Paul Elliman

From an extensive collection of randomly found objects, Paul Elliman has designed 'Bits' - an ongoing typographic design project. 'His survey of the detritus of contemporary urban experience establishes the designer as a conduit between the blank abstractions of the soft city existence and the kinetic rush of individuals careering through it's spaces, knocking bits off as they go'. He believes that the city is talking to him.

Paul Elliman asked 26 of his friends to meet at a passport photobooth and he assigned each of them a letter of the alphabet. Their responsibility was to 'act' out their letter - utilizing the practical limitations of both the photobooth and their own bodies.

Paul Elliman's 'alphabet' and 'bits' are typographies designed wherein alphabetic form shows our relationship with objects in urban space and ways in which the everyday contains performance.

Typography and Jenny Holzer

I have currently been revising for my exams. I only have two, so its not too bad really, but my exam yesterday was such a disaster. The module is just a disgrace - the teachers don't know what they're meant to be teaching us, there is absolutely no structure and their lecture notes don't make grammatical sense. They have never taught this module before and apparently are discontinuing for next year, due to it's awfulness.

However, although the module was atrocious I did learn a lot about typography (which unfortunately never came up in the exam), and it's influence within art and design.

One person who stuck out in particular was Jenny Holzer, whose means of art is through typography. Holzer places her art into situations for everyone to see, making a clear political standpoint and feeling against society. She displays her work publicly, projecting LED writings onto a building. The building is essentially her canvas. A lot of her work explores and attempts to subvert electronic advertising by adapting it to their means.

This is from her earlier work in the 70s:

And this is her more recent work, which has become much more technically advanced:

Into the next decade

Well a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! I have been on hold for 3 weeks, which is no way to go about a blog - but there we go....I have no excuses. Time to change for the new year - my resolutions - to work harder, to push myself, to not procrastinate. And things I need to achieve this year - an industrial placement, good exam results, fluency in french. haha. I'm not aiming too high I hope. And I would love to keep this blog going. I shall hopefully be finding exciting things and new designs all from 2010 - I may also delight you with some of my own work...which is not as exciting, but could be interesting?

I'd also like to add, that now we are not being monitored or graded on our blogs, I can truly write whatever I like...which probably changes nothing.

For Christmas I got a book by the Sartorialist- a blogger who goes around the streets of New York or Florence taking amazing shots of the people around him. I love to look at other fashion blogs, particularly ones that are now famous and really inspiring. Its interesting because he often takes close ups of really intricate details about someones attire, and he photographs men and women equally, which I think is important. Check out his blog, and also buy his book - its truly wonderful. Apparently his favourite photo of all time is this one:

"I love her posture, the bike itself, her hat pulled low, the studious glasses, she just seems so elegant and yet completely sporty. I hate over-preciousness and she seems like the kind of girl that would ride in a convertible with the top and not worry about her hair because she knows she has a great cut."

This photo was taken in Paris - I love it! And I love that she never knew she was being taken, and never knew that she is part of something so big.

Happy New Year!