickr site. This is lawn maintenance for the criminally insane!

This shot shows the rooftops of Caius College and Gonville College with Trinity College and St. John’s College in the background. I really enjoy looking at buildings from above; their unseen gables, chimneys, spires, fire escapes, landings and hidden inspection points. I like to imagine these environments as secret topographies; realms where alternative lives are played out, only to run for cover when someone like me is watching!

Inside the church, as befits its claim to be the ‘University Church’ there are memorials and tributes to the great and the good (or at least the privileged and moneyed) in both simplicity and extravagance.

This elegant plaque does have an english translation from the Latin, but I deliberately avoided reading it (I usually read everything, much to Mrs. Lestaret’s annoyance!) to retain some of the asemic qualities it offered.

I was particularly drawn to this swash tail and it’s relationship to the V and A. It makes a very comfortable threesome.

I was particularly taken by this unusual character that I hadn’t come across before that I assume to be a ÿ. The whole area of diacritics is very exciting to me as a new ‘asemic explorer’ and this has started a whole new set of possibilities. But first I must learn some more about the subject as I feel very limited in my own language. Consider the character below. If anyone can shed any light on what this is, please get in touch.

There is a beautiful inscription almost directly opposite (but along way off) that shows some great examples of the ‘long s:’

Esteemed or efteemed? The ‘long s’ is derived from the formal roman and rather than attempt to do better than this and this, I will leave you to follow those links for more information. The wikipedia description is also very informative.

Bufinefs. I like the sound of that!

Back to more serious matters, especially relating to memorials and letter cutting, there is a story behind the image above. I don’t know what it is, but someone else may do. What was originally in the depressions around this memorial? Why are they no longer there? I have not seen other stones with these hollows before and surely they are deliberate recesses for brass/bronze ornaments?

I then began to investigate those stones that had become worn over time. I like the weathering of gravestones and the remnants of lettering left after a century or so of environmental abuse, but these represent the deliberate weathering by the repeated foot traffic by a few centuries of worshippers.

Some names desperately clung on to legibility, but alas, theirs was always a losing battle, albeit over a long period of time.

Beautiful textures of stone polished by centuries of unassuming abuse and the very last remnants of the craftsman’s chisel marks shown in the ‘a.’  Just how long will it take to erase this name?

The variation in line width takes a real hit in this inscription. How much longer before we can no longer make out what it says from the marks left behind?

This stone is set into the side of a tiny window about two-thirds of the way up the stairs of the tower. I love the sharpness of the ‘u/v’ in the word church, which gives the impression that this is original to the 1602 or 7 date.

I took a lot of images whilst I was there, especially of the sculptures outside the Fitzwilliam gallery (who I refuse to link to because of the jobsworth attitude of the woman who was in charge of the admissions desk when we got there.)  The gallery is really excellent, but beware of going in a group unless you have recorded every communication with them. Their security people are very, very efficient.

A note to the photography students: as I said at the start of this post, all of these images were originally shot in colour. I chose to show them here in monochrome because I felt that they worked better that way. As the photographer, I choose to present my work in the manner and format (in this case, web) that I wish, because I have that choice. Many purists (read professional photographers) would say that this is either wrong or deliberately misleading. I’m ok with that: I’ve been honest here in admitting these images have been digitally manipulated and have presented them with this disclaimer, in plain imitation of those who can create these effects (wrong word) by more traditional methods that require specialist knowledge, equipment and experience. Those who know me or are regular readers of this blog will know how much I value the craftsmanship in any artistic endeavour and I hope will recognise my  humble acknowledgment. Many of my recent students will only know me as a digital designer because of my teaching responsibilities that involve about 80% of my time within a digital environment.

I will finish with a straight shot then. From the east side of the tower you can look down on the marketplace. This shot sees the ecclesiastical extravagance of the university architecture against the gaudy temporary market awnings. I am rather pleased with this. It is a full frame shot with no digital manipulation, no cropping, no image adjustment, no enhancement. It’s what I saw.

Rant #5 An Asemic Outing

According to Wikipedia, the word asemic means “having no specific semantic content”. The term asemic writing or asemic art can be applied to many visual styles, but in layman’s language, it means false or imagined letterforms, text or writing, or simply the use of literary formats for visual purposes. The writing is usually unreadable, but used to create the effect of visual communication. Asemic writing allows the reader/viewer to interpret the context and arrive at their own unquestionable conclusions.

Tim Gaze, a designer and publisher of asemic writing sums it up beautifully on his website:

“It looks like writing,
but we can’t quite read it.”

You can view or download several of his asemic magazines here as well as follow some of his links.

I stumbled upon the term asemic on an old post at the (sadly now defunct) the nonist as I was looking for something else. This link will take you to a post where the author admits to his first discovery of the term. I am staggered to say that I had the same type of experience where I had, for some time been using letterform and grammatical structures to create images; indeed, I filled several pages in a notebook just a couple of days before:

I had been creating asemic writing then. It’s good to have a name for it. It’s good to know that I was not the only one scrawling away, for page after page, totally unreadable writing. I haven’t posted anything here before because I really thought that I was a bit wierd. I feel as if I have just ‘come out’ about my asemic tendencies. I have considered the obvious contradictions between my often obsessive typographic fixations and the freeform, wayward habits of these non-typographic doodlings and explorations. I am ok with my typoholism; I see myself as a self-medicating typoholic these days. But this, this is something else. I am quite excited by the idea of publishing this post as it will probably mean that I am commiting myself to a more public exploration of my newfound (well, new-named) orientation!

I have long been interested in the work of non-western graphic designers, especially those who work with arabic, asian and non-latin letterforms. I have been lucky enough to have attended a couple of Icograda conferences where non-western designers have presented their work, their cultural influences (I will never forget the film showing the morning traffic in Beirut by Halim Choury!) and craftsmanship, and have always tried to consider these ‘angles,’ particulary in teaching environments. My students will know about my appreciation of the work of Oded Ezer, Hassan Massoudy, Reza Abedini (and Catherine Zask too), and I will confidently state here that I know that many of my students, past and present now count these people amongst their influences and inspirations.

I am humbled by the visual eloquence of non-western designers, and their visually linguistic cultures. I am also ashamed of my own ignorance during my schooling and regret not treating the learning of foriegn languages seriously. I don’t regret much, but I do regret that.

I am a product of my birth, environment and schooling, until I left college. I am proud of who I am and where I came from, but can with real honesty say that my schooling left a lot to be desired.  I can also blame myself for this, but thinking about this now as an educator, I have a better understanding of my role. I was, at least, encouraged to think at college, and that Mike, Alwyn, and Peter passed on one or two wisdoms that I, as a naive, ignorant and self-assured young punk acually learned from. Absorbed. Absorbed at the time and didn’t actually learn from, but have come to realise twenty five years after. Thanks guys. Sorry as well – I didn’t show you much respect!

The picture above shows a view of one of the buildings at Newfield Comprehensive School in Sheffield, just prior to it’s fairly recent demolition. It’s a stark contrast to the last images. I’m glad it’s gone – and I feel lucky to  have come as far as I have – it could have sapped the life out me just as it did thousands of others who filled it over the years.

This point brings me neatly to the subject of ignorance in another context. I have recently had the honour of observing the Chinese master watercolourist and calligrapher Chen Hong, and closely observed him deftly scribing beautiful Chinese characters that mean nothing to me linguistically, but take on a more important , almost talismanic quality because of my own lack of understanding of the language. Indeed, although he told us that he was writing poetry, he could have been putting down his last grocery shopping list for all I knew. This too then, is asemic writing to me (by default or ignorance) as is the work of others who choose to utilise their written language in their own art, either by choice or culture.

Of course, we can travel back in history, and pre-history, to where language was evolving and where ordinary people were recording their experiences and instructing their offspring, to potential leaders, mystics and spiritualists who were aiming to demonstrate their dialogue with deities, spirits and the arcane, to find examples of proto-language, lost languages, deliberately secretive languages (just consider the stonemasons and masons for instance), expounding religions, inciting rebellion and making themselves heard to a select few for whatever reason.

There are some great stories about the deciphering of ‘forgotten’ languages (the Rosetta Stone, the Voynich Manuscript-more of which later…) as well as the re-interpreting of old translations of ancient texts (The Rubayat of Omar Khayam) and many populist films have been made where ancient texts are a key element in the plot (The Mummy, National Treasure) and the deciphering or translating of text (the DaVinci Code, all the Indiana Jones films.) There are great tales of how ‘minority’ languages have made big impacts in word affairs – (consider the story about the US army during WW2 who made use of two native american indian soldiers from a tribe whose language was totally verbal – no written language – were given the task of radioing sensitive information across to one another from the mainland to the Pacific bases. The Japanese, who were excellent code-breakers did not have any reference to begin to understand their language and never cracked it)-  all these have made the subject kind of sexy. Not that it needed to be any sexier for me; I appreciate and accept the implied romance and glamour. (Mrs Lestaret would say that I need it, too.)

 Whilst I was searching for more general asemic information on the web, I came across  a number of references to the Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious 15th/16th century vellum book that has never been deciphered, and alleged to be a very elaborate hoax.

The entire manuscript is available for download on various websites, and can also be viewed in good scale and resolution here, and read views and theories here , here and here, amongst many others on the web.

I find that both concepts of authenticity and hoax plausible but leave too many unanswered questions to be able to come to a conclusion. This is only natural as I have recently found out about this, and I hope to be able to spend more time with it before offering up any real opinion of my own. But what a fantastic thought – a detailed and illustrated manuscript containing the thoughts and knowledge of … an extinct race? A mysterious cult? A breakaway religion? Settlers from a place that left no other records behind? The eloquent ramblings of a deranged monk? Or did someone take the time to create an entirely new language and carefully scribe it using ancient methods and authentic materials just make a few quid and fool the elite collectors, scholars and ‘experts?’ I like the idea of both, but why on earth would it result in this particular book. And why has it survived for so long/been the subject of so much investigation if it is a hoax? I’m no amatuer conspiracy theorist, but I like this idea.

It was whilst jumping from link to link, looking for full versions and more academic analysis I kept coming across the name Codex Seraphinianus in a number of related blogs, posts and reference links. Well now, this got me going!

The Codex Seraphinianus was create during the late 1970′s by an Italian artist/designer called Luigi Serafini and is, for want of a better description, an Encyclopaedia Britannica of a fictional and fantastical place, highly illustrated and annotated, but all in a completely fictional script. I was stunned. I wanted a copy of this book, I really did. My birthday was approaching and I had already justified it as a birthday present to myself - well, after all, it’s not every day that a boy’s forty-two, eh? More research on the internet revealed that original copies were quite rare and there had been a paperback (I’m not a book snob, but this had to be a ‘proper’ book!) but I had a quick look if Amazon came up with anything – well, you never know…

At this point, I could safely rule out being the owner of a decent copy on the grounds of religious belief – like many a devout follower of the Northern Skinflint cult, I made many vocal rounds of the traditional rosary including; Oh Jesus!; Christ!; Good God!; and ‘I’m not paying that much!’ Now and forever, Amen. This is a book I really want. The fact that I can’t afford it obviously makes it more desirable, but I know I that want a copy. Not just to say that I have one – I want to hold it, open it to a random spread and enjoy it’s eccentricity, absurdity, graphic beauty and craftsmanship. I even suggested to my students that they may wish to club together to buy me a copy for my birthday, but even split between them it was too much. If anyone has a copy and is foolish kind enough to loan me theirs, just for the enjoyment, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

A few links later I found a full PDF version on the internet (a Google search will find one for you!) and I have begun to examine its content at a more leisurely pace. Not that this is a substitute for the book of course, I still want one – more so now – but this is all I have.

Ok, back to the main thread. The Codex contains visual and written information about flora and fauna, peoples and places, cultures, and science and technology amongst other things:

All 370 or so pages of it! And all in this unfathomable, unique but very ordinary script:

The thing is, that although the script is unreadable, it is legibile. I can understand what it should be saying. The whole concept is exceptionally well observed – it shouldn’t work really – this is no more than a big April fools prank – but the sheer scale and structure of the book give it credibility that goes beyond this. It even has an index at the back – I am assuming it is an index because it looks like one. And that’s the point. It looks like one.

There is implied meaning in these pages. They use the visual/grammatical conventions of modern language, and conform to an accepted format without having specific meaning. We can follow their general direction through the the visuals, and place meaning upon ther formations on symbols that acompany them. We can understand titles, subtitles, captions, sub- and superscripts, references and incidentals. This is an amazing and intelligent work, that goes far beyond it’s fictional content.

I admit that I am obviously in awe of this work. It is new to me and follows the discovery that my personal imaginings are not isolated; that others have explored and experimented with fictional written languages – way beyond my indulgent doodles – and produced volumes of work that as collectable as conventional books, or even more so, given that only a limited number of people may still hold them in such esteem for their graphic content/inventiveness/percieved intellect/visual quality.

So where next for me and my asemic doodles? Well I needed to do something beyond the sketchbook so I did a little development on-screen:

Using the simplest of the ‘characters’ I had produced recently I created a vector line version and began to explore line qualities:

I even toyed with the idea of a ceramic 3D letterform in the style of the ampersand and ligature I made last year:

I doubt that I will go this far, but I am now thinking about putting together an asemic alphabet. You’ll be the first to know, honest.

TFI Friday!

On Friday, Christian – a graphic designer par excellence – came to Norfolk to present his work to my students and spend some time in consultation with them on their final major projects. Christian is a former student of mine who now works for Design Bridge in London and does all kinds of creative things in an excellent studio – I am really jealous! However, Christian kindly offered to come back to the college to share his experiences with us, but I like to think it was the offer of food, beer and printing on the Adana 3-5 that he very generously lets me use as my own that really swung the deal!

So following one of Mrs. Lestaret’s seriously enormous pizza’s Christian and I retired to the garage printshop to get down to the real business of the evening. After browsing through all the fonts, Christian decided to set the type for a simple business card. We narrowed the choices down to Rockwell light for his cards,

 

and Thorowgood Italic for mine.

And yes, we took loads of photographs! All these featured in this post are a mixture of both our shots. Christian even photographed me photographing the type!

 

So the serious business began: typesetting. Each equipped with a composing stick, we began to assemble our letters, Christian discovering the necessary references to the Pantone blues after many knocks, nudges and bumps sent much of his efforts crashing out of place! But eventually, he got things set up ok, which is the only way to learn really.

 

I was setting up some type for me too whilst Christian was cursing and getting frustrated. I decided to set two sizes of Thorowgood italic and got stuck in pretty quick. I’m not showing off here you understand, just making a point – it was only a few weeks ago that I was doing things just like Christian – fumbling and trying to get things right first time, but now I feel much more comfortable with the process, materials and the time it takes to get things prepared properly. There are no ‘undo’ buttons here!

 

Once we had the type set and spaced they were locked into the forme:

 

At this point we cracked open a couple of cans of celebratory lager (what other kind of lager is there?) and went to cut some card.

 

Well so far on this blog I have referred to the garage printshop on a couple of occasions, and feel that it has taken shape enough to include a photograph. I still have some work to do, and intend to make much better us of the space, but it’s cool having a place for the stuff.

 

 At the front of the image at the bottom is my Adana HS1, behind that is the Adana 3-5, both with the rollers removed from the last cleanup. At the right is an old type case, slowly filling up with type, blocks and other letterpress paraphernalia. The Thorowgood type (both sizes in the flat box to the left of centre.) On the slightly higher surface are boxes of spacing material in metal and wood, a small chest filled with seven drawers of type. I keep a lot of regularly used stuff here too – there are pots of pens, pencils, rulers, glues, scissors and knives. At the very back in the middle is my nipping press. We didn’t use it during this print session, but did do a bit of playful embossing before we stopped for the night.

 

On with it then. We began by inking up the disc – Prussian Blue you may have already guessed! And then worked the rollers over the disk to ink up the rollers. The formes were then locked into the press bed, inked up and the first cards were carefully positioned. (I had set up the lay gauge to get the best level and made positioning marks on the tympan just before)

 

And then the first print was pulled:

 

Christian pulled about half a dozen prints before feeling satisfied with the results, and then got PRINTING. After a short while though there was a faint groan and an expletive. As he had grown confident in using the press he began to get quicker, but managed to drop a blank card just as he was positioning it on the tympan. We got it out using some tweezers and it had an inky blue line across it where it had touched the rollers, but I thought it looked good and told him to use it again. And he dropped it in again! This was the eventual print!

A small but neat pile of business cards was gained from this evening though, and we had gone beyond the first celebratory lager! I think Christian was pleased with the good prints though, don’t you? I’m sure that you understand the necessary pixellation…

And me? I ran off a few more odd little cards…

 

And a final message goes out to Christian:

I really hope that you are too! Thanks for taking the time out for the students Christian – I hope you enjoyed it too. You are welcome back for more printing anytime!

Many thanks also to the kind folks at Design Bridge for sparing Christian for the day – we made very good use of him at college and the students are mighty grateful!

Embossed

Cleaning up the press last night after finishing off the cards and decided to tighten up the pressbed and get a decent emboss from the type. I didn’t ink up – I had taken the rollers off to clean them when I had the impulse. It’s not big or clever, but I like it!

Next Stop – Lino Prints!

Some of you may recall a post last year about New York subway signs. I have had those things knocking around in my head for a while now, and decided to do something with them at last. I had been wanting to do some more linocutting as I have been a bit letterpress obsessed of late, and wanted to do something typographical, so here we are:

The letterforms are very condensed with a mixture of rounded and square corners and were not difficult to cut. I wasn’t aiming for perfection either – I like the individuality of the construction – the originals were probably created by a signwriter rather than a typographer.

I selected two destinations from the original scrolls  to fit comfortably within in an A5 landscape area as I was planning to make these into greetings cards printed onto A4 card.

I also decided to go two colour – my first ‘proper’ bit of two colour printing! I cut a piece of lino slightly larger than the typographic block and printed around 20 or so sheets in a creamy yellow to mimic the original colour.

Once dry, I set to printing the black typo block. The image above shows my press jig (more on this another time); this helped me position the cards each time to get a reasonably close register on each print. The strip of card taped to the woodblock on the left is slightly bowed upwards to create a flexible ‘stop’ for each sheet, and there are markings (a bit light to see in these images) to help centre each sheet.

I deliberately did some under-inking to get that vintage worn out print feel.

The second block was printed directly after.

It’s a good feeling pulling away the prints. I’m never entirely certain of what I’ll get, but I think I got lucky here – apart from the first trial print of each block, every print was usable.

The garage finally started to look like a print shop too, with three rows of prints hung from strings in a zig-zag across the ceiling.

I am really pleased with the prints.

Next, I am going to print the Lestaret logo upside down on the other half of the sheet, before folding into greetings gards. I have set up the type and will complete the printing next week (Mrs.Lestaret has got me doing some DIY this weekend!) I enjoyed setting the mixed sizes for this:

I actually printed something on all three presses that evening (Wednesday 5th May) and I felt rather good for doing so too! Once I had cleaned up the lino, I inked up a single character on the little green HS1 and completed my second two colour prints! Just this question mark in red added to some 12 & 6pt Cheltenham setting in Prussian Blue I did a couple of weeks ago, with some of the really old type that came with the press.

It’s not beautiful; but it is hand-printed using old type on an old press (by an old man too my students may say!) and I am happy to be able to produce it myself.

I also tried again with the Adana 3-5 and the printers prayer I started previously, but this time with the rollers on! Oh yes, it’s amazing how excited I can get about four bits of plastic!

After making some corrections to the type, I locked the forme up into the press bed and did a few test prints. This press is a darn sight smoother than my little HS1!

As you can see, I still have some issues in getting a uniform impression, so I now need to do some ‘spotting up’ – sticking small strips of paper on the tympan where the type is not making an impression or is light:

After much wailing and beating of breast I admitted defeat.

I had made some improvements to the prints, but was spending so much time fiddling about with the spotting up I hadn’t noticed that it had got late and I was swearing a lot and beginning to get a bit peeved. 

So this week I have achieved some things and admitted defeat in others but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I doubt the car will make it back into the garage printshop again either. I will be in there regularly, printing stuff and ‘messing about with type’ – something I’ve been far to serious about at times. I want to print more little quotes and phrases cards too, and will probably do some competition stuff over the summer, along with some bookmaking – something I haven’t mentioned much here, but I have been quietly sketching and playing with some new ideas.

I am also aiming to revive the circus poster during the summer and begin some detailed lino or wood cutting – not sure which yet – I’ve been advised to try some MDF for woodblock printing! Of course, you will see them here first, don’t worry!

Reading List

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
Toilet Elephant by Nick Johnston-Jones
Tunnel Vision by Keith Lowe
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Playlist

East West by Bill Frisell
The Southern Death Cult by The Southern Death Cult
Dreamtime by The Cult
Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down by Noah and the Whale
Working Man’s Café by Ray Davies
Reprieve by Ani DiFranco
Invisible Fields by Iarla Ó Lionáird
Flags of the Sacred Harp and Liberation by Jackie O Motherfucker
Strjon by Arve Henriksen
Man From Another Time by Seasick Steve
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits
Dig, Lazarus, Dig by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds