Corporate identity for software developer Cinemacraft and visual identities for their suite of products, including Videogram.

David Matthew Davis and Thea Lorentzen designed these amazing ten-color silkscreened posters for Kiyonori Muroga and my recent trip to CalArts for our Idea Magazine workshop and lecture  at the school.

Thank you, guys!!!

The Letterfirm exhibition opening went off amazingly well. Over 250 folks stopped in to check out the work, have a few drinks and bob their heads to the amazing sounds of DJ E*Rock.

Thanks to the TypeCon team for inviting us to have the exhibition and mega-thanks to Reading Frenzy for making it happen!

All photos by Bitna Chung Photography.

I curated Letterfirm, an exhibition of international expressive typography, featuring some of the most diverse graphic designers and typographic artist in active practice today. The exhibition was held in conjunction with TypeCon 2013. It opened on August 20th at Reading Frenzy.

Participants in Letterfirm include:

Aaron Winters
Gail Swanlund
Chris Ro
Tom Kracauer
Thea Lorentzen 
Scott Massey
Jiwon Lee
Masato Nakada
Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
Yasmin Khan
Ed Fella
Silas Munro
Ian Lynam
Michael Worthington
Jae-Hyouk Sung
Benjamin Woodlock
David Matthew Davis
Troy Patterson
Kat Catmur
Alex Pines
Everything–Type–Company
Mylinh Trieu Nguyen
Micah Hahn

Published in conjunction with the exhibition was The Letterfirm Reader, a 96-page booklet of recent essays on graphic design, aesthetics, history, and criticism.

All photography by Bitna Chung Photography.

I curated Letterfirm, an exhibition of international expressive typography, featuring some of the most diverse graphic designers and typographic artist in active practice today. The exhibition was held in conjunction with TypeCon 2013. It opened on August 20th at Reading Frenzy.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition was The Letterfirm Reader, a 96-page booklet of recent essays on graphic design, aesthetics, history, and criticism. It is available at the exhibition, and was given away for free in the TypeCon goodie bag given to all participants.

An excerpt from the inside cover:

Every year at TypeCon, the goodie bag is stuffed full of objects filled with text, yet that text is most often crafted with the lone intention of highlighting foundries’ latest offerings. This booklet is intentionally the opposite—it is a booklet that was designed to be read in the downtimes between speakers, in bed, or at a bar or café. 

 The Letterfirm Reader is an attempt to bridge the disconnect between design criticism, typography-oriented writing, and pure ol’ plain fun prose. It is a casual follow-up to The Space Is The Place Supplement, a booklet of a similar nature that was available for free at my exhibition at Land Gallery in Portland in 2011.

 I am excited that the Letterfirm exhibition is being held at Reading Frenzy—my introduction to graphic design was through the DIY small press. Reading Frenzy is Portland’s longest-running retailer of small press ephemera. I was a volunteer at the old shop on Oak Street in the mid 90s.

 I hope you enjoy The Letterfirm Reader. These essays, as well as a dozen more, will be published in a new book in the upcoming year. I look forward to sharing them with you.

The booklet was printed in an edition of 600 by Eberhardt Press using split fountain printing. It was edited by Scott Michael Craig.

All photography by Bitna Chung Photography.

Idea Magazine #360 features a 96-page feature that I edited, designed and wrote big chunks of.

For a week, Idea Editor-in-Chief Kiyonori Muroga and I stayed in Valencia, the home of CalArts, to “work on a design research/writing/making/collecting/documenting project about CalArts itself, it’s history, it’s current state, ephemera, and researching in a very open way”, making CalArts both the laboratory and the subject.

The results is an image-rich look at the past few generations of CalArts alumni, the work of faculty and related projects.

Included is work by Ed Fella, Lorraine Wild, Mr. Keedy, Caryn Aono, Scott Zukowski, Silas Munro, Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton, Mark Kulakoff, Corey Holms, Jon Sueda, Geoff McFetridge, Megan McGinley, Max Erdenberger, Brian Roettinger, Scott Massey, Andrea Tinnes, Tim Belonax, John Wiese, Jae Hyouk-Sung, Micah Hahn, Michael Worthington, Gail Swanlund, Louise Sandhaus, and many, many others.

The feature is crammed to the gills with bilingual essays and interviews.

You can pick up a copy here.

Idea Magazine #360 features a 96-page feature that I edited, designed and wrote big chunks of.

For a week, Idea Editor-in-Chief Kiyonori Muroga and I stayed in Valencia, the home of CalArts, to “work on a design research/writing/making/collecting/documenting project about CalArts itself, it’s history, it’s current state, ephemera, and researching in a very open way”, making CalArts both the laboratory and the subject.

The results is an image-rich look at the past few generations of CalArts alumni, the work of faculty and related projects.

Included is work by Ed Fella, Lorraine Wild, Mr. Keedy, Caryn Aono, Scott Zukowski, Silas Munro, Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton, Mark Kulakoff, Corey Holms, Jon Sueda, Geoff McFetridge, Megan McGinley, Max Erdenberger, Brian Roettinger, Scott Massey, Andrea Tinnes, Tim Belonax, John Wiese, Jae Hyouk-Sung, Micah Hahn, Michael Worthington, Gail Swanlund, Louise Sandhaus, and many, many others.

The feature is crammed to the gills with bilingual essays and interviews.

You can pick up a copy here.

The latest issue of Idea Magazine – #360 – is out now. It features a 96-page feature that I edited, designed and wrote big chunks of.

For a week, Idea Editor-in-Chief Kiyonori Muroga and I stayed in Valencia, the home of CalArts, to “work on a design research/writing/making/collecting/documenting project about CalArts itself, it’s history, it’s current state, ephemera, and researching in a very open way”, making CalArts both the laboratory and the subject.

The result is an image-rich look at the past few generations of CalArts alumni, the work of faculty and related projects.

Included is work by Ed Fella, Lorraine Wild, Mr. Keedy, Caryn Aono, Scott Zukowski, Silas Munro, Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton, Mark Kulakoff, Corey Holms, Jon Sueda, Geoff McFetridge, Megan McGinley, Max Erdenberger, Brian Roettinger, Scott Massey, Andrea Tinnes, Tim Belonax, John Wiese, Jae Hyouk-Sung, Micah Hahn, Michael Worthington, Gail Swanlund, Louise Sandhaus, and many, many others.

The feature is crammed to the gills with bilingual essays and interviews.

You can pick up a copy here.

I have a feature in the new issue of Slanted Magazine that was published for the Babylon type conference in Bangkok. It’s a bit different than the usual stuff I do for Slanted – no design criticism, design history or overt essay this time. The piece is a documentation of a speculative science fiction film that I have been making.

This issue of Slanted will not be distributed internationally on newsstands as it is for a type conference in Thailand, but you can order a copy here.

Excerpts from the Japanese script are overlayed on still images from the film. An English translation is provided in the back of the magazine.

Photography: Tony | 谷内俊文
Producer: Toshiki Senoue | 瀬ノ上俊毅
Hair/Makeup: Ippu Sansan
Actresses: Mari Kojima | 小嶋 まり, Viviane Sheep

I’ve put together a 44-page booklet of recent graphic design and typography-related writing for the upcoming Letterfirm exhibition at TypeCon. The booklet, printed with loving care by Portland’s amazing Eberhardt Press, will be available at the exhibition opening and will be distributed for free to all TypeCon attendees in their burgeoning goodie bags.