Edward Johnston, reinterpreted
Edward Johnston (1872-1944) developed the ‘look’ of the London Underground – thru type and image.
These are snaps of the work of student Grady Fike. Grady spent eleven weeks jumping thru many hoops in my experimental typography course at The Art Institute of California Sacramento.
For the class, I’ve set up an evolving work process – where students are assigned a ‘famous typographer’ (one that I pick, so they have to work within these limitations) and interpret their work thru both loose and strict design iterations.
It’s similar to Project Runway, but for much of it, students often only have about an hour to produce their work. And based on the outcome, their solutions dictate what the next homework assignment will be. It’s all very fluid.
Fluids are actually involved.
This includes recipes, product ingredients, scientific notation, weather reports and other random finds. Throwing the unexpected into the mix is all part of the game.
Most of the work is collected in a large notebook (above) – it comes out to about 50 or so different pieces – and student work runs the gauntlet of media – starting with traditional form, thru digital, traditional painted media, alternate media, photography, video – final projects have included posters and art, paintings, animated films, digital renderings, sculpture, music video, performance art, landscaping and graffiti.
