Why Your Avant-garde Typography Doesn't Look and isn't "Avant-garde." Fix It |

#graphicdesign #experimentaltypography
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Many graphic designers are interested in exploring ways of making work that fall outside of contemporary corporate aesthetics. An "experimental" and "maximalist" approach to graphic design usually involves aggressive typography. Unfortunately most graphic designers still think that hampering typographic legibility is the key to making "experimental" work. Designers interested in creating work that falls outside of accepted corporate aesthetics often make spurious typographic decisions in pursuit of anticorporate, anticapitalist and experimental graphic design. Frankly, in MOST instances the result of this process is not avant-garde work that challenges existing paradigms, but is simply bad (objectively bad) typography. There are different forms of typographic legibility. Compositional illegibility is different than structural illegibility. Most graphic designers who push their work into the "experimental" rely on compositional illegibility rather than structural illegibility. This is one of the primary reasons work of this type lapses into the category of "just bad."
#graphicdesign
Elliott Earls on Instagram: @elliottearls
Collect Elliott Earls prints: www.minislimited.com
The Cranbrook Graduate 2D Studio: cranbrookart.edu/departments/...
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[@Squinto]

Hello Mr. Earls. I just wanted to say I do believe you've saved me. For a long time I have felt in the dark about my life and passions, and at 26 I have felt ashamed not to have made nearly the progress I could have. You put it best here; you can't be fucking lazy. Be passionate, be curious, and be unrelenting. Something about how you've put it in such certain terms has rattled me awake, and I feel like I have unprecedented clarity on my creative journey now. Thank you sir. I deeply respect and admire both your work and your no-nonsense way of educating.

[@StudioPractice1]

Thanks for the kind words. Go to work on self development. Stay disciplined

[@drebugsita]

I love the frankness in which you communicate. Just straight truth. "Don't be fucking lazy about your education" "Be ceaseless and relentless in your pursuit...become passionate about the things that you are interested in. Pursue the Beast into its lair"... It's like the tough love that I didn't know I needed. I am working on getting (back) on track with my art and this is like a balm and fire in one. I am always curious what the education is like at institutions like yours aka what gaps I need to fill in as someone who basically taught myself into an inexpensive grad program. Very grateful for your content!

[@alexandercanada1222]

thank you for these uploads. years and years worth of amazing insight and beyond useful information.

[@drplastographica4031]

Hi Elliot, Catching up on these after being lazy in my own practice of late. I see a contributing issue as young designers not seeing a letterform as an individual object. Too often the whole work is typed on computer and moved around the page either as a complete phrase or series of words. Thinking back to the days of letraset you had to lay down each later one by one so got so experience the type as a combination of individual letters. So when you went on to try to break the rules or be experimental you started on a macro level letter by letter. I think this gives you a better understanding of the sculptural potential of the letter form. The way young designers (students) find fonts removes them from historical context and the physical nature of seeing a printed type specimen. 

 Glad your’e back.

[@kamakozy13]

Thanks for sharing!

[@positiveandhealthy2728]

Sometimes I feel reaaally motivated to do things and be productive .. but it feels like my day should have like 36hours instead of 24h .. I just don't know how to organise my time

[@StudioPractice1]

Yo G&P mode (Ground and Pound) Homie!

[@MagneticMoustache]

Love these lectures :)

[@firinne]

Found this extremely helpful, aside from typography. Just useful info in its own right. thanks for posting!!!

[@manhogbear1086]

you're super cool! thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights! i didn't notice sam mentioning you but the algorithm suggested you, i suppose after watching a bunch of sam's videos

[@StudioPractice1]

Awesome, thank you!

[@dhpdaedalusStudio]

Love it!

[@StudioPractice1]

So glad!

[@wooopwopwopwwooo609]

I am so confused. you say that the type is awful because. I don’t even know. At 21:10 you say their type is similar to your work (I think that’s what u r referring to) in one way: the letter forms don’t conform to the traditional idea of letter armature. Sure. So I’m assuming that’s a good thing since you are comparing it to your work which you used as an example. But then you go on to say they are awful because it is uninformed. You said you could tell because the way an uninformed person makes experimental type is by looking at the letter forms and try to experiment with different armature’s for the letters. Is that not directly contradicting what you said makes good typography? But then you say that this is specifically “the mistake”. You say the correction is to select “fundamentally sound typography”. I have no idea what this means. What makes fundamentally sound typography? You gave examples of inscribed, neo-grotesque, etc… I’m assuming this is what you refer to. Okay.. So I know this is how some fonts look. How does that apply to experimental ones I would like to make? Which aspects of these fonts am I supposed to adhere to and which ones am I allowed to alter? Why is it important to adhere to these if legibility is still communicated? I don’t understand the difference between the types you dont like and the ones you do. I don’t understand why one is better than the other. You said yours were more legible but you pointed to an T and I thought it was an F 😭. I don’t understand how yours adhere to the “armature” more than the ones you hated. I don’t know what fundamentally sound typography is and how it is or is not represented in the examples you show. Genuinely No hate I loved this video and really wanted to understand it. I wish I could have asked this in the livestream. Get back to me if u can!! ❤

[@bizarro20daves]

I subscribed ages ago but commenting so youtube alerts me more

[@cole2714]

Hey, what presentation software do you use?

[@thekinoreview1515]

I will be reading the books you recommended, thanks. I do not have any particular interest in art/graphic design, but it seems like having some (minimal) fundamental understanding would help me make better choices in my day-to-day as an (uninspired and efficiency-constrained) video editor. Only one way to find out, I suppose!

[@StudioPractice1]

Thanks for the comment. I think at their core almost all creative disciplines share creative process. I hope some of my other videos help or are interesting to you

[@Perenbarn]

Really curious what the heck avant-garde typo looks like

[@BraxtonSwine]

I was worried people were gonna notice my Avant Garde typography was lookin less than Avant Garde 😩

[@jamehayes5501]

What is the program you are using to diagram while lecturing?

[@billyvetter9765]

As a gym bro influencer i appreciate this content

[@MrTheGuitarNerd]

I have absolutely no idea what any of this is about yet, but I listnened to the whole thing and think I'll read the book(Stop Stealing Sheep). I think it's about letters.

[@wooopwopwopwwooo609]

Please what website do you use for flow charts I am so desperate right now Please please please

[@brainc0la-_-]

This is neat.

[@StudioPractice1]

Thanks a lot

[@AhemLd]

Because "avant-garde" is status quo, striving to be avant-garde guarantees that you will not be.

[@StudioPractice1]

That's just not accurate. If you set out to be an accountant does that guarantee that you will not be an accountant?

[@tyler209459023523]

Love these videos! The issue of avant-gardism seems kind of separate from the issue of good typeface/design in this. How does Earls' thinking about the complicated status of work as avant-garde not reduce to "this style is not avant-garde because its over 25 years old"? Isn't the ultra-legible thing associated with Ive, the Cloud, and Supreme's Kruger obsession, itself, over 10 years old? Can it register as avant-garde anymore either?

[@brandongorin7978]

in fairness that one type face is based on a pokemon that is pretty cool

[@brandongorin7978]

it's the Oscillator generator

[@StudioPractice1]

Mind blown

[@brandongorin7978]

@@StudioPractice1 the Pokemon is called unown which has some differences then the font but the inspiration is pretty clear so it does show that the person that made it put some thought into it

[@jake2425]

what software do you use to make these flow charts?

[@StudioPractice1]

IThoughts HD - get it. Its killer

[@evancairo]

I feel like one stopped being able to make avant garde typography the moment David Carson published an entire article in zapf dingbats back in the 90s

[@StudioPractice1]

Ha ha

[@david_arthur_brown]

Experimental is not a genre.

[@StudioPractice1]

Really?

[@david_arthur_brown]

@@StudioPractice1 Well, yes we all know it is. but if it really were "experimental" then it's a process. You develop a theory and go on a test it or you undertake certain actions are study the results. The results are not always aesthetic or attractive or "contemporary" even if they can be. Beauty. Eye. Beholder.