Type with Teeth

Last night after work I went to an event down the street at The Type Directors Club called Type With Teeth. Craig Ward, an experimental typographer originally from the rural parts of England spoke about his life, work and process.

I thought it might be a little weird since it was an organization for type lovers, and it definitely was a little weird, but I liked it, haha. I learned a lot from him. One of the main things he emphasized was that design is supposed to be fun, and to keep it loose for a while until the project is developed enough to . Here is a definition that I will probably repeat in the future:

"Graphic design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner."

Ward mostly does commissions for advertisements and for publications, but a lot of these projects develop from his personal work that people see and want to use (or a similar application of that technique). They all have some sort of surprise element that comes from the weird, hand-done techniques he uses. Here's some of my favorites from his work:







Some of them might look computer-generated, but that's only because we are so accustomed to seeing that type of work. Another interesting thing I learned was the difference between legibility and readability. Legibility is whether you can read what's there, but readability is whether you want to read what's there. Ward favors legibility over readability because to him, words are pictures, and half of the fun is trying to see find the letters.

Check out more of Craig Ward's work at www.wordsarepictures.co.uk.

Thanks to TDC for hosting the event and thanks 8daysaweek.org for notifying the design community about great events like this going on in New York.