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The limitation of typography is a tool called type. Reading is the imagination beyond written language. Impressions that create a shift in our pre-conditioned thoughts make the mind realize that the values of our lives are the sum of all the expressions of all our senses: type is limited.


The Keyboard: A Tool Kit
Max Kisman


Nucleus

I love letters, love letters.

One of my philosophies, which is rather concise, is: 'The quality of talent lies in its limitations, not in its possibilities.' It means dealing with physical limitations and reality; the professional designer often has to be inventive and improvise to solve a problem within a limited time frame. He needs to be practical and efficient. He needs to know what to look for and, more important, when to stop. - Kisman, Max. In Heller, Steven. Education of a typographer, Allworth Press, New York, USA, 2003.

Those fabulous psychedelic hippie posters and album covers of the sixties were my first fascination with letters and lettering. I had incessantly copied the meandering lettering styles all over my school diary and my book bag. When asked to design the cover of my high school newsletter and some event posters, I took the assignment seriously. Lettering was no longer a pleasure just for myself, it became a job.

My father was a commercial artist. I grew up surrounded by illustration, graphic design and photography. Following in his footsteps was not only natural, but would, possibly, give me a head start.

My fascination with type and letterforms was entangled with my interest in drawing. With drawing and sketching, I could easily and immediately create images. Adding text gave informational value to the image. It became very apparent that the styling of the letters had great impact on the communication value as well as the overall impression of the design. Camouflaging the text too much confounded the message. It was fun. It was also work.

At art college these borrowed styles evolved into a signature style more my own. I enjoyed a formal education in typography, studying with some of the finest Dutch typography and design professors: Abe Kuipers, Charles Jongejans, Gerard Unger and Jan van Toorn. Typography was basically a means of communication - a way to convey a message. Knowledge of the classification of type, a well crafted layout and expertise in technique all enhanced its communication.

Good design was ordered, clean and responsible. I am thankful to have been well schooled. Nevertheless the school of thought at the time was to explore unconventional methods (what is there that we don't see?) and approaches (the power of communication in a political sense). That made us different.

Consequently, through experimentation in various assignments over the years, I acquired the skills of an alchemist to inflame the emotion that can be embedded in a design including image and text.

Text persuades and negotiates an exact meaning. Style and image envelope the message with emotion. This combination creates a unique visual language. Whether subtle, screaming, sneaky, serious, saccharine, sexual or stoic, this visual language speaks in many and multiple tongues. Endless possibilities. But it is in the editing of these possibilities, however, that the key to success lies.

The letters of the alphabet, the characters of a typeface, are building blocks. Besides being symbols to construct a written language, they can be used to compose any visual impression imaginable. To me, typography is the visual arrangement of letterforms and symbols. Its style creates identity. If the composition contains coherent content, this visual identity will convey the message in a distinct and original way. A new expression. A new impression. A new corner of the mind is opened. How exciting!

Kill typography before it kills you

"The institution of the letter will be abolished. Its power will be defeated. Since their digital manifestation, letters have been outlawed. A letter is nothing more than a tone, a sound, a noise. Parts and details are ticks, squeaks and vibrations. New forms will be defined by the Remix. The prevailing conceptions have lost their value. Graphic design is a fake and an aesthetic-based page filler. Graphic design and typography will be banned. Burying the profession in its grave has to be accompanied by a wild party. With the consecutive hangover, we can leave ourselves completely open to recovery." - Kisman, Max. In Typ magazine #G, Amsterdam, June 1991.

In this day and age, a specific definition of typography is obsolete. The word originated in the industrial and mechanical age, when it was a specialist's profession. In our times, with the domination of digital technology, computers and wireless communication, the meaning of typography needs to be redefined.

In its historical and traditional sense, typography is gone. Once a secluded kingdom, it has now been absorbed within the grand empire of visual communication. As far as I am concerned, typography is not just the organization of scripted (written) information. It is the organization of informative notation, using graphic symbolic language.

In today's communication industry typography is the use of (some kind of pre-fabricated) letterforms and symbols in any style and in any kind of application. Writing is a notation of spoken language. Drawing is a visual notation. A letter of the alphabet, a glyph or character, has lost its original meaning to become a transparent notation.

The combination of character signs creates unique meaningful values: words. Combinations of signs and symbols are essential in the creating and conveying of messages. They become a meaningful notation.

Similar methods can be applied to any other media. The combination of images creates new values: a visual story, a comic strip, continuity or discontinuity in movies. The interpretation or impression of an image is based on the proceeding one. A caption to a photograph directs its interpretation a certain way. It creates a distinct value of that image, different from its initial intent: editorial manipulation of visual content.

In advertising, copy for a product image has a similar function: the manipulation of consumer interests. A video clip to a particular song will apply a certain interpretation filter to that song. All these methods can be seen as advertising to convey an idea. The way typography looks and is visually integrated plays an essential role. It is where typography and graphic design inseparably overlap.

It raises the question of how do we read? Is reading specifically reserved to text, or is it the full understanding and comprehension of any impression? It all boils down to the impression made. And is it lasting? The naked girl running aflame enveloped in napalm. GOD IS DEAD. Impressions that are burned into one's mind forever.

And yet how transient are the web, television and the video clip? How competitive is fast? Type is attached to the screen with Jackson Pollock-like splashes, but no paint is left standing. It is a battle to capture the imagination and to win the war for the yearning souls.

At the gates of the Kingdom of Type

For Kisman typeface design is about "identity", and by creating a host of new faces in the early 1980s he was catering to a youth culture in which identity was becoming increasingly "pluriform." Kisman has argued that "designers represent groups" and are able to make a positive contribution in the crafting of "cultural identity." - King, Emily. The Netherlands: Traditionalism and the avant-garde," www.typotheque.com/articles/EK_PhD_chapter5.html, Netherlands, 1999.

For a long time, the production of industrial typefaces was a domain reserved to type foundries, type cutters and the printing press. Their designs represented major cultural, scientific and technological developments insofar as their stylistic appearance was concerned. The alphabet was a fixed, bureaucratic institution, without the flexibility of a visual language.

Graphic artists in early 19th and 20th century advertising and graphic design, were the first to escape from the stronghold of the Kingdom of Typography. From Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec to Theo van Doesburg of De Stijl, the need for distinction to compete or to break with convention, stimulated ways and experiments in typographic innovation. It forced those artists and designers who wanted otherwise, to use the drawing board and the reproduction techniques of their times, to create their own lettering systems to express their views and visual language.

Before computers, between 1981 and 1985 I used line art and repro cameras for the headline lettering of Vinyl magazine and the typography of Paradiso posters. Later the photocopying machine was the magic box for artwork and type. But even with relatively simple designs, it was tedious, slow and labour intensive. Nevertheless, the individualization of these type designs created a noticeable identity and would open a new world for graphic design. In the same way as popular music varied and fashion could change identity, Vinyl magazine changed its design and typography each month. Rawness was often a part of design.

With the introduction of the computer in the early 1980s, the darkroom became obsolete. Although the technology was still primitive in 1986, we designed and digitized typefaces for Language Technology, to be used repeatedly in various applications and for many purposes without too much difficulty. Spread throughout the globe, a relatively small group of pioneering designers like Zuzana Licko, Rudy Vanderlans and Neville Brody, started to digitize their typeface designs and create new typographic and graphic design concepts, inspired by technological change.

Opponents called it a threat to the quality of graphic design, typography and the creative process in general. Meanwhile, the complete graphic production process became available to the individual graphic designer. With all its advantages and disadvantages, it was going to change the profession forever. And fast!

During the past two decades, the communication industry has exploded with the opening of the Internet to the global community. Complete new systems of interaction created a huge information network. Once again the graphic designer needed to adapt the changing landscape of visual communication. Commercialisation, automation, security and sophistication, made its technology increasingly complex. The increasing gap between front-end aesthetics and backbone technology became more evident, forcing new visual communication specialists to develop their specific territories in graphic design and typography.

Internet and TV are the anachronic pockets of resistance, where the sensibility of graphic design and typography has been completely abandoned and is cruelly dictated by the terrorism of tasteless visual effects. Too much is still taken for granted, as we get much information delivered by default. A greater visual balance between graphics and typography can increase its quality. But this might be just a castle in the air on the dream cloud of a better world.

In an age with such a competitive information overload, distinction and differentiation become essential. Strong corporate identities, strong branding policies or original identity concepts are essential communication tools. Logos, symbols, typefaces and design styles, become part of the visual concepts of communication policies. As far as letterforms are concerned, the more they are individualized and customized, the more they will express an individual identity.

It is a basic concept, which applies to any level of visual communication: an identity programme for a corporation, or a single sign for a garage sale. In some of my Tegentonen posters, typography merges partly and at times completely, with their somewhat symbolic imaging.

Custom designed typefaces and letterforms define individual identity in visual communication, they distinguish one product from another. The increasing need for noticeable identities is the biggest excuse for the development and design of new typefaces. The speed in consumption of information in a competitive and constantly fluctuating communication industry stimulates the creation of new spices for the ever changing taste experiences.

The territory of communication has no borders

"Type is going to be as abstract as sand on the beach. In that sense type doesn't exist anymore." - Kisman, Max. In: Poynor, Rick, Booth-Clibborn, Edward and Why Not Associates. The introduction of Typography Now 1, Booth-Clibborn, London, UK, 1991.

In the second half of the last century, the decreasing distances in global travel stimulated universal communication through graphic symbols, signs and pictographs. Typographically arranged information found its pictorial equivalent in the visual shortcut. Universal visual communication of informative graphics became part of charts and statistics, traffic and transport, international airports and the Olympic Games. Icons finally became popularised in a complete visual, icon driven user interface of the Apple Macintosh Plus computer. Icons were now part of our daily vocabulary. Instead of just looking at them, we began to read pictures.

In contrast to the old typewriter, with its static typewriter letters, the personal computer offers the infinite flexibility of applying thousands of typefaces to its keyboard, including the customisation, manipulation and mutilation of typeface designs. The search for originality and distinction stimulated extensive experimentation not only on the aesthetics of letterforms, but with their symbolic meaning as well. Questioning the institutionalised alphabet and typefaces and the deserted territories of legibility and symbolic values, were the exploration fields of a handful of experimenting pioneers such as Emigre, LT, Fuse and TYP.

Replacing the character set with anything other than the standard alphabet, changes the function of the keyboard in its originally intended sense. Dingbats, or picture fonts, are a useful way to use the keyboard for additional signs and symbols. The range from a well crafted legible typeface design to a completely abstract visual system can be very broad.

As a visual composing tool kit, the possibilities of the keyboard are endless. Experiments, not just to redefine type or typography, but to redefine the keyboard, are possibly most useful to expand the territories of graphic design, typography and visual communication in either print or dynamic media.

The final merge of the old school typography into visual communication, confirms the point that typeface and symbol design must be a part of the educational program of visual communication. And as much as photography, motion graphics, illustration and image processing, it will offer the future designer a serious tool for the enhancement of individual identity concepts.

Captions

Page 11

Experimental typefaces. These computer keyboard replacements express visual rhythm and dynamics of content.

1. Fuzztones. Concert poster, Paradiso (Amsterdam, 1985). Hand drawn lettering around the band's original logo, inspired by psychedelic posters from the 1960s.

2. The Northern Hell, Par s-Roubaix. Newspaper spread (Amsterdam, 2003). This heroic bicycle race in the North of France is infamous for its rain, sand, mud and killing cobblestones.

3. Jan Bons, straight line, drawn curved, painlessly struck. Newspaper spread. (Amsterdam, 2002). In this homage to the Dutch designer Jan Bons, the paper tear style and a few visual elements refer to the designer's original work. The pencil striking the apple, symbolizes accuracy and concentration, in a direct allusion to William Tell.

4. Amnesty 30 years. Anniversary poster (Amsterdam, 1991). Manually cut design, digitally traced for a limited silkscreen reproduction. The typographic composition of the name creates a wall, in which the E is a barred window.

5. Bfrika. An 'Africa inspired' typeface (South Africa, 2002). Was first used in i-juici Magazine #17. 'National Typographica.' The geometrical decorative design represents bold simplicity, directness and rhythm. The B replaces the A. Bfrika (Africa be free).

6. Dal Speelt R. Theatre poster created in collaboration with Peter Mertens (Amsterdam 1986). In this early type experimentation, the strange R was composed from about 8 different typefaces.

7. Tegentonen. Music festival poster, Paradiso (Amsterdam NL, 1989). Inspired by modern print and design from the Far East. Legibility was not a priority, but with a slight erotic undertone it is, literally speaking, eye-catching.
8. Stay Tuned. Typographic silkscreen print (Amterdam, NL, 1991).

9. Vinyl. Monthly music magazine (Amsterdam NL, 1982). It expresses the variety and changes of musical development in the youth cultures from the early 1980s. The concept of the magazine was to make each issue look different, with changing headline typefaces and layout. The upper part shows sketch lettering of the logo.

10. Vinyl. (Amsterdam, 1982). An early prophecy of desktop publishing. Experiments with synthesizers in pop music, stimulated the concept of similar developments in visuals and graphic design. Completely manually produced with early character set modifications and various dot matrix printouts.

11. Vinyl. (Amsterdam, 1984). Although the magazine aimed at a mass audience, some playfulness of the early experimental period remained. The logo, however, was more accessible, expressing a little obstinacy with the deliberately flipped N. In 1986 Huib van Krimpen in his 'Book about the making of books' commented negatively on this logo design: "Bad lettering can be found anywhere without much trouble."

12-15. Paradiso concert posters. Inxs (Amsterdam NL, 1983): Manual cut-out lettering. White space forms an essential part of the overall image. John Cale (Amsterdam, 1983): The combination of positive and negative forms creates attractive new compositions. Wiseblood (Amsterdam, 1983): Manual cut-out lettering in the vernacular of Dutch style Jazz posters. Paradiso Concerten (Amsterdam, 1983): Manual cut-out lettering and split fountain print. The slight reference to stained glass windows gives it a certain solemnity.

16. Bonjour Toulouse-Lautrec. Homage poster for the anniversary of the French poster artist Henri De Toulouse Lautrec (Paris, 2001). The manual lettering is applied directly in computer software, using a drawing tablet.

Holland Fonts. Catalogue of digital fonts designed by Max Kisman. More information at: www.hollandfonts.com

17. Alfabeto Scratch. Alphabet cut out in red litho film (Amsterdam, 1984). Originally used for posters and headlines and later digitised in 1986 for Language Technology magazine.

18. Sugarcubes. Concert poster, Paradiso (Amsterdam, 1986). Hand lettering, digitised and modified for its final composition.

19. Language Technology. Magazine cover (Amsterdam, 1988). Icons visually indicate the content of the magazine. Analog and digital are resembled in the LT logo. LT font, one of the magazine's custom designed typefaces, is now published as Rosetta and distributed by FontShop International, Germany.

20-21. Music festival posters, Paradiso. Tegentonen (Amsterdam, 1986). The name means counter tones in Dutch, and the letters of the poster were inspired by the idea that by the 1980s letters would take any shape or form. Tegentonen (Amsterdam NL, 1991). Abstract forms create the letters of the words Tegen and Tonen in a combination of positive forms and negative spaces.

22. Merge. Poster for Fuse 2, Runes (Fuse, Autumn 1991, published by FontShop International, Germany). Information and communication combine in the merge. The guiding concept of the Linear Konstrukt typeface was the reconstruction of the lost alphabet. Capitals are underlined lowercase letters.

23. Boem Paukeslag. Poster for TYP/Typografisch Papier, Amsterdam, 1991). It is a poem by Paul van Ostaijen from 'De Bezette Stad' (The Occupied City), Berlin 1920. The remix of the poem using MaxMix One was originally published as a poster by TYP/Typografisch Papier in the Netherlands in 1991.

24. Ramblas. Experimental alphabet (Barcelona, 1990). A limited number of stencils and paint was used to compose each letter.

25. Talenten Show. Poster, Paradiso (Amsterdam, 1985). The basic concept for this typographic composition is that a letter can be anything. Upcoming digital technology was the inspiration for this manually cut design.


tpG
Communication for designers
info@tipografica.com
www.tipografica.com

Design and Typography Magazine made in Buenos Aires, Argentine, for the world. Since 1987, tpG has provided a forum for the debate, communication and exchange of ideas and knowledge. Its staff of advisors and contributors comprises top international specialists.

Max Kisman
Max Kisman is principal of MKDSGN in Mill Valley, California and founder of Holland Fonts, a small foundry for his typeface designs. He is involved in magazine and poster design, TV and web site graphics and illustration. In the mid-eighties he pioneered digital technology, designed Vinyl, an independent Dutch music magazine, for which he created an innovative typographic style.



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