PPDPPDWITH CATHY

GALE

MERGED The idea of this short project was to experi-ment with typography and create our own font from two existing ones. Avoiding the easy task of combining two random letterings in a pretty way, we had to think about the mean-ing of each typeface, the status they have and the ------- that ema-nates from them.We had to think about contrast, size, upper-case versus lower-case. Italics? bold? modernist or old fash-ioned?

My first doodles show an attempt to grasp the nature of individual letters in various typefaces. I wanted my type-face to be aestheti-cally pleasing as well as meaningful. I tried using con-trast to place letters inside each other, experimentes with water colours, though about divid-ing letters in half and using negative space.

Next I did some experimenting with 2D and 3D letters. Browsing through a book of typography I came across a hand-drawn font whick looked like twisted ribbon. I thought it looked really beautiful so made my own se-ries. However instead of making the paper version and then illustrating it, I drew out “type” maing it look like 3d ribbon and then from there, at-tempted to twist thin strips of paper in the same exact form.

Playing around with lighting and shadow, Iphotographed my 3d pa-per word illuminated from different angles, thus making the shadows move around the lettering in quite a poetic way.

So instead of creating one typeface from two different fonts, this ex-periment demonstrates the reverse: One word made out of delicate twisted paper, gives birth to a new typeface out of its shadow. The first is tangible, the second is projected.

CONTRAST

WILDSTYLE IS THE NAME GIVEN TO A VERY COMPLEX AND ELABORATE TYPE OF HIP-HOP GRAF-FITI. HERE IN THE STREETS OF BRUS-SELS IT HAS BEEN SET IN HELVETICA - THE MOST CORPO-RATE OF FONTS.

Helvetica

Helvetica

HelveticaHelvetica

Lets try the contrary: what happens when you write helvetica in a font that is very different to helvetica style? Does the sense of the word change? The fonts i used here are school script, com-ic sans, medieval and braille.

HelveticaABCDEFGHIJKLMN

OPQSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmn

opqrstuvwxyz

BrailleABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQSTUVWXYZ

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQSTUVWXYZ

H C KLAKB UM AS O S C G AU D U K IO

I REALLY LOVE THE LOOK OF BRAILLE. IT’S MINIMALISTIC AND ABSTRACT BUT SO SIMPLE IN A BEAUTIFUL WAY. BECAUSE THIS IS THE ONLY TYPE AVAILABLE FOR THE BLIND COMMUNITY, I WANT TO PAIR IT UP WITH A TYPICAL GRAPHIC DESIGNER’S “ONLY” TYPE: HELVETICA. LETS SEE HOW THESE TWO NEUTRAL FONTS MERGE.

A B CDE FGH IJ K LMN OP QRS T UVWXY Z

MNOP RSTUVWXYZ

Q

GHIJKL

CDEFAB

AARREENN

TTHHIILL DD

EEBB

NNIIMMOO

SSTTUU

GGSSII?

MANIFESTOOF SUSTAINABILITY

1. What do you think defines sustainable de-sign? Sustainable design is planning to create some-thing which is as environmentally and community conscious as it can be given the physical and financial constraints. 2. In what ways can you say your practice is sustainable? Feilden Fowles promotes sustainability in its design as far as is possible; the actual methods vary from project to project depending on suit-ability. Sustainability is intrinsic to the design process from the initial brief development and concept design. The office itself is as sustainable as it can be - the employees cycle or walk to work, one of the main partners doesnt fly or eat meat. 3. Do you take on any project proposal or do you make sure the client has the same eco ethics as you?I cant answer this as i am not responsible for tak-ing on projects - but there are certain restrictions in building regulations and environmental bodies such as BREEAM which ensure a certain level of environmental responsibility have to be part of every project. Also the financial savings in the long term tend to make it easier to convince clients.

INTERVIEWEE NAME: LOUISE MACKIE

OCCUPATION: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNER

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FEILDEN FOWLES: SMALL, YOUNG PRACTICE IN EAST LONDON

WITH A FOCUS ON WELL DESIGNED SUS-TAINABLE BUILDING.

INTERVIEW WITH FEILDEN FOWLES ARCHITECTS

FF

4. Do you source from local or regional suppli-ers? As much as possible from local suppliers. 5. Have you encountered resistance from sup-pliers, or have you found that they’re eager to work with you when you put environmental re-strictions on how they operate? We tend to work with suppliers who have high environmental credentials in the first place. These suppliers are very eager to work with us and push their products. 6. What would make it easier for you as a de-signer and innovator, to make things more sus-tainable? Lower costs and flexible products - sustainable products that dont look sustainable. 7. Will the current financial crisis harm sustain-able architecture because people just want the cheapest solution? I imagine so, but the government has the renew-able heat incentive scheme and is keen to finan-cially reward those using environmentally sustain-able products. 8. How do you think sustainable architecture, and the way the public embraces sustainability

on the whole, will develop in the future? I think it will become the norm. Unsustainable design and events will be frowned upon. Educa-tion, both for architects and others, emphasises sustainability. 9. Personal views on sustainability?Environmental and community sustainability shouldn’t be treated as something separate from the design, it should be considered as you would gravity and structure. I think the problem is ‘add on’ solutions to inherently unsustainable designs.

BY LOUISE STEYAERT

Edmund Fowles

Fergus Feilden