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

[@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

[@DJCHOKO504]

I feel exactly the same.

[@aymazy]

thank you for helping me get a true design education. never too old to learn.

[@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!

[@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!! ❤

[@richardhall5489]

Did you read the books that he suggested?

[@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!

[@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.

[@alexandercanada1222]

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

[@firinne]

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

[@cole2714]

Hey, what presentation software do you use?

[@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

[@kamakozy13]

Thanks for sharing!

[@Perenbarn]

Really curious what the heck avant-garde typo looks like

[@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!

[@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

[@MagneticMoustache]

Love these lectures :)

[@dhpdaedalusStudio]

Love it!

[@StudioPractice1]

So glad!

[@BraxtonSwine]

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

[@bizarro20daves]

I subscribed ages ago but commenting so youtube alerts me more

[@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?

[@billyvetter9765]

As a gym bro influencer i appreciate this content

[@jamehayes5501]

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

[@richardhall5489]

The necessity to understand typography before you attempt to deconstruct it made me think of the music of Sonic Youth. If you don't get their music it's very easy to conclude that they were making noise and that anyone could do it. However if you pick up an electric guitar and with no skill or experience attempt to make a Sonic Youth song it's likely that you will just make noise. Not interesting, rhythmic or emotionally engaging noise. Just noise. Note: I just watched the Q&A #2 and you pretty much made this point.

[@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

[@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.

[@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?

[@lobstermash]

I thought "avant garde" referred to the work which is ahead of the current mainstream and introducing the next direction. It's like the vanguard of a marching army. The difficulty is knowing whether certain art is avant garde or turns out in hindsight to be an irrelevant soon-to-be-backwater. You can't always plan to be there.

[@wooopwopwopwwooo609]

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

[@matthewwillox7338]

many of these Avant Garde typefaces are just "vibes." so much of commercial design is about creating vibes, for posters, bands, movies, etc. but Avant Garde isn't vibes. just because your design constraint is to make a typeface that looks like some kind of Atlantean hieroglyph, doesn't mean you've synthesized a new typographical idea. now, if you take a look at type anatomy, and you think, alright, how did we end up with all these parts, how can I go about adding a new part, changing an existing part, or removing a part... and THEN experiment. or thinking more broadly (About this atlantean idea, and only because one of the typefaces you showed and hate has that vibe), what sort of tools would an atleantean have to write with? maybe a fountain pen made from a seashell, ok, what effect does that have on the shapes. go get a shell, make a few typographical shapes (doesn't even need to be a complete letterform). now you're synthesizing, now you're experimenting. so many typefaces have features that are side effects of the means of production (like blackletters). but only after you dig into it are you going to think to do this. like change the tool, change the type. like a linguist imagining how language would develop in a world where everyone wore masks all the time. i find with computers, there just isn't a lot of curiosity about means of production in a historical context, especially among the 'vibes' crowd of designers. then you can create your own scenarios and build on that. great vid once again, thanks a lot.

[@jake2425]

what software do you use to make these flow charts?

[@StudioPractice1]

IThoughts HD - get it. Its killer

[@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.