Saturday, June 13, 2009

Type the Sky

As I was doing my daily Google search to find the next interesting thing to occupy my mind, I came across this awesome piece of work:

This alphabet was created by Lisa Rienermann, a German student who attended the University of Duisburg-Essen, and is entitled "Type the Sky". (The original post for the following information was found on http://www.slanted.de/eintrag/type-sky, but that doesn't really help because it's all in German..sorry!). Rienermann was in a courtyard in Barcelona when she happened to look up and saw the shapes of the buildings forming the letter Q against the open sky. The more she began looking, the more she started to find letters hidden amongst the edifices and heavens until she had completed an entire alphabet.

The more difficult letters such as Q and K were the easiest to find, she says, but admits that PhotoShop helped here and there (translated from German on Slanted's website). While I personally think this is a great typographic design, the controversy lies in the artist's use of PhotoShop. Should this really be considered an original design if the artist used software to enhance, or even change, some of her work? Let me know what you think!

Introduction

During the first week of Typography 1, we had an assignment to complete an "inspiration board"--a poster for each of us to glue stick our motivations for aspiring to greatness or just getting out of bed in the morning.  Although I really loved doing this project--mostly because I like playing with glue sticks--I began to realize that inspiration wasn't just something I could limit to putting on a giant piece of paper.  Through this blog, I hope to be able to express the way the world inspires me.  I have entitled this blog "Urban Typography" because I want to show all of you how something that appears insignificant in the everyday hustle and bustle of city life could be the "next big thing" to me.  

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