Raw Type

Finalists – Spotlight

Posted by Tom | Posted in General

It’s extremely difficult to judge the finalists purely on their final posters, that’s why we’ve shed a bit more light on each execution. For experimental type, the idea and the process is often more interesting than the outcome…

Rachel Benyon’s Hilfiker (Time)
We love Rachel’s ambition to create a typeface based on clock hands – at first thought is seems a near impossible task, however it somehow seems to work in a Wim Crouwel New Alphabet-esque way. Hilfiker is named after Swiss engineer and designer, Hans Hilfiker, who designed the Swiss Railway Clock back in 1944.

“I chose the ‘time’ themed brief and produced a very literal and purely aesthetic solution. The first and most obvious thing to think about when given the theme of ‘time’ is a clock. I was thinking of an analogue clock face with three hands; hour, minute and second hand, and started to wonder how possible it would be to produce 36 different letters and numbers from them. Hilfiker is intended to be purely aesthetic and decorative; not for functionality due to its lack of readability, especially at small sizes. Reading a word in Hilfiker relies on seeing the ‘shape’ of the word, as opposed to actually being able to determine each letterform.

Specific letters such as C, V, N, M, W, etc, were the easiest as they naturally have a simpler shape and could easily be interpreted with 3 clock face hands. Letters such as S, Z, X, K, T, etc, were more difficult as they have more curves, legs, arms, descenders, ascenders etc, and so producing them with a limited number clockface hands proved more difficult. These letters are more reliant upon the viewers’ imagination to ‘fill in the gaps’.”

Carl Holderness’ Doppler (Sound)
At first glance we thought Bryan Cox was looking to branch out into typography. Upon closer inspection we discovered that ‘Carl’ had created a truly experimental typeface based on breaking the sound barrier.

The doppler typeface is designed to be purely decorative. A travelling object is illustrated through a thicker line and forms the basic structure of the individual letterforms where the object moving. As this object moves through space the sound waves generated create a body of waves which forms the body of each letterform. Rings illustrate a varying amount of speed according to each letterform. Ascenders, descenders and greater character width increase line length and result in longer chains resulting in faster speeds that are supersonic. Shorter, more contained letterforms result in slower speeds which do not break the sound barrier and create a ‘doppler’ effect.

Michael Mercer-Brown’s Upper East Side (Photography)
How can you condense the typographic landscape of an area as dense as New York?

Bruce Davidson’s ‘Subway’ collection acts as metaphor for a larger human experience. The photographic series documents life in the New York subway, recording the animated energy of train carriages and station platforms across the busy metropolis. In response to the collection Upper East Side is a typeface that emulated this 1980s NYC gangland culture, and the hustle and bustle of the subway system that was documented by Davidson. Integrating pattern and changing strokes this sans-serif typeface is influenced primarily in response to the exhibition, takes the structure of platforms and subway lines to create a bold solid base to the font, juxtaposed with the pattern and light stokes marry the unpredictable and ‘colourful’ life of the subway gangs that are documented. The typeface being primarily a display font rather than used for body copy seems to stand well with the ideals of 1980s New York, its all about standing out. Whether it be gang-colours or fur coats.

Here is a link to some of the photos that were in the exhibition, http://www.edelmangallery.com/davidsonshow5

David Gasi’s Digital Delay (Light)
David was one of the only people who actually provided a working typeface – although we didn’t ask for this, it certainly earned him a few Brownie points.

Digital Delay was inspired by LCD displays and re-imagined on a triangular grid. Through this process the flat characters gain an almost 3-dimensional quality.

Find out more about David here.

Now you’ve had a look at each submission, we’d like to hand over the ultimate decision to you – so vote for your favourite here.