Urban Typography Workshop

Workshop approach

The course starts off with several lectures and short presentations designed to act as a catalyst for the brainstorming and concept development process of its participants.

First Mirthe Blussé (graphic designer, maker of Amsterdam Guerilla Art magazine) discusses the use of typography on and off the street as well as its application in creative design concepts.
Also the renown Dutch graffiti artist and graphic designer ZEDZ will introduce his fresh insight on typography inspired by his particular background and know-how of the creative possibilities of graffiti.

The rest of the program is the hands-on experience portion of the program. It is directed at experimenting and iteratively fine-tuning designs. Here you will be assisted by the coach and the technical Fablab supervisor Bernardo Gaeiras and you will receive a short introduction to the Fablab machines.

What is a FabLab?

Pioneered by MIT's Neil Gershenfeld, a FabLab (fabrication laboratory) is a small scale workshop with the tools to make almost anything. This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production. It empowers people to create material objects in line with their own artistic aspirations.

What can you make with it?

"Almost anything!" if we are to believe Gershenfeld. The only real limitation is your own imagination! The FabLab equipment is designed to complement one another so that most aspects of a given project can be developed within one workspace. To see what equipment is available during this Fablab workshop edition click here NB with the exception of the laser cutter.

For who is this course?

The workshop is for people who want hands-on experiment with urban typography , and that have some (graphical) design skills: graphic designers, taggers, fashion designers, exhibition designers.

Trainers

(Graphic) designer and Guerilla Art magazine creator Mirthe Blussé, Graffiti artist and designer ZEDZ and FabLab expert Bernardo Gaeiras.

Workshop Report

fabbing communication

Urban Typography: what does your city say to you and what do you say to your city? This workshop encouraged participants to express themselves through words and text in their urban environments through the use of Mediamatic's Fab Lab.

The Urban Typography workshop took place at Mediamatic over two days. Participants were encouraged to form groups for collaboration. Ideas, inspiration, and brainstorming were the focus of day one, while day two focused on putting ideas in practice on the machinery of the Fab Lab. A Fab Lab is a space where computer controlled machines allow one to build just about anything. The focus of the Urban Typography theme helped reign in the participants to create works using the Fab Lab that shout, scream and engage others using text in an urban environment.

These letters will be used in a stop motion video by one of the participants in a project about Amsterdam Noord.These letters will be used in a stop motion video by one of the participants in a project about Amsterdam Noord.

The workshop started out with some engaging presentations by visual artist Mirthe Blusse, street artist and graphic designer ZEDZ, and architect Jack Bakker from Zwarts en Jansma Architects. Participants then were encouraged to brainstorm, share ideas, and form pairs and teams for their projects. Day two was strictly hands-on as the participants put their ideas into practice with the help of Bernardo. Some participants chose to focus on one larger project, while others used their time to pursue more than one computer-controlled medium. By far the biggest challenge was vectorizing all of the design files to work with the various driver software systems for the machines. If you attend a workshop, be sure to familiarize yourself with vectorization ahead of time and come prepared with your designs in a compatible vectorized format.

All in all the two-day workshop was a success for each participant. The Fab Lab made text pop seamlessly from dream into an urban environment-- whether in the form of an interesting object, or lettering on a sticker to place on a building, or words for a stop motion video.

A piece of paper cut like lace as textural inspiration.A piece of paper cut like lace as textural inspiration.

An example from Zwarts en Jansma architects showing how to construct 3D pieces with 2D paper cut by a laser.An example from Zwarts en Jansma architects showing how to construct 3D pieces with 2D paper cut by a laser.

Participants are discussing in front of a red mural by one of the inspirational speakers, street artist ZEDZ.Participants are discussing in front of a red mural by one of the inspirational speakers, street artist ZEDZ.

Some laser cut pieces to inspire the participants and get the creative juices flowing.Some laser cut pieces to inspire the participants and get the creative juices flowing.