Text as Texture

I have just watched an amazing podcast from the 'It's Nice That' series, a talk by Sam Winston. Winston is inspired not only by the visual aspect of typography but more fundamentally by what the words true meanings are. He picks apart stories, for example 'Beauty and the Beast' and threads them back together in ways that are visually beautfiul and allow the viewer to get envolved with the language in its most basic form.
Sam Winstonhas created a Dictionary story where each word of the narrative is followed by its definition, and these definitions then begin to move around the page becoming entangled and flowing amongst each other. In his research for this book he discovered a room that was filled with all the words that were not put in the dictionary. It is such a lovely image to think that when we do not have the words to fully express ourselves that maybe those words are in this room.

Anish Kapoor

I queued for over an hour to get into the Anish Kapoor exhibition, although it was extremely cold I'm glad I did. It was not a large exhibition but his use of colour, form and texture was very visually interesting and impressive. My favourite piece was 'When I Am Pregnant' because it was so subtle. I also enjoyed 'Shooting in the Corner' where every twenty minutes hot wax was shot from a cannon into another room. I'm not sure what artistic purpose this had, but I liked the loud noise...

Ed Ruscha

Fifty Years Of Painting

After coming across Ruscha in the 'Text and Image' unit I was pleased to see he would be exhibiting at the Hayward Gallery. It was a great, varied exhibition with works spanning throughout his career. I think his simplest works were the most impressive, particularly those created in the 70s. It was interesting to see how one phase moved into the next, and how later in his career he returned back to painting styles and ideas he had used almost fifty years ago.

Paula Scher

On Thursday I went to London to see Paula Scher speak at D&AD.
The full lecture can be seen HERE

It was a fantastic lecture and very inspiring. Her work varied greatly from record covers at Atlantic and CBS Records to identity and branding systems. In her own time she painted intricately detailed typographic paintings.

Spending the day in London also gave us a chance to look at several art shops, and a lovely book binding shop called Shepherds full of interesting types of paper.