The next destination for the Letterbox’s typographic odyssey is an exhibition that is a typographic tribute to the animals lost in space research.

Between 1949 and 1990 the space-race between USA and USSR involved dozens of animals being sent up into space to test future conditions for mankind. These unwilling participants included monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, frogs, worms, fish, spiders and even fruit flies. Most were never seen again.

The works, comprising of a series of illuminated billboards, are accompanied by a limited edition exhibition catalogue and type sampler, Orbit Oblique. It also features the public release of Bisque, a typeface that made design history by being the first font whose international rights were auctioned on ebay in 2007.

Opening night
5.30pm onwards, to be opened by
Dr Mark Davis / School of Culture & Communications,
Faculty of Art, University of Melbourne
Thursday 17th April 2008

Craft Victoria / 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Australia
Gallery hours / Tues to Sat 10am to 5pm

Exhibition dates / 17th April to 17th May 2008
Enquires / info (at) letterbox.net.au

Everyone welcome!

Information about the Letterbox
Called a ‘typographic evangelist’ by Eye magazine, designer Stephen Banham is the founder of Letterbox, a type studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Banham has written and produced 14 publications on typography, run a successful public forum series on graphic design and typography known as Character, and spoken at international design events from Barcelona to Beirut, New Zealand to New York.

For more information about all of the above and more, visit the Letterbox here

Stephen Mallinder, Richard Kirk and Chris Watson as music entourage Caberet Voltaire (CV) burst onto the music scene in 1973, it was said that the group was more interested in making noise rather than music. Dub House, techno, dance and experimental electronica have a lot to owe CV and Shelfield.

Nag Nag Nag released in 1978 is no exception. One won’t get to heaven with this sound track, yet in terms of noisy music this is paradise. What has this post got to do with graphic design? Answer: Neville Brody’s CV sleeve designs.

Neville Brody came onto the graphic design scene in the 1980s. His graphic design and art direction began with record cover sleeves for music groups like Cabaret Voltaire. At this time his works was a distinctive expression, that encorporated graphic marks, contemporary image making, photography and a customised approach to typography.Brody’s monograph the Graphic Language of Neville Brody was touchstone of the design industy in the late 1980s. It was a publication that began the age of designer = rockstar opening the way for a flurry of graphic design monographs which became more like vanity publishing.

The age of Neville Brody was the toiling bell, so to speak, that heralded a new era for graphic design where the drawing table was soon to make way for graphic design being produce on the desktop computer.

Brody came to Australia in 1989 toured by Australian Graphic Design Association. Brody’s curious presence brought to life the notion of a lowly graphic designer being an edgy youthful global entity. Kevin Wilkins (working at FHA, now freelance) and Robyn Wakefield (working at Ross Barr, now Walter Wakefield) collaborated to design a set of postcard invitations for this tour. The cards were pieces to a puzzle incorporating mixed italic and roman typography, when assembled the collection cards made an image composed with distressed photocopied images. The invitation (well and truly before email) arrived in the post within a tracing paper envelop.

In 1989 at the Sydney event, Brody presented with 35mm slides and video tapes at the Sydney School of the Arts in Balmain. His youthful presence put in the minds of emerging designers – that one can make an impression on the graphic design movement in their youth. Brody was proceeded by a stable of brand like, global designers, including Tomato, David Carson, more recently Stefan Sagmiester and the rise of the designer ego. A legacy this designer is steering clear of.

Twenty years on Brody’s work in type design and image making is not as public as it was back then, never-the-less it remains prolific and very familiar.

Visit Neville Brody, Visit CV here

A leap day is a special day indeed, it is a day caught in time, four years in time, even longer when a millenia tips over. Read on for a lazy post about a leap day. Girls if you have been standing by your man for too long and you want to be a honest woman – it is time to act. Folk tradition states, now, today is your time to act, and get on one knee and propose to your man.

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing one or more extra days (or, in case of lunisolar calendars, an extra month) in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, February would have 29 days in a leap year instead of the usual 28. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of full days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year which is not a leap year is called a common year.

Leapling traditions girls

In the English speaking a world, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. While it has been argued that the tradition was initiated by Saint Patrick or Brigid of Kildare in 5th century Ireland, it is dubious as the tradition has not been attested before the 19th century [7]. Supposedly, a 1288 law by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), required that fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to £1 to a silk gown, in order to soften the blow.[8] Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, 29 February, or to the medieval leap day, 24 February. According to Felten: “A play from the turn of the 17th century, ‘The Maydes Metamorphosis,’ has it that ‘this is leape year/women wear breeches.’ A few hundred years later, breeches wouldn’t do at all: Women looking to take advantage of their opportunity to pitch woo were expected to wear a scarlet petticoat — fair warning, if you will.” [9].

In Greece, it is believed that getting married in a leap year is bad luck for the couple[citation needed]. Thus, mainly in the middle of the past century, couples avoided setting a marriage date in a leap year.

Leapling Birthdays

A person born on February 29 may be called a “leapling”. In common years they usually celebrate their birthdays on 28 February or 1 March.

For legal purposes, their legal birthdays depend on how different laws count time intervals. In Taiwan, for example, the legal birthday of a leapling is 28 February in common years, so a Taiwanese leapling born on February 29, 1980 would have legally reached 18 years old on February 28, 1998.
“If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence.　But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month.[10]”

In some situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a non-leap year since it then is the day just after February 28.

There are many instances in children’s literature where a person’s claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting only their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance.

7. ^ The Privilege of Ladies by Barbara Mikkelson
8. ^ Virtually no laws of Margaret survive. Indeed, none concerning her subjects are recorded in the twelve volume Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (1814–75) covering the period 1124–1707 (two laws concerning young Margaret herself are recorded on pages 424 & 441–2 of volume I).
9. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120371485815386581.html?mod=djemITP
10. ^ Article 121 of the Civil Code Part I General Principles of the Republic of China in effect in Taiwan

A lazy post from Wikipedia.

There must be a place (Naive Melody) by the Talking HeadsRecorded in 1982, from their first post Brian Eno LP ‘Speaking in Tongues’ enjoy the Talking Heads’ idea of a love song – something that is whimsical, familiar and uncomplicated. The naive reference refers to the music. Apparently the bass and guitar parts are doing the same thing throughout the song.

Philosophy [1] is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic). The word is of Greek origin: φιλοσοφία (philosophía), meaning love of wisdom.

It is the process that is concerned with the big ideas that occupy human thought.

Design [1] on the other hand, usually considered in the context of applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other creative endeavors, is used both as a noun and a verb. As a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component. As a noun, “a design” is used for either the final (solution) plan (e.g. proposal, drawing, model, description) or the result of implementing that plan (e.g. object produced, result of the process). More recently, processes (in general) have also been treated as products of design, giving new meaning to the term “process design”.

Designing normally requires a designer to consider the aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object or a process, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design.

Design is the process that is concerned with the execution of various living activities.

Philosophy and design are linked. One is about resolution of an idea, the other is about the process of resolving and achieving ideas.

The idea of, and the execution of religion is fascinating, the belief systems that occupy human activity are numerous, diverse, and imaginative – spanning from the extremes of organised religions, superstitions, creative expressions to cultural makeup and unique societys.

The Australian public broadcaster – the ABC, and it’s ideas based national radio station – Radio National has a weekly programme that investigates religion, aptly titled the Religion Report. In the 2008 summer series the programme reran an interview with Professor Sociology John Carroll. Professor Carol has written a book called The Existential Jesus – which is an investigation of the Christian New Testament text – The Book of Mark. This programme poses an idea of the Christian figure head that questions contemporary clichés of control, miracles, patience and community.

Listen the programme here

1 Sources Wikipedia