Hi
I’m looking for examples of ’Typography as art’ ie where letterform is the only or main part of a piece of art.
If you have any links or suggestions I would be happy to hear them.
Stephen R
In sweden we have a designer Gabor Palotai, he often uses only typography to create his design/art. However I’m not sure it is supposed to be called art or not — and btw, who is the judge of that — but it sure is “arty”. He has done a few books that is quite cool.
There has been a great exhbition at British Museum recently Word into Art I was so impressed that when I wento to Morocco I had bought some caligraphy in Essouaria and my wife started caligraphy doodling.
Oh yes, I second that Arabic is beautiful, but for me arabic is more an art of calligraphy, not typography. Two weeks ago I was to a seminar with Linotype’s Nadine Chahine who is developing the arabic fonts at Linotype. Some examples that she showed of old arabic calligraphy, it just blew my mind – so beautiful pieces of art.
Miles’s comment reminds of something:
There was a guy on Typophile who was painting tableaus of letterforms.
In particular I remember one of a detail of a hedera. Very cool angle.
Wow! Arabic Calligraphy is having a very good space in this topic. But I have to agree with Goran Soderstrom; I know a lot of good work of arabic calligaphy, especially here in Egypt we have some strong calligraphers! but most of arabic fonts - I have seen or even shared in making - are not having the quality that our calligraphy has. But Any way here what I can find regarding typography: http://www.arabicfonts.com/logogallery.asp
That link needs sometime to read before I write a comment there, and that will happen later. But from a fast reading there I can tell you have made some appreciated effort to solve some of the problem, Mr.Aziz. What about Shawkash’s calligraphy and your capture of that small movie any way. I hope nothing wrong with it :-)
It is also appreciated you have noticed that; most of it’s veiwers at that community didn’t say anything about the flower. And from the short time chance of reading your messages here, allow me to describe you as someone in love with all world flowers.
Watching something so intricate at low quality on a tiny screen size doesn’t do it justice, it’s really worth a look at in full-quality if you ever get the chance.
Someone told me that the institut du monde arabe
in Paris (architect Jean Nouvel) has also verses/words in its walls. I went there but I coudn’t read anything! Anyone knows something about?
Aziz, deleted - is part of a series I’m working on which speaks of the destruction, deconstruction and reconstruction of the written word. It may appear stupidly simple - but it ain’t.
This is a great thread, nice question stephen - I see some familiar names who have/do inspire me, and some new ones too.
Hiroshige, do you know a Gentleman/Lady named XXX from XXX?
He/She does Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction, All with just XXX?
Guess he/she is XXX years Old but Wondering y XXX is so XXX?
XXX Thanx with XXX
Her work is not only wonderfully imaginative and artistically superb, but it just makes you feel happier, like the old Beatles music. A rare treasure and pleasure.
My work is very typographic - I hand carve linoleum alphabets and print with them on fabric dishtowels, shirts and bolts of fabric. I have an installation hanging in the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts:
10.Nov.2006 2.42am
Kurt Schwitters
El Lissitzky
Piet Zwart
Hendrik Werkman
10.Nov.2006 2.50am
Marinetti
Blast
Journal of the Vorticists can’t find any of the internal pages at the moment.
Tim
10.Nov.2006 2.56am
my favourite; Ed Ruscha
10.Nov.2006 3.20am
Bruce Nauman
Barbara Kruger
Jenny Holzer
10.Nov.2006 3.20am
In sweden we have a designer Gabor Palotai, he often uses only typography to create his design/art. However I’m not sure it is supposed to be called art or not — and btw, who is the judge of that — but it sure is “arty”. He has done a few books that is quite cool.
10.Nov.2006 3.26am
The most popular and well known is probably “Love” by Robert Indiana.
10.Nov.2006 3.28am
Look for Arabic, there is an old 1990 Baseline magazine with some good examples. I had it but someone at Microsoft didn’t give it back to me.
http://www.islamicart.com/main/calligraphy/index.html
10.Nov.2006 3.35am
There has been a great exhbition at British Museum recently Word into Art I was so impressed that when I wento to Morocco I had bought some caligraphy in Essouaria and my wife started caligraphy doodling.
10.Nov.2006 3.49am
Of the arabic theme, there are some interesting typographic works in the ’Community’ > ’Galeria’ section here.
10.Nov.2006 4.06am
Tom Phillips
Nick Cooke
10.Nov.2006 4.16am
Oh yes, I second that Arabic is beautiful, but for me arabic is more an art of calligraphy, not typography. Two weeks ago I was to a seminar with Linotype’s Nadine Chahine who is developing the arabic fonts at Linotype. Some examples that she showed of old arabic calligraphy, it just blew my mind – so beautiful pieces of art.
10.Nov.2006 4.58am
Jasper Johns (numbers and alphabets).
10.Nov.2006 5.15am
How about Barbara Kruger?
http://www.barbarakruger.com/
10.Nov.2006 5.28am
christopher wool
(search google images)
10.Nov.2006 6.23am
hah, how one can forget this great chap
http://www.siscottdesign.com/
10.Nov.2006 6.49am
Drawings with Arabic ABC
10.Nov.2006 6.54am
Affiches lacérées:
François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques Villeglé etc.
10.Nov.2006 7.27am
Pablo Picasso and George Braque
René Magritte
Ilia Zdanevich
Glenn Ligon
Fred Eerdekens
This book may be a helpful survey.
10.Nov.2006 8.27am
Dada.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=dada&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8...
not sure why that link is not active, but I did an image search for Dada on google and found a lot of examples of typography art.
10.Nov.2006 8.58am
Thanks for that link, Satya. I’ve seen this guys work before (and loved it!), but didn’t know who made it.
10.Nov.2006 9.14am
hey... azizwhat i like most in ur artwork is the” leader ” ;)
gr8 work!
this is a type of arabic calligraphy art (kufi handasa)
10.Nov.2006 10.00am
Tom, you might enjoy this (via Typographica)
http://typeforyou.blogspot.com/2006/08/si-scott-interview.html
Not really an artist in the same terms as the others here but still.
Tim
10.Nov.2006 10.31am
I sure do, Tim! Thanks!
10.Nov.2006 10.36am
http://www.letterexchange.org/members/39.html
10.Nov.2006 11.53am
Mostafa, I love that stuff.
hhp
10.Nov.2006 10.15pm
thanx hrant... i’ve got more ;)
11.Nov.2006 12.40am
Stephen,
There’re a few gems here. I particularly like the large works work of Stefan Sagmeister.
11.Nov.2006 2.26am
it has to be said - a lot of stuff suggested here that isn’t art.
11.Nov.2006 8.34am
shamelessly...
r.k
11.Nov.2006 9.32am
Miles’s comment reminds of something:
There was a guy on Typophile who was painting tableaus of letterforms.
In particular I remember one of a detail of a hedera. Very cool angle.
Rob, nice.
hhp
11.Nov.2006 3.31pm
you might find this useful:
http://typophile.com/node/18574
11.Nov.2006 3.47pm
April Greiman
ChrisL
11.Nov.2006 7.32pm
Here’s that glyph tableau painter guy:
http://typophile.com/node/15101
hhp
11.Nov.2006 9.40pm
Metofa, that piece of art does not belong to me.
See whose work and more in this Arabic site
Happy Exploring with Flowers
12.Nov.2006 10.02am
______________
Hiro
12.Nov.2006 11.47am
Who is that Hero? Shy?
12.Nov.2006 2.48pm
Aziz, thanx alot 4 the site... interesting
12.Nov.2006 8.19pm
Wow! Arabic Calligraphy is having a very good space in this topic. But I have to agree with Goran Soderstrom; I know a lot of good work of arabic calligaphy, especially here in Egypt we have some strong calligraphers! but most of arabic fonts - I have seen or even shared in making - are not having the quality that our calligraphy has. But Any way here what I can find regarding typography:
http://www.arabicfonts.com/logogallery.asp
Ahmad Shawkash
12.Nov.2006 8.32pm
> most of arabic fonts ... are not having the quality that our calligraphy has.
Perhaps you agree, but: it does need a different kind of quality.
hhp
12.Nov.2006 9.10pm
Acutally, I can’t agree more.
Ahmad Shawkash
12.Nov.2006 9.10pm
> most of arabic fonts … are not having the quality that our calligraphy has.
Plenty are the Arabic Fonts, but very few are Fonty
> Wow! Arabic Calligraphy is having a very good space in this topic.
Wow! ShawKash’s Kaligrafi is having a very good space in this topic.
Thanks with Flowers
12.Nov.2006 9.25pm
That link needs sometime to read before I write a comment there, and that will happen later. But from a fast reading there I can tell you have made some appreciated effort to solve some of the problem, Mr.Aziz. What about Shawkash’s calligraphy and your capture of that small movie any way. I hope nothing wrong with it :-)
Ahmad Shawkash
12.Nov.2006 9.30pm
Ahmad Shawkash, You mean the 2 forming One heart with a flower dancing over.
Simple yet Great! I love your Fonty Animation.
12.Nov.2006 9.36pm
It is also appreciated you have noticed that; most of it’s veiwers at that community didn’t say anything about the flower. And from the short time chance of reading your messages here, allow me to describe you as someone in love with all world flowers.
Ahmad Shawkash
13.Nov.2006 3.21am
Maybe not art, but a building. I’m pretty sure it says something.
It’s a hotel in Cairo.
Nick Cooke
13.Nov.2006 4.01am
That’s right: Verses of the Glorious Quran in Kufi Style of Writing.
Nick Cooke, was it taken by you?
Regards with Flowers
13.Nov.2006 5.14am
fiona banner.....
she used type in her work which won the turner prize some yrs back.. with her large transcripts of porn.
13.Nov.2006 5.35am
One of my favourite pieces of ’type as art’ is the video for Alex Gopher’s ’The Child’ video.
Watching something so intricate at low quality on a tiny screen size doesn’t do it justice, it’s really worth a look at in full-quality if you ever get the chance.
13.Nov.2006 5.44am
Someone told me that the institut du monde arabe
in Paris (architect Jean Nouvel) has also verses/words in its walls. I went there but I coudn’t read anything! Anyone knows something about?
13.Nov.2006 6.49am
Aziz - yes it was taken by me.
Nick Cooke
13.Nov.2006 9.02am
Don’t know what to say, or how to thank you all. Cept, you all sure do know your stuff!
Thanks all
Stephen.
13.Nov.2006 10.08am
>Who is that Hero? Shy?
Aziz, deleted - is part of a series I’m working on which speaks of the destruction, deconstruction and reconstruction of the written word. It may appear stupidly simple - but it ain’t.
This is a great thread, nice question stephen - I see some familiar names who have/do inspire me, and some new ones too.
__________
Hiro
13.Nov.2006 11.55am
Maybe someone with a flickr account can gather images from those sugguested and compile a flickr place for them?
13.Nov.2006 4.56pm
Marian Bantjes
http://www.bantjes.com/
14.Nov.2006 6.47am
a little avant-weird, but Jan Svankmajer’s films make rather extensive use of typography in fairly unprecedented ways..
14.Nov.2006 9.18am
Hiroshige, do you know a Gentleman/Lady named XXX from XXX?
He/She does Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction, All with just XXX?
Guess he/she is XXX years Old but Wondering y XXX is so XXX?
XXX Thanx with XXX
14.Nov.2006 3.33pm
_________
Hiro
14.Nov.2006 5.00pm
Hiro! that is freakin’ brilliant!
ChrisL
14.Nov.2006 5.31pm
I don’t know if you classify this as art, but it’s brilliant stuff.
15.Nov.2006 12.04am
Hiroshige, just one question:
How do you write 30 in Roman System?
Equal Thanks with Flowers
15.Nov.2006 10.31am
What about M/M (Paris) work with fashion photographers?
I Love it.
The Alphabet
&
The AlphaMen
15.Nov.2006 11.05am
Mathias, what do you love in that precisely?
16.Nov.2006 11.05pm
Hey thanks for the comps guys!!, for some reason it means a lot to me - must be the cabernet.
________
Hiro
28.Jan.2007 11.29am
Robert Indiana
________
Hiro
28.Jan.2007 12.01pm
I love these letterpressed posters for the helvetica movie:
http://www.helveticafilm.com/shop.html#
28.Jan.2007 5.02pm
One of my favorites is the Italian futurist Fortunato DePero whose work you can see, at among other places, here.
28.Jan.2007 9.32pm
29.Jan.2007 4.36am
Our ampersand poster could be considered an art project. » Contains video «
No apologies for the blatant self-promotion.
29.Jan.2007 5.35am
Last week I saw Marian Bantjes presentation at the TDC.
Her work is not only wonderfully imaginative and artistically superb, but it just makes you feel happier, like the old Beatles music. A rare treasure and pleasure.
29.Jan.2007 10.13am
I say this periodically: Bantjes is the messiah of PoMo.
So unlike the hooligans of the 90s.
hhp
31.May.2008 9.00am
My work is very typographic - I hand carve linoleum alphabets and print with them on fabric dishtowels, shirts and bolts of fabric. I have an installation hanging in the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts:
http://www.decordova.org/decordova/exhibit/2008/2008%20Annual/ahern.htm
www.electrocaster.org
mitchelka@electrocaster.org