Media, Events, Experiments
hfour
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Posts by hfour
Underwater Burns
Aug 23rd
Using some underwater content from a previous filming session, I experimented with creating light leaks, film burns and other light based errors common in old, cheap camera equipment.
The light leaks and film burns were all created in after effects, as was the RGB separation effect.
Avenir’s influencers, now in movie format
Aug 23rd
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The post on Avenir on August 17th 2010 has more written details about this investigation into the typeface.
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Self-Portrait
Aug 17th
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Every few years, I create a self portrait. In 1999, it was acrylic paint, in 2001, it was Oils. 2004-2008 was primarily photographic. The most recent was produced in Illustrator based on a photograph taken in May 2010, in Yosemite, California.
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Avenir Typeface Genealogical Study
Aug 17th
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Avenir, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, was created as a more contemporary version of Futura crossed with Univers. This infographic shows the influence ratios the Typeface’s ‘parents’ had on each letter.
Avenir!
A brief and epic history since 1988
As Reported by Stuart Ward
Adrian Frutiger was sitting in his soundproof typeface development idea-dome sometime in the mid eighties when he arrived at an interesting conclusion, it was time to make a new typeface for the future.. Although the excesses of the 80s knew no bounds, we cannot be absolutely certain that Frutiger actually owned a typeface development ideadome, or even if the specifications of his idea-dome included soundproofing.
Frutiger and decided that Univers and Helvetica were getting a little long in the teeth
after having kicked Clear and Simple Design’s ass for just over three decades, and it was time for a changing of the guard. Apparently some people didn’t get the memo, and continue to mainline Helvetica into their designs like some burnt out modernist minimaljunkie.
Before Helvetica and Univers were the only typefaces available in any design studio, 19th century sans-serifs had eclipsed, for several years, the constructivist stylings of Gill Sans and Futura.
Since Frutiger was an Alpenhorn blowing, cheese drilling Switzerlander with a penchant for Late 1920s German typefaces, he logically chose Futura as a source of inspiration for his contemporary masterpiece, and named the creation Avenir, which is French for Future, or je ne sais quoi. Genial! The ‘a’ in Futura was considered to hinder legibility due to it similarity to b, d, p and q, stated Frutiger, so it was replaced with the traditional roman style a.
New evidence has come to light regarding a dark secret to Avenir’s past: A recently discovered phone-tap recording has revealed that Frutiger tried to issue a fatwa against the Futura ‘a‘ because it’s lack of design sense led to a loss of faith. Bau-chika-Bauhaus.
Some interesting points about Avenir:
1. There is no Avenir Italic style, only oblique, created mathematically with precision reaching values close to Godly levels. Using Avenir Oblique fonts instantly upgrades your ability to be contemporary and professionally-fun. (Despite the fact that professionals’ fun in the 80s consisted of lines of cocaine on ladies’ cleavage, rolled up suit sleeves, and crimped hair, Avenir Oblique managed to soar above its 1980s roots; perhaps it’s incubation inside an idea-dome had something to do with it.)
2. After designing Versailles in the early 80s, Frutiger regretted the opulence and excess of the era, just a little, and decided to scrap the serifs for a while, sort of like giving up chocolate covered bacon for lent.
3. The ‘o’ is not a perfect circle.
4. The vertical strokes are thicker than the horizontals. Different strokes for different folks.
5. Avenir looks nothing like handwriting.
6. Avenir comes in varying thicknesses, from 35-95, including 45,55,65 and 85. The meanings of these numbers and what happened to 75 is a mystery.
7. Not content with a typeface which didn’t include condensed fonts, some Japanese guy by the name of Kobayashi worked with Frutiger to create Avenir Next. Since the rise of online type foundries, Typefaces with few fonts in the family are considered low art and campy. Plus, Typefaces with more fonts sell for more money.
8. Because Avenir wasn’t entirely immune to the anything goes lifestyle during it’s conception, the City of Amsterdam has given it a home on its corporate identity. You can take a typeface out of the 80s, but you can take the 80s out of the typeface.
Final Word: What was old is new again, with the surgical expertise of a man who has been ‘shaping our words’ for more than half a century. Avenir, truly towards a brighter future.
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Snowboard Design
Aug 17th
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Mid Summer snowboard design: ‘Lock and Load’.
The top of the board features a ‘bordello cowboy’ motif with decorative dueling pistols, organic flourishes, and decorative wings.
The bottom of the board has a rifle silhouette in gold, so when a rider has dismounted and is carrying their board it appears upon first glance that they are carrying a gold gun.
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Glitch video experiment: datamoshing + poledance.
Jul 10th
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I used some footage from my friend Lu’s poledance show last year in Tokyo to experiment with datamoshing. I did it the hard way, by encoding each segment with only a first i-frame (keyframe), and then proceeded to remove them too with a different piece of software. I learned about some technicalities of encoding with h264 and avi file formats, which may end up being useful some time in the future.
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All the software for osx can be found (for free too) at: http://www.court13.com/datamoshkit.zip
Thanks to the datamosher tutorial vids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYytVzbPky8 Apparently there’s an easy way, an now that I ‘understand the principle, I’ll try it in AfterEffects.
Circuit Board Etching
Jul 2nd
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Revisiting an old project created in 2003…
Etching circuit boards as a form of creative expression? I made a series of resists by combining 19th century botanical illustrations scanned from antique hardcovers with circuit-like shapes created in Photoshop. The images were used as light resists in the creation of a photoresist, which was in turn used as an etching resist. The first part of the process is similar to traditional photography, performed in a dark room with developer and stop bath chemicals.
The series, titled ‘Circuitree’ was displayed at the Nickle Gallery in Calgary, Canada.
The relationships between the dualities of nature and technology; science and art; creative processes and analytical processes were investigated.
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Digital Drawings etched on circuit board.
Average size 6” x 6”, series of 8
2003
I would like to once again use this technique as a creative process, with a more technological final work in mind. I would like to see the circuits actually able to perform a task beyond a being a decorative and contemplative form.
Recycled Painting Project
Jul 2nd
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An ongoing project using waste cardboard from boxes and packaging as a painting surface to renew the refuse materials’ perceived value, and to raise awareness to the amount of waste which is created by western lifestyles. The pieces shown are two collared shirt packing boards and a piece of the packaging for a home storage unit, all of which would normally be disposed of and promptly forgotten. Not shown are cereal boxes, a cookie box and the stiffening board at the bottom of a paper pad.
The process of creation also plays a key role in the final rendering of the pieces. As gestural and random layers of paint are built up on top of each other, a composition emerges. Only after the first few painting sessions do I know the outcome of the painting. The decorative pseudo-ornamentals are references to Mucha’s illustration style.
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Mixed media on card stock paper and cardboard.
Varying Sizes – mostly small
2007- Present
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