Ben Harwood - Graphic Design - Selected Works

63 Royal Park Avenue, Leeds, LS6 1EZ - ben-harwood@hotmail.co.uk +44 (0)7774 641951

Brief: Cidap: The objective was to package and promote a range of apple cider vinegar prooducts that were to be predominantly sold in the health market. There were three different areas that were focused on: Heart disease, diabetes and weight loss. The three colours were chosen due to their meaning. Blue is found to be a colour that suppresses appetite. Red is commonly associated with blood and the heart itself. The grey and red within the Cidap Sweet brand is derived from the diabetes support ribbon. Print Processes:Tablet cover - LithographyTablet Boxes - LithographyCidap Boxes - LithographyBottle Label - Lithography with Die Cut.

Brief: Cidap: Promotion: Flyers will be distributed to all major hospitals, pharmacies and supermarkets. Posters will be put up in the same institutions along with bus stops and bill boards around the country. Stationary:Concept designs for the Cidap business’s stationary. A strong branding would add authenticity and professionalism to every aspect of the business. EPI Pen:Concept to print the cidap brand onto epi pens. This could have strong promotional potential. Cidap would collaborate with an Epi Pen manufacturer. Products would then be handed out free to diabetics.

Brief: FBIs Most Wanted: The objective was to produce a sixty second title sequence for a ‘top ten’ channel. I based mine on the top ten criminals wanted by the FBI. This helped me to explore moving image and motion graphics aswell as experimenting with storyboards. Here you can see intervaled screen shots of the final sixty second title sequence. You can watch the final title sequence on Vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/36273744

Brief: Sunday Supplement: The objective was to produce a double page spread for the sunday supplement of The Observer. The copy text and images were given. This allowed me to explore my typographic skills with a focus on editorial. It allowed me to learn about leading, legibiltity, readability and the overall weight on a page. Further skills learnt include hierachy and typeface choice.

Very few terms have been used so habitually andcarelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the fieldof graphic design and typography, experment asa noun has been used to signify anything new,unconventional, defying easy categorization, orconfounding expectations. As a verb, ‘toexperiment’ is often synonymous with the designprocess itself, which may not exactly be helpful,considering that all design is a result of the designprocess. The term experiment can also have theconnotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggestsnot taking responsibility for the result. Whenstudents are asked what they intend by cratingcertain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just anexperiment…’, when they don’t have a betterresponse.

In a scientific context, an experiment is a testof an idea; a set of actions performed to prove ordisprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in thissense is an empirical approach to knowledge thatlays a foundation upon which others can build. Itrequires all measurements to be made objectivelyunder controlled conditions, which allows theprocedure to be repeated by others, thus provngthat a phenomenon occurs after a certain action,and that the phenomenon does not occur in theabsence of the action.

An example of a famos scientific experimentwould be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of twoobjects of different weights from the Pisa towerto demonstrate that both would land at the sametime, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In thissense, a typographic experiment might be aprocedure to determine whether humidity affectsthe transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if itdoes, how.

A scientific approach to experimentation,however, seems to be valid only in a situationwhere empirical knowledge is applicable, or in asituation where the outcome of the experimentcan be reliably measured. What happens howeverwhen the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective,not based on pure reason? In the recent book TheTypographic Experiment: Radical Innovation inContemporary Type Design, the author TealTriggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized designers to define theirunderstandings of the term experiment.

As expected, the published definitionscouldn’t have been more disparate. They aremarked by personal belief systems and biased bythe experiences of the designers. While HamishMuir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job isexperiment’, Melle Hammer insists that:

‘Experimental typography does not exist, norever has’. So how is it possible that there are suchdiverse understandings of a term that is socommonly used?

Among the designers’ various interpretations,two notions of experimentation were dominant.The first one was formulated by the Americandesigner David Carson: ‘Experimental issomething I haven’t tried before … somethingthat hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson andseveral other designers suggest that the nature ofexperiment lies in the formal novelty of theresult. There are many precedents for thisopinion, but in an era when information travelsfaster than ever before and when we haveachieved unprecedented archival of information,it becomes significantly more difficult to claim acomplete novelty of forms. While over ninetyyears ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do

can only exist against the background of other —conventional — solutions. In this sense, it wouldbe impossible to experiment if one were the onlydesigner on earth, because there would be nostandard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailingstyles, which is perceived as conventional. If moredesigners joined forces and worked in a similarfashion, the scale would change, and the formerconvention would become anti-conventional. Thefate of such experimentation is a permanentconfrontation with the mainstream; a circular,cyclical race, where it is not certain who ischasing whom.

Does type design and typography allow anexperimental approach at all? The alphabet is byits very nature dependent on and defined byconventions. Type design that is not bound byconvention is like a private language: both lackthe ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely theconstraints of the alphabet which inspire manydesigners. A recent example is the work ofThomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduatestudent of type-design who investigates the limitsof legibility while phsically reducing the basicforms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project ofsize-specific typography. While the letters forregular reading sizes are very close toconventional book typefaces, each step down insize results in simplification of the letter-shapes.In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Minisculebecomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet,free of all the details and optical correctionswhich are usual for fonts designed for textreading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon thework of French ophthalmologist Louis EmileJaval, who published similar research at thebeginning of the 20th century. The practicalcontribution of both projects is limited, since thereading process is still guided by the physicallimitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate theconstraints of legibility within which typographyfunctions.

The second dominant notion of experiment inThe Typographic Experiment was formulated byMichael Worthington, a British designer andeducator based in the USA ‘True experimentationmeans to take risks.’ If taken literally, such astatement is of little value: immediately we wouldask what is at stake and what typographers arereally risking. Worthington, however, is referringto the risk involved with not knowing the exactoutcome of the experiment in which the

PETER BILAKEXPERIMENTAL TYPOGRAPHY. WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

it in a way that no one has done it before’ wassufficient for the definition of the new typographyof his day — and his work was an appropriateexample of such an approach today things aredifferent. Designers are more aware of the bodyof work and the discourse accompanying it.Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historicalignorance on a designer’s part.

Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggeststhat the essence of experimentation is in goingagainst the prevailing patterns, rather than beingguided by conventions. This is directly opposedto the scientific usage of the word, where anexperiment is designed to add to theaccumulation of knowledge; in design, whereresults are measured subjectively, there is atendency to go against the generally acceptedbase of knowledge. In science a single person canmake valuable experiments, but a designexperiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism

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designers are engaged.Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created

Sprawl, an experimental typeface based oncartography, which takes into account the densityof population in Belgium. In Sprawl, thesilhouette of each letter is identical, so that whentyped they lock into each other. The filling of theletters however varies according to the frequencyof use of the letter in the Dutch language. Themost frequently used letter (e) represents thehighest density of population. The mostinfrequently used letter (q) corresponds to thelowest density. Setting a sample text creates aCuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.

Another example of experiment as a processof creation without anticipation of the fixed resultis an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors,Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and PaoloPalma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise inperception, a stimulus for the mind and the eyeto pick out and process three-dimensional planeson a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an onlineapplication of a typeface designed to berecognizable in three dimensions. In each view,the viewer can set any of the available variables:length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour androtation, and generate multiple variations of themodel. The user can also generate those variationsas a traditional 2D PostScript font.

Although this kind of experimental processhas no commercial application, its results mayfeed other experiments and be adapted tocommercial activities. Once assimilated, theproduct is no longer experimental. David Carsonmay have started his formal experiments out of

curiosity, but now similar formal solutions havebeen adapted by commercial giants such as Nike,Pepsi, or Sony.

Following this line, we can go further tosuggest that no completed project can beseriously considered experimental. It isexperimental only in the process of its creation.When completed it only becomes part of thebody of work which it was meant to challenge.As soon as the experiment achieves its final formit can be named, categorized and analyzedaccording to any conventional system ofclassification and referencing.

An experimental technique which isfrequently used is to bring together variousworking methods which are recognizedseparately but rarely combined. For example,language is studied systematically by linguists,who are chiefly interested in spoken languagesand in the problems of analyzing them as theyoperate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,however, venture into the visible representationof language, because they consider it artificial andthus secondary to spoken language. Typogapherson the other hand are concerned with theappearance of type in print and otherreproduction technologies; they often havesubstantial knowledge of composition, colortheories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lackknowledge of the language which they represent.

These contrasting interests are broughttogether in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a Frenchdesigner who pursues his typographic research ina wide variety of media.

His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of theFrench alphabet to the core phonemes (soundswhich distinguish one word from another) andcompresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stressesthe economic aspect of such a system, with anaverage book being reduced by about 30%percent when multiple spellings of the samesound are made redundant. For example, theFrench words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) areboth reduced to the simplest representation oftheir pronunciation — po. Words set in Sintétikcan be understood only when read aloudreturning the reader to the medieval experienceof oral reading.

Quantange is another font specific to theFrench language. It is basically a phonetic alphabetwhich visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythmand pace of reading. Every letter in Quantangehas as many different shapes as there are ways ofpronouncing it: the letter c for example has two

forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. DiSciullo suggests that Quantange would beparticularly useful to foreign students of Frenchor to actors and presenters who need to articulatethe inflectional aspect of language not indicatedby traditional scripts. This project builds onexperiments of early avant-garde designers, thework of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and JanTschichold.

Di Sciullo took inspiration from the readingprocess, when he designed a typeface for settingthe horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec(Perec has written the longest palindrome onrecord, a poem of 1388 words which can be readboth ways, see:

http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth).

The typeface is a combination of lower andupper case and is designed to be read from bothsides, left and right. (This is great news to everyBob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces arevery playful and their practical aspects arelimited, yet like the other presented examples ofexperiments in typography, his works points topreviously unexplored areas of interest whichenlarge our understanding of the field.

As the profession develops and more peoplepractice this subtle art, we continually redefinethe purpose of experimetation and become awareof its moving boundaries.

Peter Bilak writes for Émigré is married withtwo dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.

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2. The Good and Bad TypographyModern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited asmuch to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gatesand Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the longstanding history of the written word, printing, andTypography itself. 3. Experiment of Typography by yienkeat1. thehonor 2. Portrait using type

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Brief: Minty and the After8’s: The objective was to produce a flyer and poster for a singer/songwriter based in London. I collaborated on this brief to produce a large variety of outcomes all the while communicating with the client to get the best resolution. These were the final flyers and posters used, these were printed and went live to promote the event both in and around London and through social media also.

Brief: Google: Raise awareness and knowledge regarding Google products and produce an imaginary packaging range for them. Audience: Main stream webusers who are already using google products but do not nessasarily know about all of its features and other existing products. Resolution: A Range of 4 packaging models for Google Plus, Search, Chrome and Mail.

Brief: Google: After the user has learnt about google and its benefits from the outer packaging a card within the box will direct the user to a website where they can learn even more. This can be done through the url listed on the card or by using the QR code. The website URL will be www.googleinfo.com and will be a website dedicated to educating users about all of Googles Products. The site will allow users to flick through the packaging models to obtain the full information from them and will also contain in-depth easy to understand boxes of information.The relevant software/links to Google products will also be available on both the website and the mobile website.

Ben Harwood - Graphic Design - Selected Works

63 Royal Park Avenue, Leeds, LS6 1EZ - ben-harwood@hotmail.co.uk +44 (0)7774 641951