TYPO London 2011: Places

Nearly a thousand designers attended the first British edition of the authoritative international type conference.

For the first time in 16 years, TYPO London has brought the visual-design conferences sponsored by Erik Spiekermann and Jürgen Siebert's FontShop outside their traditional Berlin venue. Over the course of three busy days hosted by UCL in Bedford Way, speakers followed each other in two different halls, covering several design disciplines (from animation graphics to experimental typography and information design) and touching on subjects that although very different are all linked by the fundamental relationship that every project forms with a place (whether it be the, literal, case of Tim Fendley's work on the legibility of the complex London underground system or the technological challenge inherent to the typographical standardisation of the BBC's news Web pages for all its 27 languages).

The guests of "Places" included illustrious and internationally acclaimed British designers such as Tony Brook, the creative director of Spin, who described his personal curatorial "odyssey" of the recent Wim Crouwel retrospective at the Design Museum, as well as experiences in museum communication (including the Whitechapel Gallery and Haunch of Venison). Marina Willer and Michael Bierut both drew the audience's attention to as many well-known environmental-identity projects. The former, Brazilian by birth and a longstanding partner in the London office of Wolff Ollins, gave an in-depth illustration of the now dated but still innovative Tate Gallery project. The logo has a dynamic identity, changing form as it adopts random variations in the outline of its letters, successfully conveying the nature of spaces designed to contain assorted types of works and the soul of an institution privy to and advocate of change.

Top: Chip Kidd closing Typo London. Above: Jürgen Siebert of FontShop (left) and Joachim Sauter (right), who captivated the audience with an exciting sequence of installations from his art+com organisation.

The Southbank Centre's visual identity also reflects a desire to create less static and multidirectional relations between all art forms and their audience. On the other hand, two identities marking collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron are closely linked to the architecture and form of their buildings: a monolithic image, summed up in a logotype enclosed within its surrounding line, for Basel's Schaulager and a sculptural and visual one for the 1111 Lincoln Road car park, the image of which plays on the exceptional nature of the street number it is named after but also its Brutalist concrete structure spread over four floors and open on the road below.

The artist Lawrence Weiner (pictured, background right) spoke about the prerogative of art to communicate without having to justify its message.

Michael Bierut, a partner in Pentagram and resident design expert for the New York Times, dissected the genesis and development of the environmental graphic design for the new NYT premises designed by Renzo Piano. How could they unequivocally represent a huge building without undermining the minimalist aesthetic or obstructing the offices' external views? Separate and integrate seem to have been the chosen keywords. The newspaper's iconic logo, in the Fraktur typeface, has been recreated on the facade with almost 1000 tiny steel sleeves that form a sign 33.5 metres long and perfectly integrated into the skin of the building.

Gary Hustwit spoke against the backdrop of preview scenes from the latest film in his design trilogy, Urbanized (which streams online). A hugely interesting talk illustrated a small project financed by a pool of British universities. For one week last April they marked the energy consumptions of individuals living on a Brighton street on a public infographic, with the—accomplished—intention of reducing energy wastage thanks to the visual awareness of information normally hidden in the private data of a bill (see the website, albeit now almost completely stripped of material: tidystreet.org/).

The guests of 'Places' included illustrious and internationally acclaimed British designers such as Tony Brook, the creative director of Spin, who described his personal curatorial 'odyssey' of the recent Wim Crouwel retrospective at the Design Museum

Left: Nat Hunter, creative director of Airside. Right: Karin Von Ompteda.

Joachim Sauter captivated the audience with an exciting sequence of installations from his art+com organisation, based on a monograph just published by Gestalten and a very shy (unlike all the others) Lawrence Weiner spoke about art's prerogative to communicate without having to justify the message.

Finally, Neville Brody conducted a long flashback, revisiting many of the contributions in his experimental typography magazine Fuse, founded in 1991, and Chip Kidd closed this first TYPO London with the perfect theatrical-timing of the exceptional orator he is with an anecdote-filled ride through his 25-year career as an art director for publishing and book-cover designer.

The next appointment with TYPO Talks is in April, with another new event in the expanding life of these meetings, the form of which is beginning to closely resemble a sort of design-centred TED, on 5 & 6 April in San Francisco; then it is back to Berlin again with TYPO Berlin "Sustain" in May.
Marco Ferrari, Elisa Pasqual

Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram, New York.

Typo London 2011: Places
20–22.10.2011
University of London

Gary Hustwit spoke against the backdrop of some scenes previewed from the latest film of his trilogy on design, <i>Urbanized.</i> — Gary Hustwit spoke against the backdrop of some scenes previewed from the latest film of his trilogy on design, *Urbanized.*

The audience seated in Logan Hall at Bedford Way, where UCL hosted three intense days of TypoLondon.

Sketchnotes by freelance UX designer Eva-Lotta. Eva-Lotta was invited to show a new, more visual, way to communicate.

The next appointment with Typo Talks is in April, with another new event in the expanding life of these meetings, the form of which is beginning to closely resemble a sort of design-centred TED.

TYPO London 2011: Places

Nearly a thousand designers attended the first British edition of the authoritative international type conference.

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