Signage Brief

  Signage Brief

This blog is entirely for this project and i will be posting my progress as i go, I'm new to blogging so we will see how it goes...

The Thames Poetry Wall

Our trip this week will be visiting this site to take some photos of potential sites for the poems along Bankside between Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Poems chosen ideally need to reference the thames in this area.

Initial Ideas

• Reflect other side of the river
• An Environmental Poem
• Poems on tubes
• Option of being landscape
• No images or illustration 
• Shortened poems will attract readers whereas longer poems tend to put people off reading them, short attention span.
• Cutout lettering/engraving.. texture
• Poster placed on tidal part of the river so that when tide goes in and out more of the poem is revealed.
• What happens at night? lighting or glowing? (sundials? dependent on legibility)
• How close do I want the readers to be until they can clearly see it?
• Legibility, typeface and colouring
• Will a shiny surface disturb legibility, think of surface textures
• How to draw the readers in
• Songs about the Thames?

Poem Choices

After researching poems about the Thames or even boats or docks I came across this at first.

A Riverain Rhyme                                                   The Thames Passport

Beside the river in the rain-                                     The Thames - a well known line upon a map,

The sopping sky is leaden grey -                             Becomes well loved beneath the skilful pen,

I watch the drops run down the pane !                 Of these two young explorers. Bravely when

                                                                                   In winter, guiding far their little boat

Assuming the Tapleyan vein -                                Of sudden, mid the ice, fair lilies float,

I sit and drone a dismal lay -                                  And every town becomes, a magic place -

Beside the river the rain !                                       Coloured with English charm and English grace;

                                                                                  ( ... 'to be there' - then )

With pluvial patter for refrain;

I've smoked the very blackest clay;                         Is this not, after all, our wishful wish

I watch the drops run down the pane.                   To be well-known, but more than this -

                                                                                   To be well-loved, by those we love so well

I've gazed upon big fishes slain,                              That neither time nor space can break he spell

That on the walls make brave display,                   Of years and all - gone by,

Beside the river in the rain.                                     And that we smile but never cry ...

                                                                                   ( is this not port-of-call? )

It will not clear, 'this very plain,

The rain will last throughout the day - 

I watch the drops run down the pane.

I almost feel my boundless brain

At last shows signs of giving way;

Beside the river in the rain.

O. never will i stop again -

No more will i attempt to stay,

Beside the river in the rain,

To watch the drops run down the pane !

Although this does not reference the Thames I interpretation of London is bleak, dull and wet usually with grey skies so this to me summed up driving past the Thames on a wet busy day. However I am going to look into other poems to see what other options are out there.

I instantly think of wavy text, grey bleak colors but then this is too easy and most likely already be done.
Whereas on 'The Thames Passport' is a poem about love based around thames, although in this poem I only really like the first verse, using a nice descriptions about the boat and the surroundings. Again I noticed that it speaks about cold weather which is what I relate to when I think of London.

Chosen Poems and Quotes

Watching the river - Laura Kayne     


The sun shines down
Lights it's calming waves
And I am truly spellbound,
Watching in a watery daze.


Awash with colours
Green, blue, dark and light.
I peer into it's coolness
Till there is nothing else in sight.


How would it feel to slip
Beneath the murky ripples, bidden?
Sheeted like glass, tinted with depth,
Danger like an iceberg, hidden.


To fall upon it's watery bed,
And sleep forever more.
would there be rest, and peace
Far from the living shore?

• This poem is the poets perception of the thames, it's very descriptive making the thames seem picturesque and almost dream like?
• more descriptive on the actually water rather than the history or any activity happening on the thames which leaves me to able to make this contemporary as no particular date or event has happened.
• Good to be positioned facing the thames as whilst reading you can either imagine it, or admire the thames and relate to the poem while watching it.
• Almost day dreaming, I initially thought of the poet or a women sitting on a bench opposite the thames watching the day go by and having a sense of envy that the river is so calming yet the life around her is hectic and busy.
• Escape?

Short poem/quote - Sir John Denham and later Matthew Prior

Serene yet strong,

Majestic yet sedate,

Swift without violence

Without terror great

• Ideally I want to concentrate on the contrasts used in these comparisons, they are so strong and contradicting that they should be highlighted.
• Beauty of the Thames is contradicted by dangers and negatives of it.
• Uncertain view of the thames, wanting to accept it as beauty and nature yet it has elements that are strong.

What I like most about London is the fog - Daphine Schillers

From the sixth floor of the Savoy

He strokes the fog like restless smoke

Across the Thames. An orange sun

Brushes the haze, turns the water coral.

A blue spume moistens the canvas

Sliding the hours before sunset

Into a shimmering dream. Light,

Clouds and river billow past,

Vapour rolls in the air, obscures

Our boundaries. In a hundred paintings

The artist shifts his visions

Before us. Paint feathers the surface

Like a meniscus. You could walk

On the buildings, float on the sky.

In the foreground

The luminous river courses like blood.

• Early morning scene in London and Thames (rise of the morning, or morning activities.)
• The poem references 'he' on the second line, who is 'he'? is it God? is it a spiritual reference, or this a process of a painting as later on it says about artists and painting? could be a painted, painting the view from his room in the savoy?
• Lots of descriptions i could use to edit text to reference these such as the colours and words such as 'shimmering,' 'vapour' and 'moistens.' I instantly connote a week day wet morning in london like any other but making it more exciting and appealing for a fresh and dewy morning.

Whynotassociates.com

www.whynotassociates.com

Visited why not associates.com which showed work from Gordon Young who works on typographic pavements.
His work is fresh and beyond ordinary making it interactive which draws people in, usually as soon as people see something that is interactive and different they will draw to it. I particularly like the 'Walk of Wishes' the placement of the slabs create a flow that you follow when reading, also with a variety of sizes, making certain ones stand out more than others, rather than a long list of text it as been broken up in sections, so all the text is there it just looks more approachable and interactive. Also the 'Typographic trees' caught my attention and found it quite ironic that they are using the source of paper to place his typography on so in a way it is still ruining trees?

However the main element I noticed was the type used, usually you would associate trees to be flowing in the wind and quite light and free yet Young has used a contemporary tall fixed width sans serif typeface which resembles the complete opposite, but it works, the type used relates to the strong body of the tree seeing as it is just the trunk used not the flowing branches and leaves which you would use a more flowing maybe calligraphic

typeface.

 

www.gordonyoung.net
     

My own image

'Bankside Walkway'

On a recent trip a came across these designs along Bankside, the words and type lead you on through a long phrase, which again links to that idea of interactivity drawing in the viewer as it did with me. They contracts between raised and cut out lettering defining the two pieces. I think the ideas is as majority of people walk down the bankside this is easy to walk along side this and subconsciously read it as you walk along. 

Concrete Poetry

Concrete poetry or Size poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on. www.wikipedia.com


The composition of the poems reflect the feel and content giving the reader a clear understanding and the sense of scenery, concrete poetry is often known as visual poetry because of the way it is set. this enables the reader to not only read the poem but to look at it as well, making it different from the conventional poem layout.
I looked into the history of pattern poetry and where they originated from as to me i would think that they were a modern idea, but they would have to start from somewhere. I came across a book called Pattern Poetry : Guide to an unknown literature by Dick Higgins. Higgins looks into early forms of poetry and pattern poetry. I found this quite interesting as they look very similar to todays design.

Hand Rendered Type

In the last project I researched and explored Si Scott whose an illustrator to concentrates on natural elegant swirls whist focusing on type, some of his stuff is absolutely amazing. I envy how much detail he puts in without distracting or disturbing the legibility of the type and also refraining from making the designs feminine. Scott does not just concentrate on typography he also has created logos and some beautiful illustration using the same style throughout but managing to make them all differ from one another. Scott uses small strokes in this example and contrast between thick and thin in the type used creates that dynamic look, instead of the whole design being thin and elegent. The use of wide kerning helps portray that spacious effect used with his large curves and thin strokes, the design can breath.

www.siscottstudio.com

www.mikeperrystudio.com

I furthered my research into hand rendered type i found a couple of books in library - "Hand Job" by Michael Perry and "Handwritten" by Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic.I found hand job quite interesting and just full of different hand rendered types, i found this quit inspiring as it pushed me out of the comfort zone that handwritten had to be in a calligraphy style.  each design had there own stamp on it, the fact that there are some defects made them seem more appealing that someone has bothered
 to do this rather than just type something on the computer and it's done. It made me think that you can have fun with type and really there are no set rules and really should start playing around with type to make it fun and quirky which always catches the viewers attention whether they like it or not. I feel something like this, is what the poem needs to stand out from the others and grab your eye. 

Some designs were similar to Si Scott's technique or using shapes to create a letter like in the example to the left. Or others which for me stood out the most just played around with simple elements in type, block colouring the letters, extending or shortening serifs, stems and ascenders to give a quirky look. The second example to the left was not something I particularly loved but like the idea of giving type texture and depth, that concept of making type 3d and 'sitting' on the page could be another way of reflecting the content of poems, such as the city? All the tall buildings, creating a tall block type would reflect to this well, subconsciously to the reader.

I didn't find much inspiration from the 'handwritten' book but there was one spread where the word 'stitch' was stitched onto the page. (this design was photographed for the book.) I thought of a poem say about sewing or cotton mills this would be a good representation of this without showing any imagery or even that idea of dashes for the type would still give you that connotation of stitch work. For example about the thames you could choose objects such as chains that would be used on boats, or wood, or other boat or river items, river help buoys? 

Pattern poetry : Guide to an unknown literature.

During research I came across a book on google called Pattern poetry by Dick Higgins, who has studied the history of pattern poetry and proved that there was early forms of pattern poetry. To the left is a pattern poem by 'Joesph Beaumont' (1616-99) in the 17th century called Suspirium Ad Amoren, a love poem although it was not published until 1914. The original version is on the far left and on the right is the printed version from 1914. It is said that weaving of the lines could refer to the two loves breathing, I can't see this myself. My connotation of this would be communicating with each other hence the lines going back and forwards, its quite a loose wave which could relate to the tone of the voices whereas if the waves were tight and sharp I would connate this to an argument or some negative content. I also thought that the length of poem could could relate to length of their love? Or the tone of the voice the poet wanted the poem to be read in. 

 

Annotation

www.thethamesexperience.co.uk/downloads/theriverthames.pdf has a collection of poems around the subject of the thames whether its rivers, docks or wildlife. I was reading through them and noticed this particular poems layout, how it is set and reflecting the poem. I initially noticed the use of 3 short columns for the text which when placed below the image, emphasises that steady calm river. The use of left alignment creates that connotation of a flowing river, there are not any exaggerated lines that stand out from one another, it's quite clam. There is good use of kerning the lettering is nicely spaced not too tight but still giving that idea of tranquility and space. Also the leading is quite wide, letting the words breath and again creating quite a clam soft effect. The poet name is set in quite a strong uppercase serif which is nice, making the strong contrast between the poem and the poet.

Marion Deuchars

My own image

Tim introduced me to Marion Deuchars who i have seen her work before in the Tate Modern museum without really noticing. Her typography is featured on a large space showing an art timeline. Below is an image i took last year of the type but at the time i did not know whose design it was and now i can put a name to it. Her style is quite childlike, almost a controlled mess. Deuchars uses quite tall, thin upper case lettering and then combines it with a quite freehand calligraphic type. I was discussing with Tim that "If i   created my own hand rendered type it would not look as professional as this does." But then Tim made me realise that she probably tried this a lot of times to get the letters looking exactly how she wanted. Her type is made to look as if it has just been done quickly but in reality she knows exactly what she wanted and took her time finding it.

www.mariondeuchars.com

Computer Arts - The secrets of great typography

I noticed that the most recent issue of Computer Arts magazine (October 2011) was an issue dedicated to typography so I bought a download issue. The articles are full of inspiration not through imagery but the opinions of designers do make you think outside the box, for example Craig Ward featured his opinion on type, urging us to move forward. 


"Why do we revert to tried and tested techniques an styles? And why do we celebrate it instead of trying to push things forward? Only a few studios today turn genuinely forward-thinking typography, the rest just seem happy to follow the herd. And that, perhaps that is the biggest crime of all."
This was a real eye opener for me, it may not of been meant to relate to every designer and not everyone would agree, but it's true to some extent. Although there are some lovely typefaces such as Helvetica and Baskerville (in my opinion), we should really be thinking of moving forward.




In the Magazine there was a feature called 'Kerning tricks of the pros' a really good read giving you tips on how to kern such as to blue your vision so that you concentrate on the contrast between the letters and space, and another great tip which i will definitely will take on is turn the word upside down so that you can focus more on the spacing rather than the word. The article gives the links of websites that will kern your text for you. This made me think differently about kerning, it's all about the flow of the lettering and the space surrounding it where as i only thought about the overall appearance of the type rather than the ease of the reader.
There were a few other statements that really were beneficial. "One might think that in order to fit a long word we need a narrow type, but it's quite the opposite we need a wider type that can breath and allow some white space." just a refreshing way to look at and think about typography, when using a large word i have always thought I need a narrow type, but i will no experiment around with type, at least try and think outside the box. 
The five must have fonts

• Akkurat
• Compendium
• Georgia
• Helvetica
• Knockout

Cherlinger

www.cherlinger.tumblr.com is a blog showcasing variety of artists works whether it's type illustration or photography. There is so much inspiration on this site it's amazing, a few designs really caught my eye, to the left is  an illustration posted by 'Houseofbourbon' the whole idea is retro and the designer as clearly thought about elements that will create that understanding. For example the block print style bottle, for one a vintage way of printing and two it looks slightly eroded/broken revealing the age of the piece? the type used is hand rendered but based on computer typefaces, that idea of combining typefaces to bring out some elements, each type chosen works yet still show that aged feel (which could also relate to age of whiskey.) The composition of the wording has been warped slightly and curved to bring the flat block printed image to become slightly 3d or to give the illusion that is 3d.

Another example i found was not overally because the typeface but the idea behind grabbing the viewers attention, it's quite comical. Walking past this will instantly catch your eye due to scale of the piece, the use of uppercase it's quite loud. the question asking." Am I wasting my time talking to you.' which i found quite ironic, the majority of people or in fact it maybe just me walk past billboards or posters, take a glance then most of time just walk past and not taking away any interest in what i have just seen. In a designers/company view this would be a waste of time. Or another example would be when people are trying to sell you things in the street and you just walk by, this is cutting out the middle man which is quite amusing.

Above I found an image, my connotation of this immediately was lead to the recent french connection ads, I certain that the same typeface has been used for both posters, also the photography style is similar, they are quite realistic full of motion no particular posing a shabby chic style. Also the positioning and sizing of the type is literally spot on with french connection. Dominating the page, white fill colour and uppercase. It was hard for me to see this poster as anything else but french connection.

Graphic Poetry

Book referenced on moodle 'Graphic poetry' A Wig-01 project which i found in library but also looked onto their website www.wig-01.com/graphicpoetry which also showcased some of their work. The kiss by Alan Kitching (poem by Maureen McManus) was one that grabbed my attention just through the though process behind this. For one the overall composition is obviously representing lips, but the colouring looks like lipstick or at least feminine lipstick colours and also on the one side it's as if someone has kissed them poem and left a kiss mark. From the word kiss featured at the top of the poem it made me think of the sound of a kiss, getting louder as the letters grew bigger. The fixed width condensed typeface used takes the idea away from a classic love poem, if you changed the type to calligraphly your connotation of this would differ, you would think classic love poem even though you haven't read it yet. this typeface brings it up to date whilst setting the tone for the poem.

Scan from Graphic Poetry

Scan from Graphic Poetry

 At this stage I think I might keep the poem quite simple and rely on a bold quirky heading, otherwise i think if i use something too out there for the whole design it may disturb the legibility of the piece and take away the content of the poem. whereas if you use the header as the vocal point the interest would already of been gained.... but then again i don't want to disappoint or bore them.

Comedy Carpet - Creative Review

www.creativereview.co.uk

Latest issue of Creative review (September issue) features Gordon Young's and why not associates Blackpool Comedy Carpet.  the carpet is situated on the seafront near the Blackpool tower with sketches and phrases from various comedians who have performed in Blackpool. The letters are made from granite and concrete and set into slabs. A trend i am noticing at the moment is the use of tall condensed typefaces like 'knockout' and 'Portishead Dummy' fixed width and quite dominant, only used in uppercase. The likes of V magazine, The new Weetabix television advert and fashion billboard. It seems to work with any subject that attempt to be 'out there' and show off a new trend. Although Weetabix wouldn't be classed as a new trend, I think the idea behind is to relate to modern day family life and the chaos of mornings.

Blackpool Comedy Carpet.
My initial thoughts of this was how clever the idea of positioning the type on the floor and in such a large scale, you cannot miss it so whether your interested in it or not, you are guaranteed to look at it if you were walking by. My connotation of this was some of typefaces used look quite circus like, slab serifs which instantly made me think they would be comical rather than formal information. Also using a variety of typefaces expresses different tones, and the scale of them show punch lines in large and other lines in a small format. The great thing about this design is you do not know where to look but it excites you as so many things are jumping out at you. The different types used reflect a certain comedian so it suits their style of their tone of voice which is important to focus on. The kerning of the text is quite tight in some cases helping the flow of the words, almost creates the right speed to read it in? 
The example in the picture to the left 'Just like that' the fact that it only contains 3 syllables, setting it out under each other, automatically i read it quite loud and short and sweet.
I am going to annotate the poem to get a full understand on the poem and what i want people to see it as, do i want to keep it classic? or change it so it's more approachable to the modern society gathering a larger audience?