The Creative Spark Preview| 00:01 | Jessica Hirsche: What so freeing about lettering
and type is that if you understand the elements
| | 00:05 | that compose lettering and
type, the world is your oyster.
| | 00:09 | (music playing)
| | 00:12 | Erik Marinovich: Within letterforms, there is so
much room for exploration that it never gets old.
| | 00:16 | (music playing)
| | 00:20 | Jessica Hirsche: I knew that these were going
to be type-driven covers or lettering-driven
| | 00:24 | covers, so we almost always
started with the lettering first and the
| | 00:27 | ornamentation second.
| | 00:28 | (music playing)
| | 00:30 | Erik Marinovich: While I was working on this
project, I had just left a pen out overnight on my desk.
| | 00:34 | It was completely dried out, and then
when I started to go to town, I realized,
| | 00:38 | oh my God, I am totally on to something.
| | 00:41 | So it's one of those mishaps that
ended up making it into the final cut.
| | 00:46 | Jessica Hirsche: You
could learn from everywhere.
| | 00:47 | You can learn from sign-painting, you
could learn from terrible design, you
| | 00:51 | could learn from amazing design; but
unless you are really looking, you can't learn.
| | 00:55 | (music playing)
| | 00:59 | Erik Marinovich: For each problem, I look it as
just finding a new way to draw a letterform that
| | 01:05 | I have probably drawn a thousand times,
and to me that's what keeps me going.
| | 01:09 | (music playing)
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| Title Case, Typographic Artisans| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:09 | Erik Marinovich: Within letterforms, there is
so much room for exploration that it never gets
| | 00:13 | old, where you constantly want
to push the boundaries of your own
| | 00:19 | capabilities. And most people look at that like,
doesn't that get tiring? I never see it as tiring.
| | 00:26 | (music playing)
| | 00:34 | Jessica Hirsche: The biggest thing about
educating yourself in type and lettering is
| | 00:38 | just knowing to look.
| | 00:41 | You have to teach yourself to want to
see those details and once you teach
| | 00:45 | yourself, then really, you
could learn from everywhere.
| | 00:48 | You can learn from sign-painting, you
can learn from terrible design, you can
| | 00:52 | learn from amazing design; but unless
you are really looking, you can't learn.
| | 00:56 | (music playing)
| | 01:08 | Erik Marinovich: You start side projects not
necessarily ever meaning for them to be bigger than the idea.
| | 01:14 | It was just you have this itch you
need to scratch and you don't really think
| | 01:17 | of it any further.
| | 01:19 | So for me, Friends of Type was honestly a
place for my friends and I to push each other.
| | 01:25 | By them posting something and me
posting something, it just encouraged all of
| | 01:29 | us to keep learning more about the
craft and seeing what else we could do with
| | 01:34 | it, and it was the right
place and the right time.
| | 01:38 | A lot of people wanted it.
| | 01:40 | They started visiting the site, and I
did my client work from 9 to 5, albeit it was
| | 01:46 | freelance, and then anything after 6
o'clock was lettering time. And for about
| | 01:53 | two years, I was up until 3 or 5 in
the morning just generating this content
| | 01:58 | because there was nothing that made me
more happy to explore this field that I
| | 02:03 | had always admired, but now
developed more as a lettering artist.
| | 02:06 | (music playing)
| | 02:27 | Jessica Hirsche: When I first graduated, I
sent out a promo to Louise Fili, who is an amazing
| | 02:31 | designer that I was completely obsessed
with as a student, and I worked for her
| | 02:34 | for two-and-a-half years and at the
time when I was considering leaving my
| | 02:37 | freelance work was just
completely overwhelming me.
| | 02:39 | But I knew that I wanted to keep
doing a lot of this lettering work.
| | 02:42 | So I instead of just like
hoping that the work would come along that
| | 02:46 | was lettering-based, I instead started
a project called Daily Drop Cap, which
| | 02:51 | Daily Drop Cap was a means for me to
make sure that I was creating letters
| | 02:54 | every single day. But it ended up
starting this real flame in my career that I
| | 02:59 | had been getting a lot of
consistent work, but I hadn't really been a
| | 03:02 | personality within the design field and
people really started to care about me
| | 03:07 | and started to care about my career.
And the more I worked on this project, and
| | 03:10 | the more people saw the lettering that I was
doing, the more lettering work started to happen.
| | 03:15 | So in a way, it really was a way for me
to show the world the kind of work that
| | 03:19 | I wanted to get, so Daily Drop Cap was
a wonderful thing for me to do in order
| | 03:22 | to be able to make myself better at
lettering and make myself experiment and
| | 03:27 | push myself and do things that I
wouldn't be able to do if I was relying
| | 03:29 | entirely on client work for it.
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:46 | Erik Marinovich: When Jessica moved to San
Francisco, it was probably one of the best days for
| | 03:51 | me and a lot of other people. And as I
can remember, we were at dinner and she
| | 03:58 | was like, I am moving to San Francisco,
you are getting the space with me, and
| | 04:02 | that's pretty much how it all unfolded.
| | 04:04 | We definitely talked about having
workshops, and it just became this great space
| | 04:10 | for us to share what we love with a
community we know that is really hungry
| | 04:16 | and eager to learn the things that we love.
| | 04:19 | Jessica Hirsche: The workshops are really fun
for me because there is very few moments where you
| | 04:23 | actually are forced to stare at a letter
for that long a time, and it really takes
| | 04:29 | someone else making you do it in order
to actually look. And in the end
| | 04:33 | like, people were just so grateful to
have that sort of interaction, to be able
| | 04:37 | to actually connect with people, to be
able to get encouragement to start doing
| | 04:41 | projects, and that's really
kind of what we are into--
| | 04:43 | through the workshops, through the
lectures, through everything that we do--
| | 04:46 | is just getting people amp to do their
own thing, getting people amp to start
| | 04:49 | things within the community, and to
really make San Francisco into this like
| | 04:52 | massive design epicenter, which
it has so much potential to be.
| | 04:56 | (music playing)
| | 05:05 | Erik Marinovich: For each problem, either it's
a client or something that I just want to do on
| | 05:09 | my own, I look it as just finding a
new way to draw a letterform that I've
| | 05:15 | probably drawn a thousand times,
and to me, that's what keeps me going.
| | 05:19 | Jessica Hirsche: I think a really good way to
choose the kind of career that you want to end up
| | 05:21 | in is to not look at the title, not
look at the career as a whole, but to look
| | 05:26 | at the actual things that you are
doing day to day in that career, and that's
| | 05:29 | really how I ended up doing what I am doing.
I like to do the nitty-gritty stuff.
| | 05:34 | I like to spend eight hours drawing
one letter. And don't make your career a
| | 05:39 | statement to other people;
make it a statement about yourself.
| | 05:43 | Choose the career that really suits the kind of work
that you enjoy doing at the end of the day.
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Extended FeaturesStudio tour| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:03 | Jessica Hirsche: When we first thought about getting a
space together, we definitely didn't think that
| | 00:06 | we would end up with a storefront.
| | 00:07 | It was just kind of a thing that happened
because it was the best space at the right time.
| | 00:11 | So we thought we'd really take advantage of
the fact that we had a storefront by finally
| | 00:14 | being able to hire some sign-painting.
| | 00:17 | So Erik and I designed the actual title for
the window, and then had New Bohemia Signs,
| | 00:21 | a really awesome sign-painting shop
here in San Francisco, install it for us.
| | 00:25 | So it's not a vinyl sign; it's legit gold
leaf on the window, so we will have to fight
| | 00:30 | it out when we actually leave.
| | 00:30 | Erik Marinovich: Cut it out actually. Yeah
Jessica Hirsche: Yeah, cut it out and then fight it out.
| | 00:35 | (music playing)
| | 00:40 | I had done a trade earlier with a friend who
is an architectural steel fabricator in Oakland,
| | 00:47 | and I always wanted
bookshelves for my house, if I owned one.
| | 00:50 | And seeing that that's in the future,
I thought I could cash in on the trade for the both
| | 00:54 | of us and have him build custom bookshelves,
also custom desks and as well as custom benches.
| | 01:02 | Jessica Hirsche: It was sort of a big task to think about
what your dream desk would be if someone was
| | 01:08 | fabricating a desk for you, but what I did
want to do is to be able to customize a few
| | 01:12 | of the things that I knew were
going to be always on my desk.
| | 01:14 | So when I put the plans for my desk
together, things were pretty simple.
| | 01:18 | What I definitely wanted was some sort of
place to put pencils and things that were
| | 01:22 | going to be at the ready all of the time.
| | 01:23 | So we had Phil design this system
where the pencils would be inset--
| | 01:29 | the key ones that are used all the time.
This one isn't exactly true to my form.
| | 01:32 | That's more of my key pencil. And then an actual
this pencil holder for the bulk of everything else.
| | 01:39 | And then for the other side of my
desk, I always use the same sketchbook,
| | 01:43 | so I really just wanted a way to keep a
sketchbook at my desk but not have to have it be on
| | 01:48 | the surface and falling over, and
just taking up a lot of general area.
| | 01:52 | So I had him build this little area here
where I can kind of slide my sketchbooks in and
| | 01:59 | they just hang down there.
| | 02:00 | So, they are at the ready, but don't take
up a lot of space and definitely have a space
| | 02:03 | on my desk that is
devoted specifically for them.
| | 02:12 | Erik Marinovich: Well, I needed more space to
actually work because I work a lot more by hand.
| | 02:17 | So one of the crucial things that I have
known for a very, very long time is that I wanted
| | 02:22 | a kind of custom-built tracing roll that is
always by my side, because a lot of the times
| | 02:28 | when I work, I am toggling between my
sketchbook, and then if I have an idea right away and
| | 02:33 | my sketchbook is not around, I will just go to
my handy tracing paper, which is always here.
| | 02:38 | It's a roll that's inserted into the desk,
and it's always available for me to draw,
| | 02:43 | and it's just like a stream of consciousness.
| | 02:45 | I am always using it, and I am always putting
next to it like really inspiring publications,
| | 02:51 | And a lot of the times when I am working,
I'll just find a page that I really, really
| | 02:54 | enjoy and have it open to inspire me.
| | 02:58 | Even though it might not be related to my
work, it's just something I see, and that
| | 03:03 | really motivates me to do better work.
| | 03:05 | Since I use a lot of paper, I have a lot
of different tools, and as you can see, like
| | 03:11 | my pencils, but then within my bigger pot
here, I have brushes that I got from Japan,
| | 03:19 | mechanical pencils.
| | 03:21 | They all kind of suit a
different need for whatever I am using.
| | 03:25 | I've got my handy erasers. And then also I
couldn't do anything if I didn't have a scanner,
| | 03:31 | so I knew I needed this general area to just
fit this scanner because, this is pretty much
| | 03:37 | a permanent fixture on top of my desk.
| | 03:39 | Now, as you can see, I am currently working on
some experimental lettering with these blocks.
| | 03:44 | So this is very, very crucial for me kind
of pushing the boundaries of my own work as
| | 03:50 | far as experimental lettering.
| | 03:52 | Jessica Hirsche: So the way that this space is
configured right now is more for our own personal use.
| | 03:56 | This is actually my table, which we put in
the center of the room, just because Erik
| | 03:59 | and I tend to spend more time collaborating on
stuff if we do have this communal area to go to.
| | 04:05 | So I actually bought 20 chairs from DWR that
are folding chairs that we use when we have
| | 04:10 | lectures, and we figured out a good way to
actually cram twenty people in here, but still
| | 04:14 | allow people to be able
to move around the space.
| | 04:17 | When we do workshops, we tend to take Erik's
table over here and put that into the middle
| | 04:21 | of the room as well.
| | 04:22 | So if we are having a workshop or any sort
of roundtable that has less than twelve people,
| | 04:27 | we keep the tables together like one long
dinner table. And then if we have something
| | 04:31 | that has twelve people or more, we do the tables
separately because we can fit more people around it.
| | 04:35 | So having this sort of modular system allows
us to be able to work with different formats
| | 04:41 | and really make this space feel new every
couple of weeks when we are sort of bored
| | 04:45 | with having all the desks against the wall or
having them all in this L formation.
| | 04:48 | Erik Marinovich: Yeah. Seeing your apartment and my apartment,
it's like a hybrid extension of our both apartments,
| | 04:53 | and your workspace should just be an
extension of you and your own personality, and we have
| | 04:58 | been really able to mold that into the best of
all the things or the best things that we both like.
| | 05:04 | Jessica Hirsche: Yeah, and I think Erik and I both feel most
comfortable having a workspace that just feels
| | 05:08 | like a comfortable living room
that you want to hang out and work at.
| | 05:12 | Erik Marinovich: Hence, us having our studio moccasins.
Jessica Hirsche: Studio moccasins.
| | 05:14 | Erik Marinovich: It's another thing to like come to
work and actually feel comfortable.
| | 05:17 | So it's a morning ritual that we have where we
come in, take off our shoes, and get down to work.
| | 05:23 | Jessica Hirsche: This was Erik's ritual, but he dragged me
into his ritual and I think it's probably
| | 05:26 | the best thing that has happened because
of this collaboration: studio moccasins.
| | 05:29 | Erik Marinovich: And now, I am much more
jealous of hers because they look legit.
| | 05:33 | Jessica Hirsche: Yeah, I could like take over the Arctic with these.
Erik Marinovich: You could.
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| Erik's "Victory" pennant| 00:00 | Erik Marinovich: So, I recently took on a
project called The People's Pennant.
| | 00:03 | It was started by Eric
Mortensen and several of his colleagues.
| | 00:08 | And basically, the idea in the
brief is celebrating the everyday.
| | 00:11 | So, when I was asked, Jessica was asked as
well, and we decided that it would be a perfect
| | 00:17 | opportunity for her and I to work together,
and what better way to like create two pennants
| | 00:23 | that also worked together.
| | 00:25 | And we were toggling so many different ideas.
Although that these were great celebrating
| | 00:29 | morning rituals, we like to talk
maybe more about our work ethic,
| | 00:34 | so we came up with the idea of Victory and
Defeat, where Defeat is so looked down upon.
| | 00:39 | In many different ways, Jessica and I find
the beauty in Defeat and how it can let you
| | 00:45 | grow, whereas in Victory, just celebrate
it because it might not happen every day.
| | 00:50 | So when it does happen,
remind yourself just to celebrate.
| | 00:54 | Probably the by-product of working in a big
design studio is that you have to show many,
| | 01:01 | many different concepts.
| | 01:02 | And so there is always that part of me through
all those years I worked in big branding studios
| | 01:08 | that I always just need to hit the ground
running and flood my sketchbook with so many
| | 01:14 | different iterations, because that's a really
helpful way for me to basically edit out the
| | 01:19 | things that aren't working.
| | 01:21 | And I wouldn't know what the final--or I
couldn't make the right decision unless I had gone
| | 01:28 | through all of this exploratory to begin with.
| | 01:32 | A lot of the times what I always like to
do is probably work small, but then there is
| | 01:36 | always this part of me who is like the inner
child that's telling me, work big, get your
| | 01:40 | hands dirty, get some ink on the floor.
| | 01:43 | So, I immediately go to my tracing roll,
which is conveniently located on my desk, that I
| | 01:49 | use a lot, and I quickly just start
drawing the things that come to me.
| | 01:54 | And if for instance, the word is Victory,
it's very powerful, but at the same time,
| | 02:01 | I didn't want the typical victory look that looks
sort of collegiate, especially on a format such as a pennant.
| | 02:07 | I thought, well, what if you
could romanticize the word Victory.
| | 02:12 | So I brought out this big lettering pen.
| | 02:16 | And again, every once in a while, I always
go to the art store and just buy a bunch of
| | 02:20 | tools that I haven't necessarily used
before, and I always find it really great is when
| | 02:27 | you use a tool that you have a handicap towards,
that it yields results that you can't necessarily
| | 02:33 | develop with the computer.
| | 02:35 | So with that, I just literally will
spend an hour sketching and re-sketching.
| | 02:41 | If I didn't draw a letterform correctly,
I will put another piece of tracing paper
| | 02:47 | on top and keep going until I am satisfied.
| | 02:50 | So, there is a part of me that is totally OCD.
| | 02:54 | But it's just a process of me continually
learning the craft of lettering and really
| | 02:59 | pushing myself to either be better at the
computer and especially be better at drawing
| | 03:03 | it when I am using my hand.
| | 03:05 | And again, a lot of people will look at
this, and like, they all look the same.
| | 03:08 | And again, that OCD part of me is like,
oh, that C, it could be better.
| | 03:14 | So, a lot of my work, I want
you to see it and appreciate that
| | 03:19 | there are qualities that could have only
been created or thought of if someone was using
| | 03:25 | the tool to create it on paper.
| | 03:27 | Maybe in time I can actually probably
create those, but for the meantime, I like to know
| | 03:32 | that it was born on paper,
but then it was finalized on the computer.
| | 03:37 | And without that kind of gestural quality that
you see in a lot of my work, I just appreciate
| | 03:45 | the craft of lettering where it came from
and using this tool to make it look perfect.
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| Jessica's book design projects| 00:00 | Jessica Hirsche: A lot of the work that I end up doing is
for advertising and for book covers, and this
| | 00:04 | is some of the book covers that I worked on.
| | 00:06 | So, I did a classic book
series with Barnes & Noble.
| | 00:10 | So, here are some of the books.
| | 00:12 | One of my favorites is Dracula.
| | 00:15 | Huckleberry Finn might me my top though.
| | 00:17 | I think that all the books are really fun
because they are all leather bound and then
| | 00:21 | have two color foils.
| | 00:22 | So, not all of them use metallic
foils, but some of my favorites do.
| | 00:27 | And I can show you how
some of the sketches worked.
| | 00:30 | So, I knew that these were going to be
type-driven covers or lettering-driven covers,
| | 00:34 | so we almost always started with the
lettering first and then the ornamentation second.
| | 00:38 | Here is one of the earlier Crime and Punishments
here, and the ornamentation is really a lot looser.
| | 00:43 | It is not quite as defined as
what the final ended up being.
| | 00:47 | And it's just because I know that it's
easier for me to experiment on the ornamentation
| | 00:51 | when we hit digital versus doing
it when it is in a sketch form.
| | 00:56 | The relationship between the lettering and the
ornament is really important to me as a letterer.
| | 01:00 | I think that is different than as a designer
would approach it, because designers are generally
| | 01:05 | curating these different
elements to mix them together.
| | 01:08 | And while I was a designer of these covers,
knowing that I was creating all of the elements
| | 01:12 | that would then go on to the covers made me
want to create them in a way that everything
| | 01:16 | was meant for each other.
| | 01:17 | So, when I drew the lettering, I knew that the
ornament had to match the lettering perfectly
| | 01:23 | because I was the one creating it.
| | 01:24 | So, for things like Tom Sawyer, the lettering
itself was a bit more bold. It was more shape-driven
| | 01:30 | versus more line-driven, so the ornamentation
became more shape-driven instead of line-driven.
| | 01:35 | But stuff like Little Women, because there was
so much kind of decorative line ornamentation
| | 01:39 | within the lettering itself, more of
the decoration leaned towards line work.
| | 01:44 | But, in general, I think that
really helps unite the series together,
| | 01:49 | the fact that they all have borders, the fact
that they all use the same typeface. And the
| | 01:53 | spines are treated similarly, but with a
lot of varying decoration between them.
| | 01:59 | So, as you can see, the titles all use the
same typeface, the author names the same
| | 02:04 | typeface, and then the
ornamentation happens in the same places.
| | 02:07 | So, I think that when you see them on the
shelves, that's why they end up looking so
| | 02:11 | well put together is that we made these
decisions early on to keep this throughout the series.
| | 02:16 | I think that is something that is unique
to illustrators and letterers because we are
| | 02:20 | the ones that are creating our world.
| | 02:22 | We are not pulling from the
elements that we can find.
| | 02:25 | We are creating everything, so we
want everything to match and be perfect.
| | 02:30 | If you have the opportunity to make everything
fit perfectly together, why wouldn't you take it?
| | 02:34 | Then McSweeney's is another example
where the ornamentation and the type ties in so
| | 02:40 | directly, and that's just
because it's seamless between the two.
| | 02:44 | So, the actual, the 38 as ornamental, as it is,
it actually is still a 38, and the McSweeney's
| | 02:51 | lettering just ties perfectly in
with the rest of the ornamentation.
| | 02:54 | So it was designed as one holistic piece versus
designed as lettering plus ornament and then married.
| | 02:59 | So, it's just one unit.
| | 03:02 | And then the spine type is the same way.
| | 03:04 | So I couldn't just take the type from the
cover and use it on the spine; it had to
| | 03:07 | be adapted a little bit so that it worked.
| | 03:09 | So the 38 changed quite a bit,
even though it's in the same style.
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| Erik's magazine lettering projects| 00:00 | Erik Marinovich: My favorite project to date
is for The Atlantic monthly.
| | 00:04 | They were asking all these prolific creatives
how they work behind the scene, so showing
| | 00:08 | their sketchbooks, and they wanted me to
kind of evoke that type of subject matter within
| | 00:13 | the titling and also of
course the cover design.
| | 00:17 | So the art director, Jason Treat, was very
conscientious that I use a lot of hand in my day-to-day
| | 00:23 | work, especially regarding lettering.
| | 00:25 | So he thought that it would be a perfect
place to create this type of mastheads for each
| | 00:31 | artist that just would work really well.
| | 00:35 | So the reason that this lettering works so
well with the content is that if we look
| | 00:38 | through the actual issue, you will just see
all these rough sketches from Grant Achatz,
| | 00:43 | especially these ones from Frank Gehry that
really marries itself really well to the content.
| | 00:49 | While I was working on this project, I had
just left a pen out overnight on my desk and
| | 00:54 | arriving to my desk the next day, it was
completely dried out, and then when I started to go to
| | 00:59 | town, I realized, oh my God,
I am totally on to something.
| | 01:02 | So it was one of those mishaps that
ended up making it into the final cut.
| | 01:08 | So this is another really great fun project.
| | 01:11 | New York magazine always has their
Cheap Eat issue that they come out annually, and
| | 01:16 | I was so thrilled when they asked me to participate
in kind of the masthead for the opener of this feature.
| | 01:22 | The brief that they had was wanting to
evoke the type of sign painting that we all see
| | 01:27 | in city life. Either it's an amateur person's
painting a sign for a bodega, and they really
| | 01:35 | wanted me to just take
that idea and run with it.
| | 01:38 | So I literally just came up with something
that was definitely inspired, and it definitely
| | 01:43 | motivated me to what we see
here on the final product.
| | 01:46 | The way I get inspired, if the
contents are really based on New York,
| | 01:50 | it was New York Cheap Eats, that I started
looking at all the different colorful bodegas
| | 01:54 | that you see, especially the ones in which
maybe you could tell that the owner was painting
| | 01:58 | on the window himself, and I came across this
color that I just really thought was appropriate.
| | 02:04 | You get the reds that you would see in the
Italian picnic tables and maybe even some
| | 02:08 | more of the fast-food colors.
But as a whole, it worked really well.
| | 02:15 | So this is a really big issue from Metropolis,
it being their 30th anniversary issue, and
| | 02:21 | in this they contacted a lot of different
contributors, of which I admire deeply, and
| | 02:29 | Friends of Type, which is a blog that I
contribute with three of my best friends.
| | 02:33 | We were given the problem to solve in which
they have kind of the history of architecture
| | 02:39 | in the span of twenty pages. And they wanted to
keep their existing content heads that they
| | 02:45 | have been using throughout the magazine for the
last couple of years, and basically customize
| | 02:50 | it in a way that fits the content.
| | 02:53 | Although we can't necessarily show
a bunch of pieces of wood and brick,
| | 02:56 | we just thought it would be more interesting
to see texture placed in different ways that
| | 03:02 | would actually make it feel, or evoking
the idea and the spirit of postmodernism.
| | 03:07 | So by not creating something new,
but already using something that's existing, but in a
| | 03:13 | way that obviously works with the content of the
page, it's just something that I am fascinated by.
| | 03:19 | For instance, deconstructivism: what's a
better way than to cut up the letterforms in a way
| | 03:24 | that obviously is still legible,
but still working with the content.
| | 03:30 | The reason that I love these projects so much
is that there is definitely these boundaries
| | 03:37 | you can't step outside of, which make it either
very difficult or will yield an awesome result.
| | 03:45 | It's a love affair for sure.
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| Jessica on lettering versus type design| 00:00 | Jessica Hirsche: Lettering kind of had a new life
because of people's need to customize.
| | 00:06 | They look at typefaces and they find
something that is close enough, but not quite right,
| | 00:11 | and that is where lettering kind of steps in.
| | 00:13 | And it takes a while for people to understand
where lettering fits in the grand scheme of things.
| | 00:18 | And one of the examples that I sort of give,
which is one of the simpler examples of where
| | 00:22 | lettering can happen, is say you have a book
cover and you've chosen a typeface, and you
| | 00:27 | love this typeface, but it's a display
typeface, and it only comes in one weight.
| | 00:31 | And you want to set the title, the subtitle,
and the author name all in this typeface.
| | 00:35 | If you actually just use that
typeface, it would just not work.
| | 00:39 | When the type got really tiny, all your fins
would blow out, when the type was really big,
| | 00:42 | it would look really horsey and engrossed.
| | 00:44 | And this is the perfect example of
when you would bring in a letterer.
| | 00:47 | You have a clear idea of what you want,
but you don't want to hire a type designer to
| | 00:51 | make you like four versions of that typeface,
because you're never going to use it beyond
| | 00:56 | this cover, and you're never going to
use it at that size beyond this cover.
| | 01:00 | So, bring in a letterer to
make you exactly what you need.
| | 01:03 | You can manipulate type to really
fit the exact mold for your project.
| | 01:08 | Lettering is my bread and butter, my life blood,
| | 01:11 | but I do love typeface design, and it's
something that I sort of thought was very, very similar
| | 01:16 | to lettering at first, and didn't really realize
how different it was until I really dug my heels in.
| | 01:21 | I started in type design because
I made this typeface, Buttermilk.
| | 01:26 | I had a few letters drawn
from a project that got killed.
| | 01:30 | Type design just seems like a kissing cousin of
lettering, and it was something that I wanted to pursue.
| | 01:34 | And I was like, I can make fonts, why not?
| | 01:37 | And by the grace of God, Buttermilk turned
out okay, but because it was my first typeface
| | 01:42 | and I was drawing it a little bit naively, it
can never be a web font, because it's just
| | 01:46 | not technically done well enough essentially
to be able to translate to a browser, which
| | 01:51 | doesn't support all these OpenType
features that help make it so pretty.
| | 01:56 | But, I found my way into Typeface design
more because after I released Buttermilk and saw
| | 02:01 | the commercial success of it, I really
wanted to pursue it more, but I knew that I needed
| | 02:05 | kind of a better education in type design in
order to feel confident releasing another typeface.
| | 02:11 | And I didn't understand this all myself either
until someone really opens up your world to it.
| | 02:15 | I was seeing a lecture by Christian Schwartz
one time who is an amazing typeface designer
| | 02:20 | and does the really hardcore text-type stuff,
the stuff that I am nowhere near being able
| | 02:26 | to do at my level right now.
| | 02:28 | And he put up these two lowercase A's next to
each other, and this was when he was working
| | 02:33 | on his Neue Haas Grotesk revival of
like one of the original cuts of Helvetica.
| | 02:37 | So he put up a Helvetica A and then
the A that he had been working on.
| | 02:41 | And to the crowd, it was just like,
can you see how crazy different they are?
| | 02:45 | And I was just glazed, no,
I don't see it at all.
| | 02:48 | I do not see the differences.
| | 02:50 | But then right after that, he put together
two paragraphs of text--one with the typeface
| | 02:55 | that he was working on and one with the other cut of
Helvetica--and it was like night-and-day difference.
| | 03:00 | And to be able to see those details is not
something that you can do right away when
| | 03:03 | it comes to type and lettering.
| | 03:05 | It's something that does involve--that you
only really get after looking at a ton of
| | 03:09 | it, after years of educating yourself.
| | 03:11 | And I actually think, I don't do all that
much graphic design work right now. Most of
| | 03:14 | my client work is lettering work.
| | 03:16 | But I think that if I were to just scrap
lettering altogether and become a graphic
| | 03:21 | designer, I would be a hundred times the
better graphic designer than I was five years ago
| | 03:25 | because of this knowledge.
| | 03:27 | I think it's something that graphic
designers call themselves type geeks a lot of times
| | 03:32 | but without being able to really like hone
in on those details, and once you can really
| | 03:36 | see those details, then you're not geeking out as
much about the crazy display type that you pick.
| | 03:41 | You're geeking out about, like, oh!
| | 03:42 | my god, this text type that I chose for this
piece, because these serifs are shaped this
| | 03:47 | certain way, communicates this thing that,
it's so subtle, but everyone will see it.
| | 03:54 | It's not something that they will know
that they are seeing, but they will see it.
| | 03:57 | And what is so freeing about lettering and
type is that if you understand the elements
| | 04:02 | that compose lettering and
type, the world is your oyster.
| | 04:06 | Instead of having to think big picture from
the beginning, you can think about, what does
| | 04:10 | it mean to use something that's extended
versus something that's condensed, what does it mean
| | 04:13 | to have the X height this high
versus having the X height this high?
| | 04:18 | What timeframe am I referencing
if I choose serifs that look this?
| | 04:22 | And those kind of details, being able to
start with that as a basis for client work, makes
| | 04:26 | all projects less intimidating, because you
don't have to just like scour through the
| | 04:30 | history books every time.
| | 04:32 | You don't have to think about
things in these giant big-picture ways.
| | 04:35 | You can think about the details, that when
you add them up in the right way, they equal
| | 04:40 | the right thing for the project.
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