This month I’ve read:
Underground by Tobias Hill
The Dumas Club by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Doctor Johnson & Mr Savage by Richard Holmes
And The Ass Saw The Angel by Nick Cave
(great cover by Banksy)
And currently enjoying Company Of Liars by Karen Maitland
dipping in and out of:
Designing Type by Karen Cheng
and a few issues of Graphis magazine from the late 1960’s
A real mix this month…
The Rain by Ghazal – A wonderful birthday gift from Mrs Lestaret, this is a very subtle and moving live perfomance of Indian and Persian musical traditions. Listen here on last.fm
Nighthawks at the Diner by Tom Waits (again)
He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Sometimes Grace The Corner Of Our Rooms by A Silver Mount Zion
Pacific Drift by Nobody
Songs for the Broken Hearted by Windy and Carl
Glider by The Sight Below
An Imaginary Country by Tim Hecker
The Floodlight Collective by Lotus plaza
A Colour for Autumn by Lawrence English
Cyborg by Klaus Schulze
Midnight Vultures by Beck
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables by The Dead Kennedys
Little Johnny From The Hospital by Company Flow
Martes by Murcof
Mountains, Mountains, Mountains by Mountains
The Good Child by Nick Cave
I was shown some rather nice small samples of slip casting earlier in the year which got me to thinking about some possibilities for future student typography projects and have decided to try it out with the guiding hand of expert sculptor, 3D guru and all round good egg, Ben. I started this towards the end of March and have been experimenting ever since (the ampersand was a direct result of these early explorations). I have tried to photograph each stage as well as I could, but sometimes didn’t get good enough images, or forgot to take the camera, or was just so filthy I couldn’t even bring myself to touch the camera!
First I needed to create an extruding die first to fit in the extruder, which is just like the PlayDoh barbershop tool! I selected the lowercase ‘a’ from Helvetica 95 Black (and why not?) and enlarged it to fit within a 90x90mm square. The print was trimmed and spraymounted onto a block of MDF. After drilling a pilot hole, I carefully cut out the letter on the band saw, and used files and sanding belts to refine the edges. The counter was positioned with two metal rods, drilled through the outer frame and superglued in place. The clay would eventually be pushed through this die, and reform after passing through the rods. That’s the theory anyway, we’ll see tomorrow! The die was then compared to a second copy of the original printed character to check the position – and it was pretty much on the spot too!
The finished template has a certain charm I think, and the two supporting rods add a kind of Heath-Robinson quality to the thing!
… Back to the 3D workshop today for an extrusion! Firstly, the die needs firmly securing in the extruder before forcing in a huge block of clay (1). The press section is put into the top of the extruder and with some steady pressure pull the lever down (2 + 4).
The extruded clay oozes out (with some good farty noises!) of the bottom and removed with a wire (3). The first attempts were not too good as the clay didn’t ‘repair’ after passing through the two supporting rods.
We decided to modify the die to try and encourage the clay to flow around the rods better, by milling a recessed area on either side leading to the rods.
This improved the extrusion, but not by much, so a further modification was made to the recesses, milling the rounded edge to more of a point. Again, this improved the extrusion, but again, not by much.
Ben advised me to make another die, slightly smaller this time, and position the counter space of the letter in the centre, so we could use another form of securing it rather than using rods. So its back to square one. Disappointing, but having seen the next solution working perfectly, it’s definitely worth it. Plus, I think I’ll improve on the curves the next time around…
The next die was slightly smaller, allowing the counter to be positioned centrally, allowing a thin angled bracket to be secured to it, allowing the clay to ‘heal’ as it passes through. The grooves are where the bracket sits to allow the main die and the counter to line up.
I went through the extrusion process again (forgot to take a camera but the process is just the same as before) and got three long well formed ‘a’ logs:
These were transferred to a jig where I sliced each one with a wire, starting off with the rougher parts for practice. I cut some thin slices first, and went on to cut a variety of thicknesses, wedges and angles, finishing with a few mad slices to explore the technique further.
I doubt I’ll use these last ones, but I’ll see how they go. These were then left overnight in the damp cupboard to slowly harden to ‘leather hard.’
Once sliced, these were left to air dry in the workshop for a few hours, allowing them to become a little firmer to the touch and not mark so easily. I needed to trim and clean them a little further with some splendid and mysterious hand tools like this thin metal strip called a kidney:
and these double ended square and rounded hoops:
I’ll finish tidying these up tomorrow:
Well, the majority of the letterforms were left to air dry over the Easter break, and then fired in the kiln. At 100° every hour, for six hours, reaching 600°! The one destined for making into a mould was left in the damp cupboard.
This is what the kiln fired one looks like next to the hard clay. The ones from the kiln here very hard now, and no longer workable, whereas the hard clay one could still be worked on, if only in a limited way.:
And the collection of those fired…
There is quite a lot to follow on from this so I’ll post more in a week or so on the glazing and mould making stages…
I am spending the last few days of my fortieth year thinking about the slow inexorable march of time and the inevitable shuffle away from the ‘life begins’ stage. I have already considered the usual old chestnut of ‘what have I done with my life’ and can be quite happy with my appraisal. Apart from a missed opportunity with Deborah K___ in the last year of school (if only I’d asked her again!) I am satisfied with my personal achievements. I have two great kids and a wife who could describe herself as ‘long-suffering’ but doesn’t. House, car, and the usual baubles too – all the diversions of a normal middle class life. I have developed professionally too, with new letters to add to my name on the business card, some good design work produced, and some generally good responses from my students. I’m still experimenting too, having completed a printmaking course before christmas, and my current experiments with 3D forms and ceramics.
I’ve got more grey hairs than I can count in my once luxuriant dark brown hair. The beard is largely salt and pepper too. There’s noticably more forehead than fringe. And a few twinges that are beginning to be more than just twinges. I am worrying about when I’ll start saying to my students “when I was your age” and “you don’t know that you’re born these days.” It will come, it’s just a matter of time.
I’m not unhappy about all of this, although I may sound like I’m building up to a big ‘but…’, but (well, ok I was) I am feeling a little odd about my age and about time in general. To tell the truth, I can’t remember what I thought my adult life would be like, or whether I even gave it a thought at all. I remember buying the first issue of 2000ad comic as a kid, and working out how old I would be in the year 2000, and being disappointed about how long I would have to wait before I lived in ‘The Future’, with it’s hover bikes and jet packs, commutes to Mars and holidays in space. Food in tablet form and silver suits. Automatic houses where everything was done for you. It’s now 2009 and I won’t be jetting off to Mimas for a fortnight in August. I will be thinking about my hover bike as I sit in the evenings traffic though, and my automatic house, complete with Plexiglas dome over the garden as I wash the pots tonight.
Judith Hahn, Maggie Philbin, and that other guy from ‘Tomorrows World’ sold me a future that no-one had any intention of providing. I guess that I feel a bit cheated, especially about the hover bike.
This spurious outburst was originally published elswhere and has been included here in the hope that others (I am sure I am not alone) may have their own insights to add…
It’s on the wish list, obviously. Check out Marc Johns drawings here – this guy has a very particular view of the world. Buy his book and keep him at it…
The ampersand was indeed Rosewood Fill and was correctly identified by Kristie earlier today! Very well done – I must ask you to tell me how you identified it – by skill and an encyclopaedic knowledge of typefaces, or just by running through all the ampersands in your font files? Either way, the prize is yours. I will email you for your mailing details and I pray that you don’t live somewhere too remote…
Thanks to everyone for taking part – I guess this is the way forward eh? Stay tuned for more design stuff, creativity and general typographic fun. If anyone hasn’t seen the other running competition, please see here, and remember that the closing date is 30th May and the prize is a unique handmade sketchbook…
Also, thanks to Jake for submitting the piece to NOTCOT and welovetypography, a special prize will be coming your way for getting me so much extra publicity.
I’ve been getting my hands dirty! I’ve made a large ampersand from clay which is in the process of air drying. I’m so pleased with it I wanted to share it with you. Eventually, it will be fired and white glazed, which will allow the quality of the clay (krank clay – it’s very gritty) to come through, giving it a sort of toasted appearance.
It stands about 300mm high, and is around 55mm thick but will shrink by about 20% when dried and fired. It weighs quite a bit, but is hollow, having been formed out of slabs around 15mm thick. It is as neat on the inside as it is on the outside too – it looked nice in consruction, so I photographed it then:
And here’s a closer view. The holes and gaps are there to allow air to circulate and prevent empty enclosures which could crack when firing.
I’ll add more when it’s complete…
Hmmm. Graphic designers are known for their trainspotterish habits of identifying typefaces (just ask Mrs. Lestaret!) so go on then; what typeface is it? First person to answer correctly wins this unique handmade letterform (H50mm, W55mm, D25mm) which will feature in a new series of upcoming entries.
Yes, it is a bit hairy.
ADDITIONAL Just to clarify that it’s the ampersand’s typeface I want you to identify, and not the ‘a’ which is Helvetica Black, obviously…
EVEN MORE ADDITIONAL! This has just been linked to from NOTCOT – ( number #21734) …thanks Jake…
It’s not just us designers that love type. Read here about a puppy that had to have surgery after scoffing a set of fridge magnet letters. I don’t know why they didn’t leave them in and just stick the dog to the fridge…
Well, the Arms Length Self Portraits have, quite literally, been flooding in. I have been swamped by four, yes, four entries! This is turning out to a be a real competition at last! Ok, four might not be much, and the prize might not be the Americas Cup, but I do want to encourage more entries. I will be judging on 30th May and setting a new challenge, which, now that some of you are getting into the spirit of things will try again. Spread the word!
Hey Hey! it’s those two crayzee guys again…
Stay tuned for more unpredictable graphic design escapades! Next time, with 20% less odour!
lestaret.wordpress.com 