five cans, ten minutes, 270 x 350 cm
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
squash typeface
My task is quite simple: Get a tool and use it for a graphic purpose.
In a thrift shop nearby I found that old wooden squash racket which is already a beauty by itself. The strings form an interesting grid where its' interspace can be seen as pixels, perfectly convenient to create images or animations. As my focus is on typography for this semester I chose to create a typeface and name it squash.
squash has two versions which differ in the scatter of the pixels. Version one uses every possible pixel, version two skips one pixel and more or less forms a package of four rectangles and treats it as one.
The second version came up before the first one, which is smoother and more elegant. In between I made a stop motion animation consisting of about 2000 frames which are manually edited. The sound comes from an extract of a squash game recording where I filtered out the ball hits and adjusted them to fit the movement of the letters.
The typeface will be available to download as a ttf file on my blog by the end of the semester.
Monday, May 12, 2014
BERLIN
Last week I was on a trip to Berlin with a few friends, visited some great exhibitions (among others Ai Weiweis' "Evidence") and just enjoyed the time together; a great place to dive away from every-day-life. Finally I really didn't want to leave, which inspired me to make a poster. The background is made from copies of the last train ticket I bought in Berlin - and as you always need to stamp the ticket before taking the train, I made the letters with a stamp, enlarged them and finally rasterized everything for the silk screen.
The text is a quote from the childrens book "Pünktchen und Anton", written in 1930 by Erich Kästner. The story takes place in Berlin and the citation means something like "Pünktchen, Come on! - But I can't! - Why not? - Beacause I'm so happy right now!"
silkscreen print, 50 x 70 cm
Friday, May 9, 2014
data place // aan de slag
In my project Data Place I focussed on the typography on Arnhem's weekly market. To get myself into it I improved my hand lettering and redesigned a market sign. After going through every single market stand and analyzing its signs I came to know that there is basically one guy walking around the market every now and then to write signs for the sellers on the spot, Henry van der Horst. His idea of working seems to be perfectly adjusted to the markets conditions. People don't need to order the plates and wait for them - instead they tell him directly what their offers are and within minutes they got their signs ready.
But I have another idea how this could be simplified. Why not letting people make their signs on their own with a generally customized, market orientated stencil kit?
My job for the upcoming weeks is to analyze the markets corporate identity, think about a solution how I can summarize all 'typefaces' that are given into a single one - and finally translate it to a stencil version that will be laser cut from plastic, wood or metal.
acrylic paint on wood, 30 x 30 cm
But I have another idea how this could be simplified. Why not letting people make their signs on their own with a generally customized, market orientated stencil kit?
My job for the upcoming weeks is to analyze the markets corporate identity, think about a solution how I can summarize all 'typefaces' that are given into a single one - and finally translate it to a stencil version that will be laser cut from plastic, wood or metal.
acrylic paint on wood, 30 x 30 cm
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
stickers available!
5 silkscreens of the series Our Planets as stickers, 7.5 x 10 cm, 100 pcs.
in case of interest, feel free to mail me!
Monday, April 7, 2014
duivelshuis arnhem
Referring to my project Data Place I copied an old photo of the Devils House at the market square in Arnhem into one I took a few days ago. Although it wasn't possible for me to capture it from the very same angle like the early photographer - there is a fence now and he probably used a different lens anyway- I quite enjoy the result.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
DATA PLACE // research
I was given a place mark, the market square in Arnhem, where I identified and captured spatial phenomena.
Among other things I concentrated on the typography of the market stalls and their surrounding, waste and leftovers after market times and the comparison of how the market looked like 70 years ago and now.
For getting a better overview I collected my research in form of a magazine (24 pages).
Part #2 of the assignment is to continue working with the collected data. I´ll see where the wind takes me.
Among other things I concentrated on the typography of the market stalls and their surrounding, waste and leftovers after market times and the comparison of how the market looked like 70 years ago and now.
For getting a better overview I collected my research in form of a magazine (24 pages).
Part #2 of the assignment is to continue working with the collected data. I´ll see where the wind takes me.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
artez // aki
personal experience of the difference between artez arnhem and the aki
marker on paper, 13 x 29 cm
Thursday, March 27, 2014
uncreative outsourcing // a poster from india
working in the most uncreative way.
The goal of the assignment is to redesign the work of one artist according to the methods of an other artists. The first artist is the musician and composer Brian Eno. The other artist is Kenneth Goldsmith. Kenneth Goldsmith is a conceptual poet who defines his work as “uncreative writing”. He makes use of existing texts — in print and online alike. By applying techniques of appropriation and sampling, he follows a process in which writing proceeds of self-induced formal constraints. Brian Eno deals with the issue of creativity quite differentely. Collaborating with Peter Schmidt, he created the ‘Oblique Strategies’ in 1975, a deck of cards designed to help them break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. They then published the cards and made that system available to a wide audience.
Well, the most uncreative way I could think of redesigning the tips is to let somebody else do it for me. I went on craigslist.com to search for advertisements of graphic designers in India, Thailand and China, as I know their income per capita is way less than in Europe. I sent out about 30 mails where I reformulated the assignment:
"Hi there,
We agreed that he makes one tip as a trial and if I´d like it he could continue.
As I tried to give him as much freedom as possible, any result would have been surprising me. Although he couldn't have taken the sentence more literally I quite enjoyed that he created a full image, whereas I told him via Skype that even a handwritten scan would be fine for me.
On the information data I can see the exact time and date the images where created. He made the first 30 on the first day after we skyped, on 12 March, 2014. All the rest was made on March 18, the date I set as a deadline and you can also see that in the images itself: After various ways of typography he slightly tends to use the same typeface, size and weight over and over again.
I did some research where he might got the images from he used for each tip and ended up with the result that he mostly took them from google. I find it interesting that although there is a locational and cultural difference the general public must somehow make the same associations. But maybe Muni Sekhar also picked the most european results as I as his client am European.
For a class presentation I chose a poster as the most appropriate manner of showing the results.
In addition to make the project complete and to elucidate the concept, which is far more important than the actual result, I will probably depict the whole story in a book.
The goal of the assignment is to redesign the work of one artist according to the methods of an other artists. The first artist is the musician and composer Brian Eno. The other artist is Kenneth Goldsmith. Kenneth Goldsmith is a conceptual poet who defines his work as “uncreative writing”. He makes use of existing texts — in print and online alike. By applying techniques of appropriation and sampling, he follows a process in which writing proceeds of self-induced formal constraints. Brian Eno deals with the issue of creativity quite differentely. Collaborating with Peter Schmidt, he created the ‘Oblique Strategies’ in 1975, a deck of cards designed to help them break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. They then published the cards and made that system available to a wide audience.
Well, the most uncreative way I could think of redesigning the tips is to let somebody else do it for me. I went on craigslist.com to search for advertisements of graphic designers in India, Thailand and China, as I know their income per capita is way less than in Europe. I sent out about 30 mails where I reformulated the assignment:
"Hi there,
I am a graphic design student from The Netherlands, and I am working on a project that asks a manner of working that is as uncreative as possible. Therefore, i came up with the idea to not do the assignment myself, but instead letting someone do it for me, via internet, for a small amount of money.
I´m not sure if you´re willing to spend a little time on this, but you may decide for yourself how much effort you put in it. The designs could be really simple, if you have a fast way of producing a lot of different results, that would be great. I have a list of 120 design tips (motivational stuff, for when you`re stuck), every tip needs to result in a different design. So that would be 120 designed tips, each on A4 300dpi.
You can find the tips here: http://rtqe.net/
Remember, you can keep it as simple and easy as you want, anything goes!
Since i`m a student, my budget isn`t that spectacular.
I can offer 12 euro`s (via paypal) for your services on this project.
It would be great to hear from you!"
Ten minutes later I received a mail from Muni Sekhar, a web / graphic designer from Bangalore, India, that reveals his interest. We had a skype conversation to clarify the assignment.
We agreed that he makes one tip as a trial and if I´d like it he could continue.
So this the first tip of Brian Eno´s Oblique Strategies "Abandon normal instruments", made by Muni Sekhar:
As I tried to give him as much freedom as possible, any result would have been surprising me. Although he couldn't have taken the sentence more literally I quite enjoyed that he created a full image, whereas I told him via Skype that even a handwritten scan would be fine for me.
I told him that it would be a pleasure for me if he would continue, and a week later he sent me the remaining 119 tips, all following that model: one sentence in one document with a picture underneath it each.
I made a gif out of the first 20 results Muni Sekhar sent me.
On the information data I can see the exact time and date the images where created. He made the first 30 on the first day after we skyped, on 12 March, 2014. All the rest was made on March 18, the date I set as a deadline and you can also see that in the images itself: After various ways of typography he slightly tends to use the same typeface, size and weight over and over again.
I did some research where he might got the images from he used for each tip and ended up with the result that he mostly took them from google. I find it interesting that although there is a locational and cultural difference the general public must somehow make the same associations. But maybe Muni Sekhar also picked the most european results as I as his client am European.
For a class presentation I chose a poster as the most appropriate manner of showing the results.
(100 x 170 cm)
I called the project Uncreative Outsourcing.
In addition to make the project complete and to elucidate the concept, which is far more important than the actual result, I will probably depict the whole story in a book.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
mind // motion // monism
Book cover illustration of George Romanes "Mind and Motion and Monism"
Work in progress
Monday, March 24, 2014
partarence #2 // poster
partarence, a merger between the two french words: part (partly) and apparence (visibility). It describes the case of beeing able to only see a certain part of an object because there is another one in the way. ( = partly visible)
Friday, March 14, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
cheyenne // network cultures
Opdracht: (sorry too busy to translate, the video at the bottom is in english)
"Normaal gesproken zorgt ‘The China Internet Network Information Center’ ervoor dat Chinezen een groot aantal websites niet kunnen bezoeken, om te voorkomen dat ‘anti-overheidspropaganda’ en andere blacklist-informatie online beschikbaar is voor de Chinese bevolking. Maar op 21 januari werd het internetverkeer van zo’n 500 miljoen Chinese internetgebruikers 8 uur lang al dan niet succesvol omgeleid via Cheyenne, de hoofdstad van de Amerikaanse staat Wyoming.
Chinese internetgebruikers kunnen het systeem van The China Internet Network Information Center omzeilen door middel van ‘switchboards’, waardoor het lijkt alsof het IP-adres van de gebruiker niet uit China komt. Maar door een systeemfout is de technologie die dit controleert ontspoord, waardoor het Chinese internetverkeer juist wél via het buitenland werd omgeleid. Dit zorgde voor een enorme Internet black out, waarvan het knooppunt zich in dit huis bevindt:
Op dit adres (2710 Thomes Avenue) staan meer dan 2000 bedrijven geregistreerd, het dient als HQ voor Wyoming Corporate Services en Sophidea, bedrijven die erin specialiseren om internetverkeer om te leiden en firewalls te omzeilen (hierdoor wordt censuur moeilijk, maar wordt spam-technologie makkelijk gemaakt).
Video Source
Ontwerp een campagne voor Cheyenne!"
One way to show my opinion about the happenings in Cheyenne could be a newspaper campaign with censorious cartoons. I made seven illustrations each appearing daily in a week series in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Cheyennes most popular newspaper, in a print and online version.
Critiques so far should let me make the project more realistic, which means I should find a way to get my illustrations in the papers for real. I´ll see what I gonna do with that.
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