Slanted in Dubai: Abjad Design

Posted on by Slanted editors

In Spring 2018 the Slanted editors took a close-up look at the contemporary design scene of Dubai. A city—when described by many people—that is all sickening shine and has no soul. But Dubai and the whole region, originally a piece of desert sparsely populated by Bedouins, is now transforming itself rapidly into a center, if not the world’s greatest center, of trade, finance, and tourism—and moreover, something important happened in the last few years: Culture! Today, a new Arab world is being plotted and planned. The entire Gulf is teeming with initiatives—from the most public to the most private—to change and reinvent seemingly immutable rules, regimes, edicts, and assumptions, culminating, perhaps, in the stated intention to work more closely together. The Gulf states have a past, and they will have a future. The contours of that future are legible in this Slanted issue!

Sheikha Bin Dhaher is an Emirati graphic designer. In 2010, she gained her MA degree in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London, with a focus in typography and language. Not long after, she cofounded Abjad Design with Diana Hawatmeh. She derives her inspiration from literature, history, and nature. And Diana Hawatmeh is the art director and co-founder at Abjad Design. She is a graduate of the American University of Sharjah with a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communication. For several years she worked as a graphic designer in the fields of branding, publishing, and television in Dubai and the Netherlands. Her work is influenced by the Dada movement and recognized by experimental and exaggerated forms.

Take a look at the Slanted #32—Dubai to get an idea of Dubai’s creative environment. Additionally you can find several video interviews on our video platform  to get a deeper insight in the designer’s thoughts.

Gerard Unger Scholarship 2019

Posted on by Julia Kahl

In memory of the late Dr Gerard Unger, renowned Dutch type designer and educator, TypeTogether announces the Gerard Unger Scholarship (previously known as the Typeface Publishing Incentive Programme), an initiative to help promising typeface design students develop their careers. Started in 2014, this annual program supports and offers guidance to at least one selected project. The aim is to enable exceptional projects started during a course of study to be finalized and published commercially as soon as possible after the end of the course. The designer whose project is selected will receive feedback on their design and guidance from the entire TypeTogether team toward completing the family on a commercial basis. Additionally, a sum of money will be provided to allow the designer to continue working on the typeface after the course of study is over.

Who can apply


Any student enrolled in a postgraduate course in typeface design during the 2017–2018 or 2018–2019 academic years.

How to participate
Submit a project by email in PDF format to [email protected]. Required page size is A4. No more than 10 pages per submission. The file should include:
1. Your name and contact details
2. The course and institution in which you are studying
3. The name and contact details of key tutor in your program of study
4. The brief for your typeface (no more than 300 words)
5. Proofs of the typeface (include both details of large lettershapes and text setting)

Key dates


All projects received by March 31, 2019 will be judged. At least one winner will be selected and announced before May 1, 2019.

What the selected designers get: 


1. Mentoring 


Veronika Burian, José Scaglione, and the rest of the TypeTogether team will provide advice on the commercial, aesthetic, and technical sides of font-making. TypeTogether will offer feedback about design features, help with the testing procedures, and share knowledge, tools, and processes to control the quality of the final product. Mentoring is the core of this program and will be consistently available from the start of overviewing the contractual terms until the release the typeface.



2. Publishing

A publishing contract that includes the selected type families in TypeTogether’s retail library. This contract allows designers to opt out at any time and offers a 50% royalty rate, which is one of the highest rates in the industry (if not the highest). Designers retain all the rights and ownership of their work.

3. Funding


The selected designers will get a sum of EUR 2,500 after graduation. The purpose of this funding is so designers are able to support themselves while finishing their type families, just after finishing their postgraduate courses.

For more information about this program please contact us at [email protected].

15th Pictoplasma Berlin 2019: INTER-FACES

Posted on by Slanted editors

In May 2019, the 15th Berliner Pictoplasma Festival presents an all new selection of trailblazing and trendsetting character design and art—and provides a stage for artists to share their ideation processes and working methodologies. International creators and producers from illustration and animation, game design and graphic arts, meet for a central conference to exchange strategies for the future of figurative aesthetics, while the wider festival invites the public to delve into emerging worlds. Many of the participating artists present their work in gallery exhibitions throughout the city; cutting edge animation screenings light up the big screen; and performances bring characters face to face with audiences. 

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the festival, a central installation will focus on the power of abstract characters to trigger what we perceive as interaction—shifting the conversation away from the hype of AI and seamless immersion towards an investigation of what happens in the charged space between the viewer and the viewed. Held in Silent Green, a former crematorium in Wedding that hosted Pictoplasma’s group show back in 2015, this exhibition moves deep underground into the vast and freshly refurbished Concrete Hall that opens as brand new arts space in 2019.

The festival’s animation section will screen more than 100 selected short films in four programs, with most of the filmmakers present to discuss their work in Q&A sessions. The selection will include new narrationally and stylistically outstanding shorts, music videos and experimental films that have been produced by international studios or independent filmmakers. The deadline for submissions is February 15th, 2019. Further details at conference.pictoplasma.com/animation

Additionally, leading up to the festival, Pictoplasma invites international illustrators, designers and animators to join a new Call for Entries and turn universal emotional expressions into #CharacterReactionGIFs: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, or joy. The open call aims to reintroduce attitude, character, empathy and nonverbal gesture into our overheated social media feeds and end deplorable ALL-CAPS Whataboutism and the trolling avalanche of opinionated Internet acronyms in style: with emotional, poignant statements that perfectly sum it all up and leave nothing more to say. A selection of entries will be presented at the festival in a curated installation, while three participants receive a free festival and conference pass, granting full access to all lectures, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, presentations and parties. 

More information on click here.

REGISTRATION
Participation in the three-day Pictoplasma Conference (09–11 May) requires prior online registration, available for 290 Euro. Student and group discounts are available. Tickets for the festival’s animation screenings will be available at the box office of Kino Babylon Mitte. Entry to all exhibitions is free of charge.

First confirmed speakers include:
Cabeza Patata (UK/ES)
Their name translates as “potato head” and their trademark characters have very round heads on spindly necks. The illustration and animation studio formed by English craftswoman and illustrator, Katie Menzies, and Spanish 3D artist and animator, Abel Reverter is building a world of strong but playful characters with bold colors and no-nonsense attitudes which are cropping up everywhere, from street murals in Barcelona to 3D animations for the Royal Society for the Arts. 

Cornelia Geppert (DE)
Cornelia Geppert is CEO and creative head of Jo-Mei Games, and responsible for all artistic aspects of her upcoming adventure video game “Sea of Solitude,” in which the player controls a young woman named Kay as she explores an abandoned, submerged city and its creature in order to reveal why Kay herself has turned into a monster. Cornelia describes the project as her most personal and artistic, in how it led her to probe her own fears and emotions.

dina Amin (EG)
The designer from Cairo loves exploring the intersections between various disciplines. In 2016 she started “Tinker Friday,” an Instagram project where she combined her passion for product design and stop motion to reflect on consumerism. dina continues to tinker, making new items out of old, and recently expanding into “Tinker Studio” where she produces stop motion videos for diverse clients and companies around the world.

Elenor Kopka (DE)
Elenor Kopka is a freelance animator and illustrator best known for her grainy, black and white wormy characters and ever-transmorphing blobs. Drawing inspiration from ghosts and cartoon metamorphosis, she is working on animated shorts, Gifs and music videos.

Félicie Haymoz (CH/USA)
The Brooklyn-based Swiss illustrator has become Wes Anderson’s go-to character creator, first on “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and then on “Isle of Dogs.” All her designs have been produced as elaborate puppets for stop motion films. Félicie also works on various commercial projects, creating a wide variety of characters and concept art for stop ­motion­, digital 3D, and cut­out animation production, or producing painting and graphic design for books, magazines, and album artwork. 

Jeron Braxton (USA)
The self taught 3D animator explores the black American experience via surreal Playstation 2 aesthetics. “Glucose,” his short film investigating the history of sugar as the engine of the slave trade, won the Animated Short Film Jury Award at Sundance Festival 2018. His much-anticipated follow-up, “Octane,” touches on issues such as the genealogy of the police from runaway slave patrollers.

Kitty Calis/Jan Willem Nijman (NL)
The Dutch game designers and producers recently co-released the now-famous “Mini”’—an adventure game played in sixty seconds increments featuring an iconic beaked character. Players undertake journeys to help unusual folk, uncover secrets, and overcome foes, all in the hope of lifting the curse that ends each day after just one minute. With its minimalist, black and white design, the game echoes early console pixel culture.

Laurie Rowan (UK)
An award-winning animator and illustrator based on the south coast of England, Laurie is renowned for his commercial moving image and game design work for high profile clients and campaigns. He recently emerged with his own brand of wobbly characters, exploring grotesque corporeality, rhythm and movement.

Luke Pearson (UK)
The illustrator and comic book artist from Nottingham is best known as the creator of the “Hilda” graphic novels and the Netflix animated series based on them. He has worked as a storyboard artist on “Adventure Time,” occasionally draws non-“Hilda” comics, and also likes to create animations with his partner, illustrator and author Philippa Rice.

Nikita Diakur (DE)
The Russian-born filmmaker is best known for his projects “Ugly” and “Fest,” which have received much critical acclaim at film festivals around the world. His signature style is dynamic computer simulation that embraces spontaneity, randomness, and error. Diakur regularly gives talks and workshops at festivals and universities, recently undertook a residency at Q21 in Vienna, and is a member of the European Film Academy.

Philippa Rice (UK)
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of “Soppy” works across a broad media spectrum, from comics, illustration, and animation to model making and crochet. Her other works include the collage-based webcomic “My Cardboard Life” and her stop-motion animated crochet characters. Philippa lives in Nottingham with her partner Luke Pearson and their daughter. She uses her own life as the basis of much of her work.

Sos Sosowski (PL)
The self declared mad scientist of video games is the creator of “Thelemite,” “McPixel” and many other games you might have never heard about. The former school teacher turned hopelessly addicted to game jams and is currently on a quest to create the “worst” video game ever: “Mosh Pit Simulator”—a VR experience about a world that is overrun by brainless humanoids, that desperately try to continue as usual (go shopping, on dates, drive cars). It’s up to you, the player, to show empathy—or get in their way.

The full artist lineup and all details on the exhibitions, performances, parties, and screening programs will be announced in early March.

When?
May 8th—12th, 2019

Where?
Babylon am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, ACUD, Silent Green
and a series of exhibitions throughout Berlin

Adobe Creative Residency: Six tips on how to craft your best application

Posted on by Julia Kahl

The Adobe Creative Residency is the ultimate kick-start for your creative career: Throughout one year you can realize your dream project, travel around the world—and get money for the whole thing. Which seems almost too good to be true could soon become reality for you. You can apply now until February 7th and make your dream come true. To make sure it works, we’ll answer the most frequently asked questions and tell you what to keep in mind when applying. Good luck!

The Adobe Creative Residency is a structured program designed to help you quickly reach your goals as a creative professional. Your project and the Creative Residency is the vehicle that takes you from where you are now to where you want to be in your creative career. Throughout the year, you’ll proactively make inspiring and innovative work, try new tools and workflows, refine your process, and engage with others to share your progress, discoveries, and outcomes. You’ll also attend events, speak at conferences, and collaborate with other leaders in your field.

What are the eligibility requirements?

In general, every artist can apply. Nevertheless, there are a few key requirements to fulfill. You are best suited if you…

  • … live in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, or Canada (Relocation for the duration of the residency to one of these countries will not qualify you to be elligible)
  • … are of legal age and status to work in their given country
  • … speak and write fluent English (don’t worry, nobody expects perfect English, but you are supposed to travel around the world, give lectures and interviews)
  • … interact with the creative community in the primary language of the country in which they live — e.g., German residents in German, UK residents in English, Japanese residents in Japanese
  • … you apply in English

Anything else?

We talked to Adobe about what makes a good application and the most frequently asked questions. Read the following six answers carefully to be optimally prepared for your application.

1. How much experience do I need? Do I need to have a completed apprenticeship?
“We’re mainly looking for applicants who are early in their creative careers, though we do consider applicants who are switching from one creative field to another or from non-design careers. Applicants should have at least a few years of education, training, and/or experience in the field of their proposed projects. Obviously, you should already have a little experience and knowledge. Whether you have acquired your knowledge and skills in an apprenticeship, training or completely autodidactically is not relevant.”

2. How should the application be structured and what should it look like?
“Surprise us! Be aware that we receive around 3,000 applications—that means you have to stand out from the crowd and convince us in the shortest time possible. That’s why it’s best to keep your PDF short and sweet without forgetting important points: Who are you, where do you want to go, what is your project? These are the key messages. But then there’s a list of important questions here, which you should also be prepared to answer. By the way: When providing the budget details for your proposed Creative Residency project, our main concern is to see whether you have thought through your project and can calculate costs. That doesn’t have to be super accurate, just a rough estimate circled around the question: How much money would you need for an exhibition, a book production, or whatever else you have in mind? This should only include costs related to your project alone. You don’t need to include salary details or travel or living expenses.”

3. Are Creative Residents required to relocate?
“Creative Residents remain in their current living location with their existing studio setup as we want to invest in the local creative scene. Nevertheless, you will get to see a lot of the world: Creative residents visit Adobe’s San Francisco office once a quarter and are on the road for roughly 25% of the Residency year to see conferences such as Creative Jams, Adobe MAX, 99U, and other events. Residents work with the program coordinator to determine which trips are most beneficial for their projects, and travel is spread out over the year.”

4. How is the time commitment? And can Creative Residents work for other clients while participating in the program?
“Caution: If you’re working another job, taking a long vacation, or fulfilling any other commitment that would prevent you from investing yourself full-time during the Creative Residency year (May–April), you are unfortunately not eligible to be a Resident. If you’re a graduating student, you’re eligible only if your tests and coursework are completed by the end of May. We want our Creative Residents to be able to concentrate fully on their project and their long-term goals. Of course, there are always special cases and exceptions, so everything can be talked about!”

5. Who will be the owner of my work? What about licensing?
“Residents retain ownership of all the work they create during the residency, but they grant Adobe a license to use that work in promotional materials, at events, and in other venues. However, Adobe partners with residents to ensure the integrity of their work wherever it’s used.”

6. Is this some kind of apprenticeship? And what about the salary?
“Well, somehow it is: You have one year to concentrate on your career, learn new tools and work with mentors in addition to all kinds of resources and tools. And best of all: You don’t have to pay anything for that, you even get a full salary commensurate with your experience and geographical location, as well as health insurance. All travel and project costs, including hardware, will of course be covered as well.”

The icing on the cake—even more inspiration, tipps and tricks for your application:

Available again: Dutch Type

Posted on by Slanted editors

Published in March, 2004, Dutch Type was sold out about four years later. Only in the end of 2018 the reprint was published thanks to the help of many backers via a kickstarter campaign: In Dutch Type, Jan Middendorp presents a comprehensive overview of type design and lettering in the Netherlands, tracing its origins through type designers and lettering artists from the 15th to the 20th centuries.

Partly based on interviews, the book also offers insight into the motives and methods of the first generations of digital type designers, featuring published and unpublished typefaces as well as sketches, studies, and samples of lettering work. While the quest for quality and innovation has remained constant, it makes clear that the advent of desktop type has opened up the discipline to a more spontaneous, inventive, and democratic approach.

This is a must-have for all type afficionados!

Author: Jan Middendorp
Publisher: Druk Editions
Design: Bart de Haas and Peter Verheul.
Editorial assistance and index: Catherine Dal
Reprint: Files revived by Ramiro Espinoza & Paula Mastrangelo
Volume: 320 pages
Binding: Hardcover
Format: 23 x 28 cm
Language: English
Print: Die Keure in Bruges, Belgium
ISBN: 9783982003702
Price: €62.50

You can buy the book here.

Rundgang an der HMKW Köln

Posted on by HMKW_Koeln

Student works from a variety of graphic design disciplines will be exhibited again this winter term at HMKW Cologne: On Friday and Saturday, February 8th and 9th, 2019, the Department of Design cordially invites all interested people to the opening of the semester exhibition of winter term 2018/19! On show are graphic, photographic and typographic works, motion design, interactive media, stop-motion and short film projects, print products as well as installations.

When:
Friday, February 8th, 2019
Exhibition
12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Vernissage:
5 p.m.
Opening party at Galerie Hundert:
8 p.m.

Saturday, February 9th, 2019
Exhibition
11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
12 p.m. guided tour through the exhibition with the professors of the Design Department

Where:
HMKW Cologne,
Höninger Weg 139,
50969 Cologne

Hundert Galerie,
Höninger Weg 100,
50969 Cologne

More information can be found here.

Stiftung Buchkunst: Call for Entries 2019

Posted on by Slanted editors

From now on, beautiful books can be submitted to Stiftung Buchkunst until March 31st for the competition for the »Most Beautiful German Books« and the »Prize for Young Book Design«.

Let’s go – only what is submitted, can also be awarded!
We look forward to many, nice books!

Further information as well as the participation forms can be found here.

EDCH – The Idea Salon

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Pure inspiration for designers of all kinds—Europe’s largest Editorial Design Conference EDCH will be a Salon of Ideas in 2019. In the exciting triangle between editorial design, visual storytelling, and digital content, the most innovative and successful ideas for brands, communication, and sales emerge. EDCH tracks down the inventors, visionaries, and makers, and looks together with them behind the scenes and beyond. 2019 for the first time in the HFF Munich.

Speakers are: Edel Rodriguez (bekannt durch seine Trump-Karikaturen), Michael Wolff (Gründer WolffOlins), Simon Scarr (Reuters), Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen), Larry Buchanan (Ney York Times) and many more.

The Conference will be translated simultanously on Friday and Saturday.

Tickets
Super Early Bird Ticket (limited contingent)
275,– Euro

Early Bird Ticket (limited contingent)
295,– Euro

Regular Ticket
315,– Euro

Special Tickets
for Students only
110,– Euro

Members of ATypI, TDC, AGD, BDG, FT and IO can use the promotion-code ORG-EDCH2019 for a 20,– Euro reduce (not available with student-ticket).

When?
Thursday, March 14th, 2019, 6 p.m.
to
March 16th, 2019, 9 p.m.

Where?
Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film
Bernd-Eichinger-Platz 1
80333 Munich

Get more information about the event and tickets here.

Rutu Modan Interview

Posted on by Slanted editors

When the Angoulême International Comics Festival opens on January 24th, 200,000 visitors will crowd the streets of this small town in the west of France, and publishers of comic books from many countries will set up their stands. Among the numerous exhibitions will be the first comprehensive retrospective of the Israeli comic author Rutu Modan.

She became famous with her graphic novels »Exit Wounds« (168 pages) and »The Property« (232 pages), both originally published by the Canadian publishing house Drawn & Quarterly. Together with artists Yirmi Pinkus, Itzik Rennert, Batia Kolton and Mira Friedmann, Rutu founded the self-publishing group Actus Tragicus in 1995. Today she is a professor at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.

We met her in a café on the beach of Tel Aviv.

How important was international exchange for your development?

Rutu Modan: In the early 90s we met Henning Wagenbreth, Atak (Georg Barber) and Anke Feuchtenberger in Berlin. Yirmi Pinkus stayed in Berlin for a few months and established the relationship. Their self-published little books were an inspiration for us to do the same. If they can do that, we thought, we can do it in Israel. There weren’t many comics in Israel back then. Not even commercial comic books were common, not even for children.

In the past, retrospectives were made for dead masters.

It’s a big deal for me to have a retrospective in Angoulême. On our first visit in 1996, I had a culture shock. All the artists, publishers, visitors. Then we went with Actus Tragicus every year to find publishers and distributors. In Angoulême we met Drawn & Quarterly in 1998. That opened the American market for us. We would not have made it without Angoulême. In Angoulême we understood what we could do and how we could do it. I tell my students how important it is to understand the industry. You don’t have to obey. You still do your own work, but you learn how to carry it into the world. That is what Angoulême showed us.

Are you involved in the exhibition design for Angoulême?

Thomas Gabison, from Actes Sud, my French publisher, curates the exhibition. I’m curious to see what he will do with the material I brought him to Paris. It’s a challenging task. It’s not natural for comics to hang on a wall. It’s impossible to choose a page that represents the whole book. But it can succeed. I saw a very good comics exhibition about Hergé at the Centre Pompidou, another from L’Association in Angoulême. Thomas will choose themes that will guide the exhibition so that you won’t be overwhelmed by the amount of material.

You received the 3 × 3 Award as Educator of the Year in 2017?

I am a professor of illustration and comics at Bezalel Academy. I teach basic courses for grades 1-2, children’s book illustration and all final courses. Teaching professions are something that Israeli illustrators aspire to early in their careers. At least in our generation we had good opportunities to do this. Israeli society is new, Israelis love everything new.

Will you publish something in 2019?

I’m drawing a new book, with a really bad person and a tragic end. It’s kind of political. I’ll probably be working on it the whole year of 2019.

Exposition Rutu Modan – Un théâtre tragi-comique
46th International Comics Festival
Angoulême, January 24th–27th, 2019

Sources: The Property, Exit Wounds, Jamilti and Other Stories, The New Yorker

Parcours MSD

Posted on by Slanted editors

Sometimes clear and straightforward, sometimes intuitive and vibrant: design thinking and creative processes always require the ability to view and explore challenges from different angles. Together, these contrasts form an interface, a focal point where conception and creativity meet. Along with the bachelor and master graduates from the fields of illustration, communication design, media design and product design, Parcours 18/19 cordially invites you to experience this interface from 8th to 10th February 2019.

When:
Vernissage:
Friday, February 8th, 2019
8 p.m.–11 p.m.

Exhibition:
Saturday, February 9th, 2019
11 a.m.–8 p.m.
Sunday, February 10th, 2019
11 a.m.–6 p.m.
Free entrance

Where:
Fachhochschule Münster
MSD, Münster School of Design
Leonardo-Campus 6
48149 Münster

More information can be found here.

Slanted in Dubai: Fikra Design Studio

Posted on by Slanted editors

In Spring 2018 the Slanted editors took a close-up look at the contemporary design scene of Dubai. A city—when described by many people—that is all sickening shine and has no soul. But Dubai and the whole region, originally a piece of desert sparsely populated by Bedouins, is now transforming itself rapidly into a center, if not the world’s greatest center, of trade, finance, and tourism—and moreover, something important happened in the last few years: Culture! Today, a new Arab world is being plotted and planned. The entire Gulf is teeming with initiatives—from the most public to the most private—to change and reinvent seemingly immutable rules, regimes, edicts, and assumptions, culminating, perhaps, in the stated intention to work more closely together. The Gulf states have a past, and they will have a future. The contours of that future are legible in this Slanted issue!

Salem Al-Qassimi is a multidisciplinary designer, educator, and entrepreneur. He is the Principal and Founder of Fikra, and Director of the Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. He has published numerous articles, reviews, and essays on Arabic typography, culture, design. Al-Qassimi’s work focuses on elements of culture and identity and has been awarded regionally and internationally.

Take a look at the Slanted #32—Dubai to get an idea of Dubai’s creative environment. Additionally you can find several video interviews on our video platform to get a deeper insight in the designer’s thoughts.

STGT Outstanding

Posted on by Slanted editors

STGT Outstanding shows five boroughs of Stuttgart. Subcultural institutions, like bars with a creative concept or off-spaces like project rooms, were interviewed about how they create the look of the city with their projects. Which part of the different boroughs influence them in their works? Which spots do they visit the most? The look of the city is created by the people who live there. STGT Outstanding creates a city portrait of that kind of Stuttgart you can see if you look closely.

Designer: Denise Löher
Release: July 23rd, 2018
Pages: 200
Dimensions: 26,4 cm × 19,8 cm (+ inside book: dimensions 12,1 × 16 cm)
Language: German
Production: Print Peter Käß, 4/4-color, MunkenPolar rough 150 g/qm, Rainbow yellow 80 g/qm; Hardcover, stitch binding Margit Boger
Price: 95,– Euro
Buy

Total Armageddon—A Slanted Reader on Design

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Help us to publish this amazing summary of the past 14 years of independent publishing and preorder your copy for only € 30,– (≈ $34).

Total Armageddon is about design. And culture. And complexity, notably how we, as a global civilization, deal with science fiction, taste, social media, the cities we live in, aesthetics, PowerPoint, burkas, Big Tech, full-contact sports, and other thorny topics. A collection of both essays that are brand new to Slanted readers, as well as the very best essays from past issues of Slanted Magazine, written by the most vital and vibrant global voices in writing on design and culture today such as Steven Heller, Piotr Rypson, Gerry Leonidas, Yoon Soo Lee, Kiyonori Muroga, and a host of others.

With financing this special Slanted publication on Kickstarter, we are attempting to integrate our audience and followers to be a part of the creative process, a publication for our loyal friends and also new design enthusiasts alike. 

Please help us reach the goal within 30 days, to sum up 14 amazing years of independent publishing. Pledges start from € 5,– and include many exclusive rewards like early bird discounts, tote bags, mention in the book, …

Total Armageddon—A Slanted Reader on Design

Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Editor: Ian Lynam
Release: March 2019
Volume: 400 Pages
Dimensions: 16 × 24 cm
Language: English
Printing: LE-UV offset + white (Vogl)
Paper: Holmen BOOK Extra 2.0 (Holmen Paper)
Cover material: Invercote G Metalprint (Iggesund Paperboard)
Typefaces: Beatrice (Sharp Type) and Edit Serif (Atlas Font Foundry)
Price after release: € 30,–

Support the Kickstarter Camapign

Brygada 1918

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Brygada 1918 is a digital revival project of Brygada typeface done thanks to the support of the “Independent” program and the President of the Republic of Poland. The source of inspiration lies in casting matrices found by Janusz Paweł Tryzno In the Book Art Museum in Lodz. Extended Btygada 1918 family including six versions is available for download under Open Font License. We hope that through its use the Brygada 1918 project will benefit the building common conscience of type design—a domain of significant, culture building character.

According to the historical research the typeface was most probably created during the interwar period, in the Type Foundry Idźkowski and Co. in Warsaw. The main idea of this undertaking was to honor the typographic heritage in a vivid manner. Original matrices were available in regular, italic, and bold versions. To allow the practical application of the font in a larger versatility of projects the collection gained semibold, semibold italic and bold italic variants. Apart from redrawing, the shapes were adjusted and corrected, and the available glyph coverage was greatly expanded. Regarding the character set, Brygada 1918 type family contains extended Latin, extended Cyrillic, basic Greek, International Phonetic Alphabet, four figuer versions (oldstyle, lining, tabular oldstyle, tabular lining), small caps, sub- and superscript, currency symbols, mathematical signs, and a wide set of ornaments, in all 6 versions.

The Btygada 1918 family is available for download under Open Font License here.

Designed by: Mateusz Machalski, Borys Kosmynka, Ania Wieluńska, and Przemysław Hoffer

81st Berlin Typostammtisch

Posted on by Slanted editors

Mastering Type 2018 shows all theses, which were created last year in international master programs in the field of typeface design, in Berlin. The exhibition offers you the only opportunity to see 40 projects from Amiens (FR), Buenos Aires (AR), Den Haag (NL), Lausanne (CH), Nancy (FR), and Reading (UK) at one place. What are the similarities and differences? What are the currently most exciting typographic topics? Which unexpected conceptual or creative approaches were chosen? Or does everything look the same again as last year anyway?

Aldo Arillo, Dominic Stanley, Hidetaka Yamasaki, Katja Schimmel, Mona Franz, Namrata Goyal, and Rafał Buchner are giving short lectures (in German and English) about their projects and present the associated work steps, intermediate results and ways of thinking.

When?
Exhibition
Friday, January 25th, 2019 at 7 p.m. (Doors 6:30 p.m.)
Saturday, January 26th, 2019 12 p.m.–7 p.m.

Presentations
Saturday, January 26th, 2019 4 p.m.

Where?
Medienhaus der Universität der Künste Berlin,
Grunewaldstraße 2–5,
10823 Berlin,

For more information click here.

Slanted in Dubai: Moloobhoy and Brown

Posted on by Slanted editors

In Spring 2018 the Slanted editors took a close-up look at the contemporary design scene of Dubai. A city—when described by many people—that is all sickening shine and has no soul. But Dubai and the whole region, originally a piece of desert sparsely populated by Bedouins, is now transforming itself rapidly into a center, if not the world’s greatest center, of trade, finance, and tourism—and moreover, something important happened in the last few years: Culture! Today, a new Arab world is being plotted and planned. The entire Gulf is teeming with initiatives—from the most public to the most private—to change and reinvent seemingly immutable rules, regimes, edicts, and assumptions, culminating, perhaps, in the stated intention to work more closely together. The Gulf states have a past, and they will have a future. The contours of that future are legible in this Slanted issue!

Moloobhoy & Brown is an award-winning independent design and brand communication studio based in Dubai. They strive to deliver creative thinking that differentiates their client’s brands across all key touch points. M & B loves everything from brand identity to advertising, packaging, and editorial design. They specialize in the arts, fashion, and hospitality industries.

Take a look at the Slanted #32—Dubai to get an idea of Dubai’s creative environment. Additionally you can find several video interviews on our video platform to get a deeper insight in the designer’s thoughts.

TOCA ME

Posted on by Slanted editors

On March 9th 2019 once again TOCA ME design conference will take place in Munich’s Alte Kongresshalle with renown speakers from all over the world.

Since 2003 TOCA ME design conference brings together some of the most innovative designers from around the globe. Covering all fields of analogue and digital design. From graphic design, typography and film to creative coding, virtual reality and machine learning. Past participants include legends of design such as Joshua Davis, Jessica Walsh, Seb Lester, Malika Favre, Sougwen Chung, Brendan Dawes, Mr Bingo, Signalnoise, Brosmind, Eike König, Gmunk, Tomato and many more. Aside of a high-quality lineup, the beautiful prepared location with interactive art installations, a design books & magazines corner and additional showcases, creates a unique experience—a journey full of creativity and inspiration.

The next TOCA ME design conference will happen on March 9th 2019 in Munich‘s Alte Kongresshalle. Amongst the speakers is Montreal-based artist and creative technologist James Paterson and Annie Atkins, Oscar awarded graphic designer in the film industry. Furthermore artist and activist Evan Roth, filmmaker and animation director Anna Ginsburg, British designer Anthony Burrill, and computational artist Memo Akten. The talks on stage are accompanied by installations and actions of local creative heads.

Once again TOCA ME design conference will be one of the main events of the Munich Creative Business Week taking place from 9th till 17th March 2019. TOCA ME design conference is funded by bayern design and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy and Technology. The event is supported by its partners Adobe, Eventwürze, Designerdock, Schoene Neue Kinder and Mates. Organizer is the Munich-based design studio TOCA ME.

For more information and tickets click here.

Thonik: Why We Design

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

In this book, Thonik, the Amsterdam-based studio led by lauded designers Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven, researches eleven personal reasons why they design—from the need to create impact to a constant search for independence; from the benefits of systems to the urgency of play. Additionally Why We Design looks back on twenty-five years of design practice and speculates on the future of graphic design.

Thonik was founded in 1993 and specializes in visual communication, graphic identity, interaction, and motion design. To the studio it is important to create work that sets apart and differentiates, work that sparks discussions and initiates change—one design at a time.

Thonik: Why We Design

Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Design: Thonik
Contributions by: Aaron Betsky, Adrian Shaughnessy, Gert Staal, Nikki Gonnissen, Thomas Widdershoven
Dimensions: 17 × 24 cm
Pages: 352
Workmanship: paperback
Release: 2018
ISBN: 978-3-03778-556-0
Language: English
Price: 35,– Euro
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Typeface of the Month: Molto

Posted on by Slanted editors

Xavier Dupre’s Molto font family is a tonal master, creating tenderness in a slab serif and tempering toughness with flourishes. Slab serifs created their original niche by their ability to grab attention and overwhelm, which caused them to be seen as strong, dominant, and desired fonts, especially in advertising. Slab serifs are the result of placing defined edges on something meant to take up an inordinate amount of space, rather than meant to be graceful. Molto updates this concept to allow a greater, and gentler, range in the lighter weights.

Molto’s nine weights are defined by their intended use. The two extreme weights (Hair and Fat) act as display partners for magazines, titles, and posters. The Hair weight is runway ready with its sturdy serifs, breathy internal space, and stable lettershapes that were designed both to perform and impress. Molto’s Fat weight packs maximum punch in a believable way. Its wide and deliberate curves contrast against thin connections and landing strip stems. Molto can be put to perfect use in a fashion magazine using swashy Hair headlines set against its darkest weight.

Molto’s seven intermediate weights, with their classic and legible shapes, are meant for texts of all sizes. The notches on diagonals, distinct numerals, and acute terminals grant benefits from caption sizes up to headings. Molto’s refined light weights and punchy heavy weights set the stage for a swashy surprise — alternate capital letters act as refined garments laid atop its concrete skeleton.

The Molto font family rejects saving space in favour of intensifying shapes, placing maximum weight on the edges for better legibility and impact. Latin-based digital and printed designs will benefit from Molto’s design voice and breadth. This means UI, video, and online text, and print materials like dictionaries, packaging, advertising, and branding can all put Molto’s robust forms to multipurpose use. Molto successfully creates balance in a slab serif design: an opinionated and striking type family, stalwart in captions and exuberant in display, thanks to swashes which add some originality to the slab category.

Molto

Foundry: TypeTogether
Designer: Xavier Dupre
Release: 2018
Format: otf, eot, svg, woff, woff2
Weights: Hair, Thin, Extralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black, Fat
Price: 44,10 € per style / 297,68 € the family

You can get a digital specimen here.

Adobe Creative Residency 2019

Posted on by Julia Kahl

Working on your dream project for one year without any financial worries? To be supported in the realization of this project? Speaking at conferences and give workshops? To be celebrated by the design community? Sounds too good to be true? With Adobe’s Creative Residency Program, creative dreams really do come true! The next application phase starts today—and we’ll show you why you should definitely join in!

Adobe Creative Residency is a program that allows aspiring creatives to focus on their personal projects for one year and to start a career they’ve dreamed of. The Creative Residents will be supported with everything they need—including a salary, mentoring, access to Adobe software, and much more. But what should you bring with you to become a Creative Resident? And why shouldn’t you miss this opportunity under any circumstances? You’ll find out right here!

Isabel Lea’s typography-led designs show you what it’s like to be young and British today

Isabel Lea, co-founder of ATYPICAL and the first ever Adobe Creative Resident based in the UK, is an art director and designer. Isabel used living in the UK as inspiration for her project BRIT(ISH). The project is an attempt to explore being young and British during recent turbulent years. As part of her creative residency, in which Adobe empowers talented individuals to spend a year focusing on a personal creative project, she’s exploring how typography-led design can respond to a place, its language, and its cultural identity. She develops experimental fonts and designs that depict ideas, words and signs for which there is neither translation nor explanation. Lea supports her work with evidence from social research. Her works celebrate language and identity in an unconventional way.

Inspired? Then join in yourself! Everything you need to know is here!

This year you can apply for the Creative Residency from January 7th until February 7th. As every year, we’re looking for a variety of ideas, people, and projects to adequately represent the diversity of the Adobe creative community. This time, applications will be accepted from Canada, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, and, for the first time, Japan.

This year’s selection of Creative Residents focuses on the following creative disciplines:

  • UI/UX Design
  • Video
  • Digital illustration
  • Design (Digital and Print)
  • Photography

Do not despair: If your area of expertise is not listed above, we still look forward to receiving your application. If you take a look at our Alumni Residents page, you will quickly become aware of the variety of areas and styles that have been part of the Creative Residency in recent years. So: Make sure you take part, one way or the other!

Application made easy: Some tips!

Of course, the first thing you need to do is take your time and look at the Creative Residency website and all the help it offers. And then it is important that you really think through your dream project: What is your motivation? What should (and will) the project achieve? Which other material or support are needed? In any case, take your time to prepare thoughtful answers to the application questions.
You can also get further help in the video of Alumni Resident Anna Daviscourt, in which she gives you five tips for your application. And you’ll find many more detailed tips for a good application in the article by our colleagues from Adobe Create Magazine.

What does Adobe look out for?

In addition to the idea behind the project and everything that goes with it, the jury will also consider your creative work to date, flexibility in trying out new things, work experience, and willingness to take on new challenges. As a prime example of a fresh and unusual application that will remain in your memory, here is the application video by Aaron Bernstein, who presented his project concept last year with stop motion animation, audio and photography. And to top it all off, here are a few more questions you should be prepared for:

  • Describe your project, including your goals & what you want to achieve!
  • How does this project build on your previous work?
  • What creative tools are you planning to use?
  • Which workflow would you like to use for your project?
  • How do you plan to share your project with the creative community?
  • What should the creative community learn from your project
  • What are your long-term career goals and how will Adobe Creative Residency help you achieve them?

In addition to answering the above questions, you will need to share three previous projects and links from your online portfolio and/or Behance page. This will give Adobe colleagues a better understanding of who you are as artists. The applications from former Creative Residents Jessica Bellamy, Aundre Larrow, and Rosa Kammermeier are good examples to use as a guide for preparing your application.
We hope that this information will help you to make a successful application & wish you good luck!

APPLY NOW!

Jacques Devaulx. Nautical Works

Posted on by Julia Kahl

Five hundred years after the historic French seaport of Le Havre was established, TASCHEN presents a facsimile reproduction of Les premières œuvres de Jacques Devaulx, pilote en la marine, first published by Le Havre-born “Naval Pilot to the King” Jacques Devaulx in 1583. This extraordinary illuminated manuscript, dedicated to the Duke of Joyeuse, collates nautical, astronomical, and cartographic ideas as well as Devaulx’s own extensive notes, observations, and records as a seafarer, hydrographer, cosmographer, and cartographer.

An encyclopedic reference for sailors, as well as a magnificent maritime showpiece for his royal employers, the elaborately annotated and decorated folios are a repertoire of naval and cosmographic tools and techniques, including astrolabes, nautical charts of the Atlantic Ocean, tabular statements of diurnal tides, astrological charts, and measurements for solar altitude. They also gather Devaulx’s volvelles, wheel charts made of rotating parts that are today considered an early example of the paper analog computer. Together, the folios encapsulate the state of knowledge at a time when sailors pushed the limits of sea exploration and offer a glimpse into the practical daily requirements of Renaissance seafaring.

This edition of Devaulx’s stunning document, produced in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, reproduces each of the 31 folios in all their brilliant art and science, including the original colorful illuminations, in particular the volvelles. The volume features essays by Jean-Yves Sarazin and Gerhard Holzer, as well as commentaries from a team of experts coordinated by Élisabeth Hébert and Véronique Hauguel-Thill, contextualizing Devaulx’s work with fascinating insights into 16th-century seafaring and exploration.

The editor

Jean-Yves Sarazin (1967–2016) was a curator and historian. After completing advanced studies in history, paleographic archiving, and library conservation, he managed the Directory of French Cartographers at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, responsible for the conservation and restoration of cartographic documents. From 2010 he worked as director of the Department of Maps and Plans at the BnF. He also dedicated his academic career to the history of legal documents, and is the author of the Bibliographie d’histoire du notariat français, 1200-1815 (2004). He passed away on September 4th, 2016, following a lengthy illness.

The authors

Élisabeth Hébert is a mathematician and historian. She is the author of Instruments scientifiques à travers l’histoire (2004), a book about the usage of scientific, geometrical, and nautical instruments throughout the course of history; and Le Traité de Navigation de Jean-Baptiste Denoville (2008), an analysis and commentary of a reprint of Denoville’s nautical manuscript from 1760, which received a prize at the Nuit du Livre book awards in Paris, 2009. She is also President of the mathematical society Association Sciences en Seine et Patrimoine (ASSP) in Rouen and a retired Associate Professor of Mathematics at the IREM (Institut de Recherche sur l’Enseignement des Mathématiques) at the University of Rouen.

Gerhard Holzer studied history and geography at the University of Vienna and graduated with a thesis on the German-Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter. Since 1989, he has been curator of the Woldan Collection at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and has published a number of papers on scientific history, in particular on the history of discovery and cartography.

Jacques Devaulx. Nautical Works

Jean-Yves Sarazin, Élisabeth Hébert, Gerhard Holzer, Véronique Hauguel-Thill, Marie-Thérèse Castanet, Françoise Doray, Josette Méasson
Hardcover, 27.6 x 39.5 cm, 264 pages
ISBN 978-3-8365-3923-4
Multilingual Edition: English, French, German

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Bringing Color Fonts to Messaging

Posted on by wbrooke

Color fonts—where font letters can have multiple colors, shapes and texture—are still fairly new. Even though they’ve been around since 2016 many typographers have yet to really experiment with color fonts or even hear about them at all. That said, their use is growing and now being adapted for use in mobile messaging for the first time. The first mobile app to adopt color fonts for messaging is Fontmoji.

Fontmoji uses color fonts to allow people send expressive messages or “fontmojis.” Their iOS keyboard converts messages from iMessage’s default San Francisco font to over 80 available fonts. These color fonts have letters shaped out of birthday cake, balloons, fire, water, chocolate, and pencils, to name a few. Some of these fonts use the older Truetype font format, but most of their available fonts are color fonts, using the Opentype SVG format.

Interestingly, they’ve recognized that color fonts allow fans to engage with their favorite brands. Previous font formats didn’t allow brand logos with complex texture or multiple colors to be rendered into a font—any complex texture or multiple colors would be lost. Now smash hit TV shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things to video games like PUBG & Fortnite can be rendered as completely identical fonts.

It will be interesting to see how color font technology further evolves our modern day communication.

Get the App here.

Begel, der Egel

Posted on by Julia Kahl

Most children’s books deal with wild animals such as bears, lions and tigers or with cute dogs and cats – Nele Brönner puts the leech into the focus of her latest book. A leech? Right, a leech. And he lives in a veterinary practice, where he pursues his daily work for medical purposes. In the morning he does his gymnastics exercises, then he treats the patients, and in the evening he takes care of the river sand bottom of his glass. That much depends on him, that’s clear to Begel. That’s why he does not understand why he suddenly has to share his cozy glass with the slender leech Ögel. Of course, Begel does not know anything about the huge dog patient and how uncomfortable it can be outside his little home …

A great book printed with bright special colors for small and large readers!

Slanted is giving away 3 issues of Begel, der Egel. To participate, simply write an e-mail to [email protected] til January 7th, 2019, with the subject “Begel.” The winners will be drawn after the deadline and contacted by email. Who participates in the raffle, agrees to receive news from Slanted and agrees to the privacy policy. The legal process is excluded. We wish you good luck!

Begel, der Egel

Illustration: Nele Brönner
Publisher: Luftschacht Verlag
Release: October 2018
Version: Hardcover
Language: German
Format: 19.0 x 25.0 cm
Volume: 32 pages
ISBN 978-3-903081-31-4
Price: € 22,–

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