Helmut Schmid Typography / Helmut Schmid Typografie

Helmut Schmid was a master of his craft. The Austrian typographer put his own spin on Emil Ruder’s teachings at the Basel School of Design while remaining faithful to the principles of clarity, simplicity, and elegance. Blending eastern and western influences, Schmid honed his skills and put them into practice in the fields of editorial design, packaging of ethical drugs, and the visual identity of brands such as Pocari Sweat sports drink (Otsuka Pharmaceutical), Maquillage (Shiseido) and IPSA. He also produced publications, such as the famous journal Typographic Reflections.

Helmut Schmid Typography explores the typographer’s oeuvre in its entirety. The book’s generous design allows each image to breathe, and the accompanying texts narrate Schmid’s life and career in an informative and pleasant manner. Complementing the publications Weingart: Typography and Ruder Typography, Ruder Philosophy, this bilingual monograph completes the Basel school of typographic thought.

Handbook of Tyranny

Handbook of Tyranny portrays the routine cruelties of the twenty-first century through a series of detailed non-fictional graphic illustrations. None of these cruelties represent extraordinary violence—they reflect day-to-day implementation of laws and regulations around the globe.

Every page of the book questions our current world of walls and fences, police tactics and prison cells, crowd control and refugee camps. The dry and factual style of storytelling through technical drawings is the graphic equivalent to bureaucratic rigidity born of laws and regulations. The level of detail depicted in the illustrations of the book mirror the repressive efforts taken by authorities around the globe.

The twenty-first century shows a general striving for an ever more regulated and protective society. Yet the scale of authoritarian intervention and their stealth design adds to the growing difficulty of linking cause and effect. Handbook of Tyranny gives a profound insight into the relationship between political power, territoriality and systematic cruelties.

This new edition includes updated figures and eight additional pages.

Cleaning

Cleanliness is a core value of societies around the globe. So much so that cleaning seems to be an inherent part of human nature and an expression of how we interact with and domesticate our environment. This book explores the concept of cleaning in its various aspects. Illustrations from various cleaning methods expand our conception of an activity that is such a big part of our daily lives. From a child sorting its toys and the meticulous work of a clockmaker to an impressive deep-clean of a ship: each process is treated with the same calm fascination while short texts add a semi-poetic dimension. The book’s handy size invites readers to take it out into the world as they look at everyday processes with fresh eyes. Flipping through the pages of Cleaning is as enlightening as it is entertaining.

Instant Doodles

Instant Doodles is an archive showcasing over a thousand submissions generated with an online drawing and writing tool on a 500 × 660 pixel canvas. The artworks vary from ad hoc doodles to hypnotic poetry and reveal how creativity can emerge from limitation.

101 is a design and coding studio based in Vienna, Austria. On their homepage they implemented a tool for people to interact via a pen, eraser, or writing tool. Over four years, more than 500 people around the world participated in this open call.

WIEN Calendar

Wien is a perennial calendar featuring twelve illustrated glimpses of contemporary Vienna.
Francesco Ciccolella, born in Salzburg in 1990, is an illustrator and graphic artist living in Vienna. His award-winning illustration work regularly appears on the covers of international newspapers and magazines or on advertising billboards around the globe. And now, on a brand-new calendar.

NFC

The New Fashion Container project was born and sharpened in 2020 while we were witnessing a tremendous shake up of our values and expectations in the (fashion) industry. It is based on 11 concepts—those concepts are the new language fashion needs. The NFC Project is connecting people, cities, ideas from all over the world thanks to the digital. Drawn from notes at a special moment in history, this “notebook” is a document that points to the future.We need to be critical. We can and we must build a more balanced fashion industry.

Linda Loppa is a honorary doctor of University of the Arts, London, and founder of Linda Loppa Factory with 50 years fashion industry experience. For The New Fashion Container project she invited 22 personalities from fashion and beyond to contribute on concepts for the future of fashion. With illustrations by Max Anish Gowriah.

Fassade Parade

Fassade Parade is a collection of lost souls of modern aesthetics compiled by Tobias Faisst that stand in strong contrast to pixel-perfect designs and high-end photography. Foreword by Felipe Duque. The book appears as an artist edition in a strictly limited edition of 150 pieces.

Tobias Faisst is a photographer and graphic designer. He studied at University of Applied Science Potsdam. His photographs create the balancing act between hyperrealism and banality, between surrealism and the overwritten now. Tobias currently lives and works in Berlin.

Facts & Fiction

With Facts and Fiction, artist Peter Phobia presents a carefully selected overview of his works and solo exhibitions in a limited artist collection.
Peter Phobia is a New York-based artist and illustrator. He is deeply influenced by pop culture and everyday life observations. Phobia’s work is rather a statement but an open invitation to reflect on current topics in society.

FAUST

The book features an innovative and captivating visual representation of the classic play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust is a photography book that brings the characters and scenes of the play to life through striking imagery captured by photographer Marcel Urlaub as part of the performances live on stage of Vienna’s renowned Volkstheater—including production shots by Franzi Kreis. The book presents thus a fresh interpretation of Faust, showcasing the talents of the Volkstheater’s ensemble and the original nature of director Kay Voges’ approach to the play. Each photograph becomes a visual poem, a frozen moment that encapsulates the universal themes and timeless questions Goethe explored.
Marcel Urlaub is a photographer whose lens possesses the remarkable ability to transcend time and space, capturing the essence of iconic literary works and bringing them to life visually.

FAÇADES OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Façades of Brooklyn Heights is a walk through the New York City neighborhood and its charming streetscapes with picturesque rows of houses—a testament to the skill and creativity of their architects and builders, but also to the enduring beauty and character of traditional architecture. The peaceful, tree-lined streets of the Heights provide a welcome break from the fast-paced lifestyle of the city, a respite from the distractions of city life.
Based in Berlin, photographer Robert Rieger takes inspiration from the likes of Vermeer and Viggo Johansen, and applies his cohesive approach to every narrative he crafts, from still-life shots to intimate portraits and documentary series.

LIVING UNDER THE VOLCANOES

Indonesia ranks third on the list of countries with the most volcanoes, after the United States and Russia. There are no less than 127 active craters across the archipelago, where people live very close to the dangerous mountains. The land’s fertility—a result of the eruptions that, despite everything, has a beneficial impact on agricultural life—is one reason. Photographer Putu Sayoga documents the people and their daily lives and rituals, as well as the consequences of the eruptions on the communities surrounding the volcanoes, including Bali, Java, Sumatra, and North Moluccas.

Putu Sayoga is documentary and travel photographer based in Island of Bali. He studied politics in Gadjah Mada University where he graduated in 2010 from the Department of Politics and Government. An autodidact, he taught himself photography—especially street photography—during his college days.

Some Magazine #17—Look

For over one hundred years, we humans of the post-postmodern times have turned ourselves into outstanding visual athletes. We made visuality our superpower. Now we are about to change the rules of the game right in the middle of it. Will all this result in some new weird kind of blindness?

With contributions by Blatant Space, Catelijne van Middelkoop, David Horvitz, Eleonora Marton, Melody “LeMoon” Bossan and Rob Lowe.

This issue of Some Magazine is dedicated to the skill, the craft and the pure joy of looking!

A Magazine for Visual Inventors!

Since 2010, changing editorial teams of young design students research, write, layout, and produce the bi-annual Some Magazine. It is a part of the experimental design course of Prof. Sven Völker at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Non-Structures

The series Non-Structures presents London—and cities in general—as a spectacle of constant conflict, negotiation, and flux. Capturing key moments in the life of diverse buildings, the images reveal a condition of transience, trapped as these buildings and sites are between the boundaries of architecture and ruin, planning and chance, process and product. The term “Non-Structures” alludes to anthropologist Marc Augé’s influential work Non-Places; this boundary condition, defined by an absence of identity, has lent its name to the series.

Flowers in the Dark No.1

What is real and what is fiction? We can distort and disfigure our faces using various digital filters. A self-portrait is created that can only be produced in a digital world. This image plays with the viewer with its surreal look and asks is it real or fiction?

The Flowers in the Dark No.1 print with surreal surrounding comes as a DIN A5 print on 246g/qm photo paper (C Type Fuji Gloss). The Print is sold unframed.

Slanted Magazine #42—Books

Slanted Magazine #42—Books is a magazine about books. Every day, people ponder whether the future of the (printed) book is tied to its sensual quality. How can beautiful books secure their place in the media and society? How are content, medium, and form interconnected? Is manufacturing and design quality, in addition to its functionality, simply to be understood as a marketing argument?

In this edition, Slanted Publishers delves deeper into books that are pushing boundaries, moving beyond traditional norms, and rediscovering their essence. The belief is that genuine reading encompasses more than mere skimming; it involves understanding, grasping, and engaging in creative thinking. The value placed on the tactile experience of holding a book, flipping through its pages, setting it aside, and seamlessly resuming the reading is immense. It’s an experience cherished by many, one that defines the true essence of books.

Slanted Publishers emphasizes the resurgence of book reading as a significant trend, especially for those seeking enduring experiences and embracing multi-dimensional thinking. This edition showcases books that venture off the beaten path, departing from traditional conventions, and advocates for timeless book designs where the content shapes the form.

To commemorate the magazine’s release, Slanted Publishers has introduced a limited special edition, which includes a set of pencils from Viarco, the oldest pencil factory in Portugal. Make a statement with this and become part of the BK LVRS!

Latent Figures

Three years after Shape Grammars (2020), Jannis Maroscheck returns with an updated look on machine-generated graphics and the core motif of mass produced ideas: Latent Figures.

Looking for forms of expression hidden between ancient runes and y2k logos, medieval monograms and clip art illustrations, hieroglyphs and stock icons, Maroscheck developed AI-based systems to merge the shared visual vocabulary designed by humans across eras, continents and cultures. The underlying process simulates human inspiration, but it is an analytical, objective process. The systems consider form as pure form. They draw no reference to real-world things. In doing so, they have a stubborn intensity to them, that seems less like human creativity and more like a strange, unstoppable force of nature.

The resulting catalog is a dive into the inner workings of an AI that has seen nothing but graphic shapes and symbols. With this sort-of-dictionary, Maroscheck creates a visual language that blends pragmatic graphic design aesthetics with elusive imagery. A collection of shapes that often approximate something we know or can understand, but their meaning doesn‘t quite want to resolve, they revolve around themselves, somewhere between meaning and nonsense. Offering a space to project ones own imagination and come across new ideas.

“When I think about it, something like a graphic form, black and white, defined only by its outline, feels quite limited in what it can express, what it can communicate. Then I look at it, like a blob of ink, continuously reshaping itself, in flux, automatic and open in all directions.” Jannis Maroscheck

Limited Special Edition Books: BK LVRS Pencils + Magazine

To celebrate the release of Slanted Magazine #42—Books, we introduce a limited special edition exclusively available in the Slanted Shop or with Subscriptions with special edition. This Special Edition includes Slanted Magazine #42—Books and a pair of custom-made pencils from Viarco, the oldest pencil factory in Portugal.

Pencils—We’re BK Lvrs!

Only because of the boundless will of José Vieira, owner of the oldest pencil factory Portugal’s, places like Viarco are still alive. They manufactured these wonderful pencils for the special edition and with this share their approach and heritage with the Slanted readers worldwide. Get an insight look into the oldest factory of Portugal here.

Flowers in the Dark No.2

What is real and what is fiction? We can distort and disfigure our faces using various digital filters. A self-portrait is created that can only be produced in a digital world. This image plays with the viewer with its surreal look and asks is it real or fiction?

The Flowers in the Dark No.2 Print with surreal surrounding comes as a DIN A5 print on 246g/qm photo paper (C Type Fuji Gloss).

Series Blue Notes, No.1—Isaiah Lopaz “Fluent in the Languages of My Selves”

In his essay, the writer and artist Isaiah Lopaz tells of recovered memories, yearning desires and the bitter and painful disappointment that his place of refuge, Europe, became. His text powerfully bears witness to how, despite racism and exclusion, he finds himself in his diverse and polyphonic identities, where he develops his own poetic language and power. The text is accompanied by thirteen collages from the Anthology/Appendix series, which explores themes of diaspora, desire, isolation and belonging.

Fluent in the Languages of my Selves is the first in the blue notes series. blue notes publishes intersectional voices and invites us to explore marginalized experiences and perspectives in short literary and visual formats. Like the blue notes, they create resistant dissonances.

Grafikmagazin 05.23—Creative Printing

As the name indicates, Grafikmagazin is a print magazine focusing on all things graphic design. Primarily it’s aimed at professional creatives and design students from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond. Grafikmagazin presents outstanding work from graphic design, typography, illustration, photography, design theory, research, paper, and printing every two months.

The editorial team of Grafikmagazin created a variety of sections and categories but selected focus themes for each issue, like Creative Printing. The topics portray how imaginative, eclectic, and playful graphic design can be while featuring successful branding concepts and niche ideas.

The extensive “Showroom” section lets readers know other creatives and the stories behind design studios worldwide. The “Design and Research” category presents interdisciplinary projects that show how science and research can benefit from creative solutions and play an active role in graphic design. In the “Production and Publishing” section, everything revolves around print. You will find exquisite books, sophisticated annual reports, and high-quality embossed greeting cards. Also, the cover artists of each issue are interviewed or get to highlight their ideas.

Each cover is printed on a different paper, and the design interprets the particular Grafik+ theme more broadly or shares a fresh perspective on a unique design technique. This particular cover was realized in six different versions from different studios and artists, each riso-printed. The Grafikmagazin team, its correspondents, and freelancers are bound and driven by the firm belief that print is not dead. With the will to prove just how alive it is, and the motivation to start something fresh yet deeply traditional, they strive for nothing less than to create another print magazine that makes history.

Forward Magazine—“AI” Issue

Forward proudly presents the sixth issue of its unique Design Magazine, on 100 pages, including seven interviews with a variety of top creatives like Refik Anadol, Ines Alpha, Baugasm, and many more. The magazine takes a deep dive into AI and its unknown future of technological evolution.

This year’s amazing print design by Zwupp is emphasized by a cover picture from Claudia Rafael with a special effect. The AI theme in the Magazine is not just reflected on the outside and in the content, but also in the inside with AI-generated images, facts, and the artificially made Typo.

Yearbook of Lettering #1

Letters and typefaces not only transport information but also create a feeling and have a personality. Lettering takes this a step further—with its movement, artistic strokes, and variety, it has the potential to radiate a whole range of energies and tell stories of harmony and distortion, about positive and negative space. Words become drawings and pictures themselves.

Born out of the success of the concept of the Yearbook of Type, we have created a new book series: the Yearbook of Lettering. It presents a selection of lettering artwork created all over the world—from traditional calligraphy and hand lettering, street art and graffiti, to 3D digital lettering, showcasing the vibrant and wide range of different styles and techniques.

The book offers an overview of high-quality handcrafted typographic art and can help clients source the right artist for a project. It serves as a source of inspiration not only for people in the design world but also displays the contemporary world of lettering and the many different styles available—giving lettering, calligraphy, brush lettering, blackletter, hand lettering, graffiti artists, and more the platform, appreciation, and recognition they deserve.

Lettering art from all over the world!

 

“A multifaceted presentation of the world of lettering.”
Grafikmagazin

FFCGN—Die Macht der Bilder Vol. 3

The world is made up of a thousand colors, and no sound is like another. It’s noisy! We have finally accepted the dissonances because we are not all cut from the same cloth. Yet, we live under the same sun together. This year’s key visual, created by Holger Risse, takes into account a complex spirit of the times: it poses the tricky question of what still connects us despite all our differences.

There is a need for spaces for encounters. Only through encounters does the diverse “beauty of being human in our society” (Jovanovic) come to shine. Let’s let it shine together with FFCGN – die Macht der Bilder Vol. 3!

Here you’ll learn all about the power of images in film, pop culture, art and society—in this book, at FILM FESTIVAL COLOGNE from October 19th to 26th, 2023, and always on the net. Once more, this publication gathers and selects a diverse range of content from the realm of motion pictures. This book is a showcase. The editors engage in conversations with individuals who inspire them. It offers a glimpse into their work, both at FILM FESTIVAL COLOGNE and in broader contexts. It presents a selection of the top-notch content they endorse.

re:imagine your city

The publication re:imagine your city invites you to explore and rethink current paradigms that shape our urban environments. It offers insightful perspectives on commemoration and heritage, city planning and gentrification, migration and post-pandemic changes, solidarity and critical spatial practices. The publication is the result of a collective effort by an engaged transdisciplinary network of urban practitioners, educators, researchers, artists, designers and architects in the framework of the international design lab for urban practices and transformation re:imagine your city.