| 00:01 | (Music playing)
|
| 00:04 | To learn to draw a letter
well takes a lot of time.
|
| 00:08 | I've been drawing letters since 1948.
|
| 00:13 | And I'm still learning how to draw.
|
| 00:16 | (Music playing)
|
| 00:21 | Jan Van Krimpen, one of my great heroes, he
says, "I do not want to draw a beautiful letter.
|
| 00:27 | I want to draw a good letter."
|
| 00:32 | Now I think that good letters are beautiful.
|
| 00:37 | I love to draw letters.
I found out that I did.
|
| 00:42 | It pleased me.
|
| 00:44 | I think it goes back to basic personality.
|
| 00:48 | For instance I have a love of detail.
|
| 00:58 | Despite the fact I call
myself a logotype designer teacher,
|
| 01:03 | I'm delighted to say that my
life revolves around typography.
|
| 01:08 | It permeates our lives,
it permeates our culture.
|
| 01:12 | Our history is written with typography.
|
| 01:18 | And it's just something I love to do.
|
| 01:21 | I'm happiest when I'm at
the board with a pencil.
|
| 01:33 | (Music playing)
|
| 01:37 | This is the Oxford English
Dictionary. It's 13 volumes here.
|
| 01:42 | There are 4 more volumes, which I do not have.
|
| 01:45 | And the Oxford English is about
the, it's about etymology,
|
| 01:50 | the history of words.
|
| 01:52 | The first time a word was used
in the English is recorded here.
|
| 01:58 | I did not finish high school.
I didn't complete the 10th grade.
|
| 02:03 | And throughout my whole life, I've read
extensively. It's how I have educated myself.
|
| 02:22 | Dad was a blacksmith who
wound up in Kilgore, Texas,
|
| 02:27 | shoeing horses or mules for to
drill oil, the great Kilgore oil boom.
|
| 02:33 | My dad, while shoeing a mule, was kicked in the
groin and was sent to the hospital for a whole year.
|
| 02:41 | And my stepmother,
Guandina (ph), fell in love with us
|
| 02:45 | and took care of us for one whole
year while dad was in the hospital.
|
| 02:49 | And she took my hand and guided my
hand with a pencil to show me how to draw.
|
| 02:55 | So I give Guandina credit for my drawing.
|
| 03:01 | Dad had three wrecking yards after that,
|
| 03:04 | one in Livingston, Texas,
one in Houston and one in Orange.
|
| 03:09 | We hated the moves. He moved us constantly.
|
| 03:13 | We hated all the moves because we
had to make new friends in school.
|
| 03:16 | Finally, we wound up in Orange
|
| 03:17 | and at age 15 I left home.
|
| 03:21 | The only job I could find -- since
I had no talent, I had no skill --
|
| 03:25 | I was loading milk trucks at
4 o'clock in the morning in a dairy.
|
| 03:30 | I tired of that very quickly,
found a job with Fred Harvey,
|
| 03:34 | a hotel in a little town
called Ashfork, Arizona,
|
| 03:38 | where I was a newsstand clerk.
|
| 03:40 | Did that for awhile and found out I could
make more money working for the railroads.
|
| 03:45 | So I got a job on caboose 2005
|
| 03:50 | with Mr. Stark. He was the conductor
and my run went run went from Winslow
|
| 03:56 | through Flagstaff to Seligman.
|
| 03:59 | Finally, at the age of 22,
I realized I must go to school
|
| 04:04 | if I was going to make any kind of living at all.
|
| 04:07 | So I enrolled in Frank Wiggins,
which is now L.A. Trade Tech.
|
| 04:12 | And I had a wonderful teacher named
Joel Gibby who introduced me to lettering.
|
| 04:17 | (Music playing)
|
| 04:20 | I think the reason that I have been
attracted to lettering and topography
|
| 04:25 | is because in one sense,
so little of it has changed.
|
| 04:33 | The letters that we look at today
|
| 04:35 | are the same letters that
we looked at 500 years ago.
|
| 04:40 | And I sort of like this stability of that,
and I think it goes back to the fact that
|
| 04:45 | my dad moved us around all the time.
My whole childhood was in a state of flux.
|
| 04:51 | So I look for stability. And
typography gives me that stability.
|
| 05:37 | There are over 100,000 fonts out there.
|
| 05:41 | MyFonts has over 100,000,
for instance, they distribute.
|
| 05:44 | People say well, if there are 100,000
fonts, why are you drawing a letter?
|
| 05:50 | Why not use a font and do something with it?
|
| 05:52 | Well,
|
| 05:54 | I have very technical reasons of why I do that.
|
| 05:59 | But I'll also have a
very simple answer, which is
|
| 06:03 | it's custom.
|
| 06:05 | I am designing something custom for you.
|
| 06:10 | Something tailored to your
taste, tailored to your situation.
|
| 06:15 | And I think that everyone
understands what custom is.
|
| 06:18 | There's custom dresses, there's custom
furniture, there's custom styling on cars.
|
| 06:22 | All of that. It's all custom.
|
| 06:24 | We all want something that's unique.
|
| 06:28 | We want something to call our
own. This has been done for us.
|
| 06:33 | Every company truly wants to appear unique.
|
| 06:37 | They don't want to look like another company.
|
| 06:40 | And yet they also want to fit
within a certain group of taste.
|
| 06:48 | And this is one of my basic basic
basic rules. That's where I start.
|
| 06:52 | First of all, a logo must be legible.
|
| 06:56 | Now in order to make it legible, I think that you have
to stick with some very conventional forms to begin with.
|
| 07:04 | Now once you make it legible,
|
| 07:06 | if you're lucky,
|
| 07:08 | you can then make it look unique.
|
| 07:11 | And sometimes very subtle changes will
|
| 07:15 | make it appear unique.
|
| 07:17 | Sometimes just spacing between the
letters will give it a certain look.
|
| 07:22 | Oftentimes the exact
proportion will give you another look.
|
| 07:28 | I make lots and lots of sketches.
|
| 07:32 | When I was doing the Prudential logotype
|
| 07:35 | and its fonts, I had a stack of 1,500
sheets of 8.5 by 11, printouts from that font,
|
| 07:46 | and each page might have a dozen changes on it.
|
| 07:51 | I fuss with it. I will move a pixel.
|
| 07:54 | Remember that each letter that goes into
an alphabet is a 1,000 by 1,000 square.
|
| 08:02 | And whenever you make a change,
that's 1/1,000th inch of change.
|
| 08:10 | And I think that those little
details are extremely critical.
|
| 08:14 | That's what makes a good font.
|
| 08:16 | (Music playing)
|
| 08:23 | You know I'm often asked,
what out of all the things you've done,
|
| 08:27 | what do you like best? What are you most proud of?
|
| 08:31 | And I say, "Well, I'm really
proud what I did for Prudential."
|
| 08:36 | And yet people look at it, and
they say, "Well, it's sort of plain.
|
| 08:41 | What is it that you've done
that makes you like it so much?"
|
| 08:45 | So John March was a former student of mine, and said,
|
| 08:50 | "I'm now creative director
for the identity program for Prudential,"
|
| 08:54 | and he sent me this copy.
|
| 08:56 | "We've been using this Helvetica for, oh,
about 15 years and we'd like to change it."
|
| 09:03 | The initial request was to design the
word "Prudential" so it was a friendly word.
|
| 09:11 | He wanted to strongly relate to a font,
|
| 09:15 | but more tightly spaced than a normal text face
|
| 09:20 | and a little bit bolder.
|
| 09:22 | So the Century Bold was favored and also the
Times Roman Bold was a favorite and the Century 725.
|
| 09:31 | And I did 12 versions of
these. I did them all in pencil.
|
| 09:37 | We finally wound up with
the one here at the bottom,
|
| 09:42 | which is a condensed Century.
|
| 09:45 | All throughout the whole program, they stressed
the fact they wanted the word to look friendly.
|
| 09:51 | They kept saying friendly.
|
| 09:54 | Well, one of the reasons I sort of
focused on the Century is because
|
| 09:58 | if you went to school in this country,
|
| 10:01 | you first learned to read
with the Century Schoolbook.
|
| 10:05 | The familiarity makes it comfortable.
|
| 10:08 | It's not the forms themselves
or the shape of the forms;
|
| 10:12 | it's the fact that we have seen Century for 100 years.
|
| 10:16 | We learn to read with it.
That's what makes it friendly.
|
| 10:20 | And what I've done, I've redrawn it, and my
drawing is on the top and here's the actual typeface.
|
| 10:26 | I have, as you can see, I have
changed, I have softened the tail here
|
| 10:32 | so that it doesn't take up so much room,
|
| 10:34 | and I've also condensed the P so we can get it a
little closer so we don't have a big hole there.
|
| 10:41 | And what I did also, to make the
T read faster, I made it taller.
|
| 10:49 | I'll also raised the-- The dot of the I is
called the tittle. And I raised that up a little bit.
|
| 10:55 | Because I thought it was too
close to the actual stem there.
|
| 11:02 | Legibility is an extremely
critical element in any logo design.
|
| 11:07 | It's one of the things I harp on.
When we read, we read the top of the word.
|
| 11:13 | We scan the top of a line of type.
|
| 11:16 | They wanted the word to be as legible as possible,
and so I showed them this to explain that
|
| 11:21 | we do read the top of word.
|
| 11:25 | Whereas the bottom of the
word here is not legible.
|
| 11:29 | You can read the top but
you can't read the bottom.
|
| 11:31 | So everything is spaced from the top.
|
| 11:34 | And then here is what we started
with and then I extended it 5%,
|
| 11:39 | then 10%,
|
| 11:41 | and then 10 units, and finally 15
units, which they thought was wonderful.
|
| 11:48 | After I had done the logo,
they said they would like a font.
|
| 11:53 | So I developed just this font, caps and
lowercase, with a minimum of a amount of punctuation.
|
| 11:59 | And I compared it to the Century Book
and Century Bold, so it falls in between,
|
| 12:05 | in weight and also in proportion and in spacing.
|
| 12:10 | So I truly like what I've done.
|
| 12:13 | I have redrawn Century
|
| 12:15 | to my liking, for one thing,
|
| 12:18 | and it satisfies the goal of many
text faces where no one letters stands out,
|
| 12:26 | so that you read it easily without stopping.
|
| 12:29 | (Music playing)
|
| 12:50 | Tink Adams, the president of Art Center, said,
|
| 12:54 | "We want teachers in the field, who are
professionals, to come in and teach what they know."
|
| 13:00 | I don't even have a high school education.
|
| 13:04 | I didn't finish the 10th grade.
|
| 13:06 | That's unimportant.
As long as I can teach what I do,
|
| 13:11 | that's all that Tink was concerned about.
|
| 13:20 | (To a student) And then
there's a bump right here.
|
| 13:22 | And let's pull this in some.
|
| 13:26 | And let's add more weight to the N.
|
| 13:30 | The rest is good.
|
| 13:32 | Student: How about the space?
|
| 13:35 | Doyald: That's fine. It can go
higher but what you have I think is okay.
|
| 13:41 | I took 4 semesters of lettering
from Mort Leach at Art Center.
|
| 13:46 | 1953, I think it was.
|
| 13:49 | And that Mort had a big class. It was far
too many to teach in a three-hour period.
|
| 13:56 | And Mort noticed that students were
coming to me when he wasn't around for help.
|
| 14:03 | And so finally after the 4th semester, he said "Would
you like to teach here. Would you like to be my assistant?"
|
| 14:10 | And so of course I was flattered.
|
| 14:13 | (To a student) I'm more
concerned really about your shape.
|
| 14:16 | I prefer to go one-on-one. This time
it's summer session and it's always light.
|
| 14:23 | I have just 5 students this time.
|
| 14:27 | I have them work small. First of all,
because if you're designing a complex shape,
|
| 14:34 | the smaller you make it, the faster
you can go. You can test out your ideas.
|
| 14:40 | If it's 12 inches wide, it takes
you forever to make this drawing.
|
| 14:46 | So we can make a series of little
roughs to solve the basic problems
|
| 14:50 | Once we have those solved, then
we can then make a tighter version
|
| 14:54 | and finally we make a
very precise pencil tissue.
|
| 15:00 | Once I have okayed that,
we then translate it into a digital form
|
| 15:06 | so that it becomes a piece of art
that can be reproduced at any size.
|
| 15:14 | I've always enjoyed
helping people learn how to draw.
|
| 15:19 | It is better to give than receive, you know.
And so I think that teaching is rewarding.
|
| 15:27 | It helps you to decide what you believe in,
|
| 15:31 | and what the real principals are
that satisfies your aesthetic.
|
| 15:36 | I tell my students this.
I don't care what the rules are.
|
| 15:40 | And there are lots of rules. The
ultimate rule is how does it look?
|
| 15:47 | Does that 'O' look bigger than the 'N?'
|
| 15:51 | Does it look taller?
|
| 15:53 | Does it drop too far below the line?
|
| 15:56 | And you have to get them
to keep on drawing letters
|
| 16:00 | until they see the difference.
|
| 16:03 | You have to learn how to see it.
|
| 16:07 | (To a student) The T's are a little low.
I think this is ideal and I think
|
| 16:11 | that is ideal.
|
| 16:13 | You've repeated that at the
top of the N, which is good.
|
| 16:18 | There is one slight problem, but at
this scale, I accept what you've done.
|
| 16:25 | I think the top of the E gets a little dark.
|
| 16:28 | You see your hairline here?
|
| 16:30 | Is heavy?
|
| 16:31 | So the top of the E is just a
little dark, a little chunky.
|
| 16:37 | Um.
|
| 16:40 | I'm particularly pleased with what you've done.
|
| 16:44 | (Music playing)
|
| 16:54 | I love writing books.
It's a great challenge.
|
| 16:59 | I care a great deal.
|
| 17:01 | I want to book to be beautiful.
|
| 17:06 | This book took 5 and a half years
to do. There's 470 fonts in it.
|
| 17:14 | And I'm writing a new book.
|
| 17:18 | The font that I've designed, Young Gallant,
|
| 17:21 | anchors the book because what I want to do
|
| 17:24 | is to explain to students, beginning students,
|
| 17:29 | the basics of formal script.
For teachers, for students,
|
| 17:35 | for graphic designers to somehow
look at all these variations,
|
| 17:39 | to get ideas if they're
trying to design a script logo,
|
| 17:43 | and remember that script is
one most commonly used fonts.
|
| 17:47 | Look at all the use of script in wine labels.
|
| 17:50 | Any place where luxury is
called for, anything that is refined,
|
| 17:55 | calls oftentimes for a
graceful statement of formal script.
|
| 18:01 | I learned formal script from Mort Leach.
|
| 18:03 | He had some sheets, lettering
sheets, that he passed out to the class.
|
| 18:08 | And then when I started to teach, I used
those same sheets to teach formal script.
|
| 18:14 | I've used those for almost 40 years, and
I have modified Mort's original drawings.
|
| 18:21 | It's what I call a basic
bare-bones minimal font.
|
| 18:26 | It's as simple as I can draw it.
|
| 18:31 | What I hope with the book is to show
possible variations of these basic letters.
|
| 18:39 | Once you make a student draw this exactly,
|
| 18:44 | draw this exactly,
|
| 18:46 | this is exactly what I want,
|
| 18:48 | you pound that into them
|
| 18:50 | to the point where they can't think of anything else when
you say design a logo-- that now I want some variation.
|
| 18:58 | So I'm showing on the right-hand page,
|
| 19:00 | these are same size pencil tissues that
I've drawn. What I'm showing is the change of
|
| 19:07 | these terminals.
Here's a slightly lighter one.
|
| 19:10 | Here's a teardrop that's not bracketed.
Here is a circle with a lot of
|
| 19:15 | white space that rolls around it.
|
| 19:18 | Here's one that is spreads like
the endings of the capital letters.
|
| 19:24 | And then here's one with the little loop that
you will also find in my font called Young Baroque.
|
| 19:30 | And here is something a little more flossy.
|
| 19:33 | It's the initial letter,
where you want a decorative statement.
|
| 19:37 | And you don't want a large capital.
|
| 19:41 | The lowercase E, in this case, I show a
decorative form which we call Gravura.
|
| 19:48 | Here is a terminal. This can be used in the middle of
the word, and here's one that is a capital letter in shape.
|
| 19:56 | I've drawn it very carefully so it
matches the E in the Campbell Soup logo.
|
| 20:02 | In this case, there's 7 of these here.
|
| 20:08 | There are many many more variations.
|
| 20:11 | Remember that there have been many cases
where your birth certificate is in formal script,
|
| 20:20 | where your coming of age
is announced in formal script,
|
| 20:25 | where your graduation is
announced in formal script.
|
| 20:29 | And oftentimes at the end of your life,
your passing is noted in formal script.
|
| 20:36 | It permeates our lives.
|
| 20:39 | (Music playing)
|
| 20:49 | This is my Webster's Unabridged Library edition.
|
| 20:53 | It was given to me on my
birthday and it came with
|
| 20:58 | a brown buckram cover,
|
| 21:01 | and it had some leather on the back and it was
one of the most homely bindings I've ever seen.
|
| 21:07 | On top of that when I opened it up,
|
| 21:11 | it was over-inked.
|
| 21:13 | So I call Webster's and I said the book is
over-inked and can you replace it for for me?
|
| 21:19 | He says, "Well, tear off the cover and
send it to me and I'll give you the new guts."
|
| 21:24 | So he sent me the new guts,
and then I had this binding done.
|
| 21:31 | And then I used Cockerell paper on it.
|
| 21:34 | This is a English paper. What they do
|
| 21:38 | is they take a streak of ink this way, red ink,
|
| 21:42 | tan ink, black ink, and then they
take little pins and they pull the ink
|
| 21:49 | to create this wonderful
design. It's all hand done.
|
| 21:52 | Gorgeous gorgeous Cockerell paper.
|
| 21:55 | And then one day, I was looking up a word,
|
| 22:01 | I was on page 248 and then all the
sudden on the opposite page was 253.
|
| 22:06 | A signature was missing.
|
| 22:09 | After I spent $300 on the binding.
|
| 22:13 | And I never told them about it.
|
| 22:15 | And I've often wondered
what's in those missing pages.
|
| 22:38 | Not only do I love letters, I love words.
|
| 22:44 | Somehow at the age of 50, I realized that
|
| 22:47 | my speech that I was
using words I think correctly,
|
| 22:52 | that I had a vague idea of what they meant.
|
| 22:56 | Because I think I have a good ear for language.
|
| 22:59 | And I then decided that I would look up the word
just to make certain that I was using it correctly.
|
| 23:07 | And I realized finally that there were a lot
of words that I didn't know the meaning of it.
|
| 23:13 | Very common ordinary words.
|
| 23:14 | You'd be amazed at the words we use,
|
| 23:17 | that if you asked the average person
to define that word, it's difficult.
|
| 23:22 | So I started looking up words.
|
| 23:24 | And my dad, who had a 9th grade education,
|
| 23:29 | he says, "Now, Doyald" -- and he's from
Texas. He says, "Now, Doyald, you should not
|
| 23:33 | use big words, because people won't trust you."
|
| 23:37 | Well, we need to speak simply and clearly
|
| 23:43 | and accurately.
|
| 23:45 | If you do use a big word,
|
| 23:47 | define it. It's okay.
|
| 23:50 | One of the words I love is desuetude,
|
| 23:53 | and I ran across the word in the
Alexandria Quartet, written by Lawrence Durrel.
|
| 23:59 | And so I looked it up and it meant
old and derelict and unattended.
|
| 24:06 | Desuetude, it comes straight from the Latin.
|
| 24:09 | Well, I love of the sound of it
|
| 24:11 | and it has a precise meaning.
|
| 24:14 | So there's some words like nostalgia.
|
| 24:17 | We use nostalgia these days meaning something
that reminds us of something else. That's nostalgic.
|
| 24:25 | The original meaning of it is homesickness.
|
| 24:29 | Well, I think if we get back to the
original meaning of words, its word root,
|
| 24:35 | oftentimes from the Latin,
|
| 24:38 | that we get a better understanding of the word.
|
| 24:41 | Another word, here I've
drawn formal script all my life
|
| 24:46 | and I'd never heard of the word ductus.
|
| 24:49 | And this French man used it, but
ductus is a Latin word. It means to lead.
|
| 24:54 | That hairline that joins to the next letter is
called ductus, meaning it leads into the next letter.
|
| 25:01 | Well, I like words like that.
|
| 25:03 | Words that define what you're doing.
|
| 25:06 | (Music playing)
|
| 25:22 | Stefan Bucher: I was never Doyald's student in
school, but I very much consider myself a student now.
|
| 25:28 | I first met Doyald through
mutual friends at Art Center
|
| 25:32 | and wasn't even that aware of his
work. I just liked him as a person.
|
| 25:36 | I liked his outlook on life. And then it sort of
dawned on me, over a period of a number of years,
|
| 25:44 | what an amazing gravity-defying person he is.
|
| 25:48 | I mean he could have easily done
what he does in the Renaissance
|
| 25:52 | and he could easily do it 300 years from now.
|
| 25:56 | There's just something very particular
that the man does that nobody else can.
|
| 26:09 | Doyald: Hello there, Stefan.
Stephan: How are you?
|
| 26:13 | Doyald: It's good to see you.
Stephan: Good to see you.
|
| 26:15 | Doyald: Have a seat! Have a seat.
|
| 26:17 | Stephan: It's lovely to see you, Doyald. How are you?
|
| 26:19 | Doyald: The same here.
|
| 26:21 | Stephan: What are you working on right now?
|
| 26:22 | Doyald: What am I working on?
I'm working on a book as we speak.
|
| 26:26 | I've done all the caps for the book.
|
| 26:30 | The hand drawn caps. And now
I'm almost halfway through.
|
| 26:34 | I've just finished the J. And the lowercase.
|
| 26:39 | And I had a wonderful--
|
| 26:42 | Jean Larcher is a
calligrapher in Paris that I met in 2000.
|
| 26:47 | He is a true calligrapher.
He teaches the English roundhand
|
| 26:53 | and he has a remarkable book,
|
| 26:56 | with all of these drawings in it that
explains all the parts of the letter.
|
| 27:01 | I sort of want to put that in the book,
but I don't know if my editor will let me.
|
| 27:06 | Because it's writing and what I do
is draw. See? Two distinctions there.
|
| 27:13 | Stephan: You also write. It's your book.
|
| 27:16 | Doyald: Well, okay, but writing, for instance,
calligraphy is truly, if you go to your dictionary, the definition
|
| 27:23 | of calligraphy is beautiful writing.
|
| 27:26 | So I do not write with a broad pen,
which is a chisel, or a pointed pen.
|
| 27:32 | I draw letters meticulously. I sketch
them just like that. There's the distinction.
|
| 27:38 | Although the calligraphers disagree
with that. They say I'm a calligrapher.
|
| 27:42 | Stephan: I want to quickly ask you this.
|
| 27:44 | What do you like in terms of lettering and
typography, where you're seeing other people do good stuff?
|
| 27:51 | Doyald: Well, I greatly admire
Frank Blokland in Netherlands.
|
| 27:59 | He teaches at the Hague, at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague.
|
| 28:05 | He has a foundry called Dutchtype Library.
|
| 28:10 | He's very much of classicist.
|
| 28:13 | He truly is. So I'm very fond of that.
|
| 28:16 | I like some of Hoefler's work.
He's very big these days.
|
| 28:21 | Jill Bell is a great favorite.
Jill does a lot of brush script.
|
| 28:26 | She started out as a sign painter of all things.
And I was at a bookstore downtown on 2nd street,
|
| 28:33 | April Greiman had a new book,
and she was signing the book,
|
| 28:37 | and Jill comes up to me and says
"Doyald, I want you to get to know me."
|
| 28:42 | (Laughter)
|
| 28:44 | So anyway, we've been great friends.
|
| 28:45 | Stephan: I like that.
|
| 28:46 | Doyald: So, we've been great
friends for 10 years now.
|
| 28:50 | And she did the logo for
Nora Jones' first album.
|
| 28:55 | So I'm very fond of that.
|
| 28:57 | Stephan: And our friend Marian.
|
| 28:59 | You know, she throws out rules,
and at the same time, you make and build the rules.
|
| 29:05 | Doyald: Well, I truly admire
her work. I think that Marian is
|
| 29:10 | truly one of the most
innovative designers I've ever encountered.
|
| 29:15 | I'm always surprised at what she does.
|
| 29:18 | In fact-- and she is not timid.
|
| 29:21 | In fact, I call her intrepid. Because
she throws all the rules out and she says,
|
| 29:29 | to hell with that!
|
| 29:31 | Stephan: Have you and Marian
actually ever done a project together?
|
| 29:34 | Doyald: No. No.
|
| 29:35 | Stephan: Really? That seems like a
tremendous oversight, doesn't it?
|
| 29:39 | Doyald: Well I tell you what she did.
She did a Valentine for me last year.
|
| 29:43 | It was all laser cut,
gorgeous piece of stuff.
|
| 29:48 | So I gave her a "Thank You" note, as fancy
as I could make it with all kinds of curly cues.
|
| 29:53 | And it was just a pencil drawing.
|
| 29:55 | So that's the extent of our collaboration.
|
| 29:58 | Stephan: That seems like a cosmic
wrong that needs to be righted.
|
| 30:03 | So you're getting an
award at TypeCon on Saturday?
|
| 30:07 | Doyald: Do you know, it's always surprising.
|
| 30:12 | I never thought that somehow, with what I do,
|
| 30:17 | creates new things for
typography. The world of typography.
|
| 30:21 | What I do is really very restrained.
|
| 30:25 | Maybe TypeCon, I don't know. Maybe they see
my publishing effort and my teaching effort.
|
| 30:31 | Maybe that's one big package.
|
| 30:33 | I don't know. They haven't really told me.
|
| 30:36 | Stephan: My theory is that they would want to be
around a Jedi master. But that's just me thinking that.
|
| 30:46 | I don't know. What is the award called?
|
| 30:49 | Doyald: I think it's called the SOTA award.
Society of Typographic Aficionados.
|
| 30:56 | Stephan: All right.
Doyald, it's been so great to see you.
|
| 31:00 | I'm so glad you invited me
and thank you for taking the time.
|
| 31:02 | And I'm looking forward
to seeing you on Saturday.
|
| 31:04 | Doyald: Well, it'll be great to see you. There will be a
whole mess of people there, but barge through and say hello.
|
| 31:11 | Stephan: You know I will.
|
| 31:12 | Doyald: All right. Goodbye.
|
| 31:14 | (Music playing)
|
| 31:19 | Doyald: We're here at the Century Plaza
Hotel and it's a conference called TypeCon,
|
| 31:25 | and I've been invited by SOTA,
|
| 31:27 | which is the Society of Typographic Aficionados.
|
| 31:34 | Typographers from all over the world come and
|
| 31:38 | trade ideas and show what they
have done, show their new fonts.
|
| 31:43 | Also it's a chance to meet young
designers. Remember I'm a teacher too.
|
| 31:48 | It's a chance to meet young
designers. They always have questions
|
| 31:51 | and it's always fun to talk to them.
|
| 31:53 | And it's a place to sell my
books. Conferences are really--
|
| 31:58 | It's a forum.
|
| 31:59 | It's a place where you learn,
it's where we explain, where we teach.
|
| 32:04 | And they're very eager.
|
| 32:15 | Fan 1: Big fan.
|
| 32:16 | Doyald: Are you really?
|
| 32:17 | Fan 1: Actually the first and only time I saw you
was at the HOW conference in Chicago several years ago.
|
| 32:21 | Doyald: Oh, I remember. Yes?
|
| 32:22 | Fan 1: And I was hooked.
|
| 32:26 | Fan 2. Well, I have to say, you're one of
my idols. You and Jim Parkinson and Marian.
|
| 32:30 | Doyald: Well, my goodness.
|
| 32:34 | Fan 3. Such a pleasure to hear you speak.
I've heard so many things about you.
|
| 32:37 | And I appreciate this kind of very...
|
| 32:40 | Doyald: Well, thank you very much.
|
| 32:48 | Doyald: Marian!
Marian Bantjes: Doyald!
|
| 32:51 | Sean Adams: So things are going
well? Are you ready for today?
|
| 32:54 | Doyald: Oh never. But I am--
|
| 32:55 | Sean: You're always perfectly charming and fantastic.
|
| 32:59 | Doyald: Well, then the next thing is just to relax?
|
| 33:01 | Allan Haley: It truly gives me great pleasure to
be able to introduce to you or reintroduce to you
|
| 33:11 | one of the heroes of our craft.
|
| 33:14 | A kind, gentle, elegant man,
|
| 33:18 | who draws incredibly elegant typefaces.
|
| 33:23 | Please welcome Doyald Young.
|
| 33:25 | (Applause)
|
| 33:39 | Doyald: During the time I was going to
night school, I was introduced to typography
|
| 33:44 | and of course the first thing you
want to do is you want design a font.
|
| 33:47 | Well, finally in 1985
Letraset accepted this font,
|
| 33:51 | Young Baroque.
|
| 33:53 | And I don't consider myself a type designer.
|
| 33:57 | I have designed just a few.
I'm always impressed with the
|
| 34:02 | great number of fonts that you people design.
|
| 34:06 | (Laughter)
|
| 34:07 | JF this morning, he had 20 or 30
fonts he had designed. He's a young man.
|
| 34:13 | I'm really a dilettante.
|
| 34:15 | I start a font -- no, it's true, it's true.
|
| 34:19 | I start a font and then I work
on it for a little while, and then I put it away
|
| 34:23 | for two or three years and come back.
|
| 34:25 | I seldom see my fonts used.
|
| 34:28 | But the Bianca Studios in New York designed
this. Used it for Madonna's reinvention tour.
|
| 34:35 | It's when she was into mysticism.
|
| 34:38 | (Laughter)
|
| 34:39 | I've never thought that
Young Baroque was mystic.
|
| 34:43 | And uh, Fergie likes it.
|
| 34:45 | (Laughter)
|
| 34:48 | But Julian Peploe didn't think it was
fancy enough so he added more swirls to it.
|
| 34:54 | Here is Eclat.
|
| 34:56 | I've never been fond of the name.
|
| 34:59 | It means, if you look it up
in the dictionary, it means bursting.
|
| 35:02 | It also means a certain kind of panache.
|
| 35:06 | I had wanted to call it Elan, as in elan vital.
|
| 35:11 | But the name had been taken, so I said okay.
|
| 35:15 | And Fergie likes it too. (Laughter)
|
| 35:20 | (Applause)
|
| 35:24 | Someone once called my work scattershot.
|
| 35:28 | My design approach. Well.
|
| 35:31 | You never know what a client will buy.
|
| 35:33 | I think also that you truly have to explore
|
| 35:36 | any problem, any design
problem, as much as you can.
|
| 35:41 | Nothing is more embarrassing if you make a
presentation and the client doesn't like what you've done
|
| 35:46 | and someone in the room suggests
something else that the president likes.
|
| 35:53 | So also, never forget the
presidents and CEOs take
|
| 35:58 | the logos home to their wives
and get opinions from their wives.
|
| 36:03 | I think that logo preference and
type preference is strictly personal.
|
| 36:09 | People say, "Well, what's your
favorite font?" Well, I don't know. It depends...
|
| 36:15 | Do you mean a text font or display font?
|
| 36:17 | It's like asking a mother
which is your favorite children.
|
| 36:21 | I was speaking to a teacher at Art Center,
and he said how much he hated Palatino.
|
| 36:27 | And I said, "Well, I think it's one of the
most important fonts of the 20th century."
|
| 36:31 | So you see, we all have
different ideas about type.
|
| 36:35 | Man speaking: Master of the
college. And first we have (inaudible).
|
| 36:40 | (Applause)
|
| 36:48 | Marian Bantjes: Hello.
|
| 36:50 | The other day, Doyald told me he's not interested
in making things new, but in making them better.
|
| 36:57 | In these days of instant gratification,
|
| 37:00 | short attention spans,
|
| 37:02 | and the eternal quest for the hot new thing,
|
| 37:06 | I feel we desperately need more
Doyalds who are willing to work
|
| 37:10 | and work with that focused skill
|
| 37:13 | and over the years make
things better better better.
|
| 37:17 | Sean Adams: Beyond his talent I always found
|
| 37:20 | his greatest gift to me is the reminder that
|
| 37:24 | giving back,
|
| 37:25 | being charming, being
gracious, and having patience,
|
| 37:28 | are what makes someone a great designer.
Not necessarily doing the most out-there,
|
| 37:33 | exciting work at all times, but
being a good person on top of that.
|
| 37:37 | There is a great quote by Oscar Wilde,
who I know you like to quote once in awhile,
|
| 37:43 | and it is that "It is absurd to
divide people into good and bad.
|
| 37:49 | People are either charming or tedious."
|
| 37:52 | Doyald is always charming.
|
| 37:55 | (Laughter and applause)
|
| 37:59 | James Grieshaber: For this year, on behalf of SOTA,
|
| 38:01 | I'm proud to award Doyald
Young the SOTA Typographer Award.
|
| 38:05 | (Applause)
|
| 38:28 | Doyald: All these things have
always been a surprise to me.
|
| 38:31 | I have never--
|
| 38:33 | I've been accused of being self-effacing.
|
| 38:36 | But it's really unexpected and
again, I thank you for the great honor.
|
| 38:43 | Wonderful to do work all your life,
|
| 38:46 | sometimes 7 days a week mostly,
and then get applauded for it.
|
| 38:50 | Thank you.
|
| 38:51 | (Applause)
|
| 39:01 | I'll still learning how to draw.
|
| 39:03 | There are no secrets to what I do.
|
| 39:06 | All what I do is hard work and observation. Really.
|
| 39:11 | And doing things over and over until you're
satisfied with it and until you think it's right.
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