Brigitte Schuster

Canella Type Family

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:13:13 -0500

Canella Type Family

project: Canella - a typeface for hierarchical typesetting in editorial design
Part of the typeface is a booklet, which features the detailed process and the specimen of the typeface.
2010
The project was developed as part of the Type and Media master course at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, The Netherlands, during a period of approximately four months.
Canella is a type family primarily to be used in books and magazines. The goal was to design a contemporary typeface, which is usable in a complex text-setting environment, and which allows excellent readability in small sizes.
Type proportions are inspired by 16th century punch-cutters Hendrik van den Keere and Robert Granjon. Due to this large x-height, good readability in small sizes is ensured. The Roman uses an oblique axis derived from the writing angleof the broad nib pen.
The Italic is notably distinct from the Roman and has a literary tone. It is situated in the transitional style period, which contains elements of the pointed pen writing, and is also inspired by 16 th century writing master Giovan Francesco Cresci as well as Robert Granjon's Italics.
The current Canella typeface features the two weights: Regular and Bold. Canella comes with common OpenType features and supports the majority of European languages.
Future plans for Canella include the design of a Book weight and the completion of the now reduced versions of all presented character sets.

Process book:

Specimen book:

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Biennale di Venezia 2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:01:01 -0500

Is "Biennale di Venezia" reflecting current trends in contemporary art?

As I am currently in Europe, I did not want to miss Biennale di Venezia di Arte contemporanea (Venice contemporary art Biennial), which is after Dokumenta Kassel considered to be the most important contemporary art event.

One of the concepts I particularly liked is Aleksandra Mir's project of printing fake Venice-cards that contained unrelated images. The cards were free and meant to be sent out by visitors. This is a great project that reaches a big public even out of the actual exhibition space.

Although I liked some of the artist's work, my overall impression is rather delusive. I expected to see more technology based art. Lucas Samaras, representing Greece, was one of the few using "new" mediums, with his multimedia installation "Parazena" that features photo and video work. However, paintings or installations were the common mediums. According to this huge contemporary art event technology based art seems not to be in the trend of contemporary art. Strangely enough, in Canada, for instance, most grant programs for artists are only open for those who work with innovative technology. Is it possible that Biennale di Venezia di Arte contemporanea is no longer reflecting today's art trends? Maybe current trends are rather to be found in university graduation shows of art and design related fields or at conferences, as for example Siggraph's technology based arts space. An alternative could also be to visit blogs like we-make-money-not-art.com to get to know current contemporary art trends.

The Biennial had indeed a huge body of "decorative" art to explore. For example, the Italian pavilion featured mostly paintings, and one was wondering if he got lost in some 1980ies art show. According to art critics' opinions, most of the exhibited painters are the curators' friends.

I also had the impression that either not enough artist could be selected for the Biennial or there was too much empty space available that the curators tried to fill in. In case of Georges Adeagbo's work the same installation was repeated a few times in the same pavilion. Georges Adeagbo's work is interesting, but I cannot see the point why his extra space cannot be preserved to feature a further artist's work. The same type of critique goes to those artists that receive gigantic sponsoring for in my opinion "weak" messages. This applies especially to the national pavilions that reserve most of the time the Pavilion for one artist. Wouldn't it be richer for visitors and participants to give a chance to more than one artist? Jan Fabre's work occupies two huge pavilions and its installations must have been very expensive. Former Biennial work from previous years was exposed, too. I did not understand why. If I am interested in former exhibitions, I can go experience them in books or archives.

Maybe there should just be an update on current curators to make sure that the actual trends in contemporary art will be considered in such an important contemporary art event the Biennialclaims to be. Or maybe the Biennal needs to consider new ways of definition. Perhaps there should be a specific Biennial for technology based art, and one for traditional mediums such as paintings and installations, etc.

I have to admit, small events or exhibitions can be far more interesting than the Venice event. A current small exhibition in Munich entitled Crossing Munich has impressed me by its conceptual, technological and aesthetic quality. Compared to this Venice Biennial has a long way to go to. So far, the next Venice Biennale in 2011 is not on my to-do list.

Outside of the Italian pavilion. Perhaps more instersting than the inside...

Polish Pavilion: Krzysztof Wodiczko's projection featuring immigrants based in Poland and Italy.

United Arab Emirate National Pavilion

Photographs of hotel rooms, presented by United Arab Emirate National Pavilion

Arsenale Building

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Artist book entitled Voyages autour de ma chambre

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:20:20 -0500

Voyages autour de ma chambre - Artist book

project: Artist book entitled "Voyages autour de ma chambre" (A journey around my room).
Voyages autour de ma chambre [in PDF]
collaboration: Printmaking Studio Graff, Fran Sendbuehler, no bar code press (bookbinding)
2007-2009
Artist book that illustrates parts of the novel "Voyages autour de ma chambre" by Xavier de Maistre. Mixed intaglio techniques, such as acquatinta, ceramolle, photogravure and other. The type is based on my personal handwriting. Black and red ink.
The book, written in 1795, is a description of a journey, which de Maistre undertook in 6 weeks in his room. De Maistre’s book is a mixture of memories of life, imagination, daydream, and storytelling. De Maistre shows that the pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to. The journey around my room might be as good as any trip around that slightly bigger but equally finite room, the world.
Book description: etching/intaglio, Bunko Shi paper, accordeon binding, 26 pages, 17 x 14.5 cm, edition of 5
publication: National Archives Quebec, ISBN 978-2-9811263-0-6.

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Calligraphy workshop with Denise Lach in Perce

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:12:20 -0500

Calligraphy workshop with Denise Lach at Laval University's summer school in Perce

Denise Lach gave a calligraphy workshop on "Written Textures" organized by Laval University's summer school, Ecole internationale d'ete de Perce de l'Universite Laval, in Perce, QC, CA.

At the end of the 5-day course we worked on a personal project. I chose to explore writing tools, which I was able to find in my surroundings, such as stones and wood from the beach, seeds, fir cones, fir wood branches, toothpicks, a colapen or a pipette. I used the tools with regular black ink on white paper.

At this point, I was not interested in creating perfect letter shapes. Instead, I wanted to research the characteristics of each specific tool. The ways of manipulating a tool, such as scratching, stamping, using a soft or stiff hand, etc. can lead to very different results. Most tools are hard to control and random effects appear. This is just a small overview of the variety of tools that can be used for writing...

The project:

Wood branch:

Fir Cone:

Seed:

Pipette:

Fir tree branch:

Stone:

Wood:

Toothpick:

Colapen:

Denise Lach explains the use of some tools during the workshop:

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Visual arts and poets at Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:13:14 -0500

Visual artists and poets work togehter on the theme "Les enfants du surrealisme"

"Les enfants du surrealisme" at Maison de la culture du plateau Montreal is an exhibit where 5 artists and 5 poets create together an art piece. Collaboration between 10e Marche de la poesie de Montreal, Gallery Graff, la Maison de la poesie, Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal

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Calligraphy exhibit at Galerie Mile-end in Montreal

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:12:02 -0500

Calligraphy at Galerie Mile-End, Montreal

From May 27th to June 6th "the Calmars" exhibit in order and disorder at Galerie Mile-End.

Calligraphic Journal by Josee Laurion based on a workshop by Sharon Zeugin, ink, pencil, ruling pen, brush.

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Montreal Biennale 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 21:12:12 -0500

Montreal Biennale 2009 - open culture

The 6th edition of La Biennale de Montreall with Perry Bard, Mathieu Bouchard, Alexandre Castonguay, Vanda Daftari, Guy Edoin, Michele Gauthier, Alexandre Gibault, Yan Giroux, Sophie Goyette, Benjamin Gueguen, Cao Guimaraes, Daniel Jolliffe, Rick Leong, Melissa Mongiat : Amuse, Natalie Reis, Roadsworth (Peter Gibson), David Ryshpan, Stefan Sagmeister, Abeille Tard, Ahn Minh Truong, Richard Wentworth.

Good Conspiracy Project by Melissa Mongiat

Interpretation of Stefan Sagmeister's sentence "Obessions are helpful professionally and inane privately" by Christopher Moore, projection with changing letter forms.

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Seta calligraphy book

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:20:20 -0500

Seta (calligraphy book)

project: Book in use of "Foundational hand/roman minuscule"
collaboration: Fran Sendbuehler, no bar code press (bookbinding)
2009
Written in different sizes with 'Brause' nibs on Japanese Kagagampi paper. Use of walnut ink and red Windsor Newton ink. Double pages, folded and placed in a cardboard box, which is hold together by a red silk thread.
I used Italian and French text excerpts from Seta (Silk) by Alessandro Barrico. It is a 19th century novel about a French silkworm-merchant, who travels between France and Japan. At some point later in his life he finds out that life had passed him without him noticing some of its beauties.
Book description: calligraphy, Japanese Kagagampi paper, 64 pages/8 sheets, 5.75 x 11 in, unicum
This is a self-initiated project following a 10 week "Foundational hand/roman minuscule" workshop with Marco Chioini.

Project preparations:

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Exhibition Actions: What You Can Do With the City

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:40:22 -0500

Exhibition: Actions: What You Can Do With the City

I went to see CCA's exhibition "Actions: What You Can Do With the City" featuring interventions in cities. All projects can be viewed on the exhibition's Web site. It is an amazing show. I liked the exhibition's grid as well with its type that uses alternating elements. It looks like Peter Bil'ak's display type called 'history':

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Calligraphy workshop by Yves Leterme in Montreal

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:30:22 -0500

Gestual Writing with Yves Leterme

In March 2009 I assisted Yves Leterme's presentation organised by Montreal Calligraphy Guilt. He was in town to give a workshop on gestural writing, the style he is internationally known for.

Although I only attended one day of his four day scheduled workshop, it was a very inspiring and complete experience. It was my first introduction to gestual writing and this will be a great basic for further study.

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