Typo: The Beautiful World of Fonts

Front cover of Typo: The Beautiful World of Fonts

Spread in Typo: The Beautiful World of Fonts

Just to wrap up January, I got one more piece of great news. My work has once again been showcased, this time in Typo: The Beautiful World of Fonts, compiled by Fabiola Reyes and published by Monsa. What amazing publicity... so little and then so much. That's it though now, no more showing off.

Grafik Part II

p.54 - 55, Grafik 159

Front cover, Grafik 159

Homeward Bound makes it through again onto the pages of Grafik, this time through into their issue of favourite design for 2007. Thank you! And I like to think it's nothing personal that they decided to stick my work right in the gutter! But with this kind of flattery, you just can't grumble.

2007 - A Year of Great Graphic Design, Grafik 159, January 2008

Type Addicted

Some of my Welcomes have been included in Type Addicted, published by Victionary. A diverse and rather wonderful selection of of 2D and 3D work from all sorts of people who use - and adore - type and words. It's good to finally see this reproduction - in full glorious colour - being represented on the printed page finally. I hope my photo does the cover of Type Addicted justice on other people's screens. If not look hard, and maybe roll your seat back a little, and suddenly you can see the beauty…

_ _ _ _ _ cut

Polish paper cut, photo © Lizzie Ridout

My current obsession with shadows, which I've been thinking about a lot lately for a new body of work, reminded me of a small collection that's been growing in my plan chest over the course of the last year. The two themes of silhouettes and paper engineering have long been hanging around in my head and last year when I made trips to both China and Mexico, I picked up pieces of incredible paper workmanship - all similar, all different. A collection was started, and the above Polish paper cut, from Warsaw, was recently made the newest acquisition.

Below are a few of the hand cut and hand painted patterns I bought in a supermarket in China. They're sold in sets of similar themes, from birds to flowers, cats going about their cat tasks to men wrestling. Each piece is trapped in a folded sheet of tissue and then contained within a small wallet, or sometimes placed in a little bound book. Even the most expensive of these cost a few pounds.

For more images of Chinese paper cutting, have a look at this post on Olga Llopis' blog Trampas de Tinta.

Chinese paper cuts, photo © Lizzie Ridout

The following - stylistically very different from the Chinese paper cuts - are a few examples of the papel picado or papel china that I found in Mexico.

The art of paper cutting is a long standing tradition in Mexico and is used in decorating homes and exteriors for many rituals including weddings, christenings and funerals. Designs vary depending on the occasion - the two series' of flags below depict patterns created for Easter celebrations and also for a wedding. Other popular designs include portraits of Frida Kahlo, images of La Catrina, based on illustrations by Jose Guadalupe Posada and other skeletal imagery for the infamous Dìa de los Muertos.

Similar to our own tradition of cutting paper-snowflakes at Christmas, this custom is considered an art form due to the intricate nature of the pieces. Although not as detailed as those I saw in China, these paper-cuts serve much more of function. Throughout Mexico City, the patterned paper (and now increasingly, plastic) flags and banners could be seen fluttering on their strings, left over from some celebration or another. Attached to the idea of papel picado is the art of the ofrendas, or the domestic alter. In Mexico, there is still a culture of creating personal shrines within domestic interiors. Alters, made from papel picado decorations amongst other things, are built around photographs, and are perpetually altered and adapted in an ongoing ‘dialogue’ with the dead relative.

Click on the photos to see them enlarged.

More things from Mexico soon. It's been far too long…

Mexican papel picado, photo © Lizzie Ridout

Migration

A rather wonderful postcard picked up from the 'sale' box at Exeter Museum.

Three noteworthy shadows

Peter Schlemihl allowing his shadow to be cut off. Etching by George Cruikshank, 1823

Peter Schlemihl's Wundersame Geschichte by Adelbert von Chamisso

Shadows that never stop moving
Once shadows were created by the sun, the moon, candles and gas-lamps. These veteran shadows moved, continually. They never ceased their motion: edging almost unnoticed from one space to another, or trembling and shivering across walls and ceilings. In contrast, modern shadows are static: electric bulbs have made sure of that.

Shadow merchants
Reputedly in Transylvania in ancient times, a live person was laid beneath the the foundation stone of a new building or sealed into the walls to guarantee that a ghost would haunt the building and therefore protect it from any hopeful thieves. More recently (and up until the end of the nineteenth century) this ritual has been replaced with a new tradition: that of burying the shadow - or the length of the shadow of a passerby - who would then as a result die within forty days (or at least within a year). A shadow merchant would measure other people's shadows and then make them available to the architect.

Shadows and walls
In Hiroshima a different sort of shadow manifested itself on the wall of a bank. Half a kilometer from the atomic blast, a man who was waiting for the bank to open, momentarily blocked the wall from the wave of heat that assaulted the city. That brief instant was enough time for the vestiges of his form to be left indelibly on the surface.

For more about shadows, have a look at Shadows: Unlocking their secrets, from Plato to our time, Roberto Casati, Vintage 2004.