Pixillion

Pixillion went down to the Arnolfini to check out the West of England Design Forum's 'An Evening of Typography'. Basically a social meet up with talks by renowned type designers David Quay and Jeremy Tankard.

The West of England Design Forum (WEDF) was formed in 2006 by a small bunch of design industry people who wanted to create a place for designers to come together and share ideas. This event being typical for the kind things they put on throughout the year.

Pixillion Creative Director Remco is an active member of the group of volunteers from the industry that keep WEDF going. As an organisation that is about promoting the power of design as a creative catalyst to help other businesses, it's something Pixillion is hugely passionate about supporting.

For a souvenir of the Typography evening, a selection of agencies and individuals were invited to submit a typographically inspired postcard design. We were one of those invited and our contribution was the affectionate poke at Bristol's Banksy mania on the yellow card – we hope you liked it!

Emma Collins of WEDF opened the evening which was also being streamed live to Bath Spa University. Massively entertaining was the slightly 'Live Aid' moment of Emma phoning in to Bath Spa and after getting through to voicemail a few times, we managed to share mutual roars of applause down the mic.

Bob Mytton of agency Mytton Williams was on hand to introduce the evening's speakers and it's always nice to hear creatives talk passionately about other creatives. It's something we love about the design industry: there's just so much respect between fellow professionals!

Jeremy Tankard was up first. He was talking about his proper labour of love, the truly epic Trilogy type family; a contrasting super-family made up of a Sans, Egyptian and a Script, something that was an incredible five years in the making!

It was interesting to see how so much of the underlying creative process was the same to what we do, but there were also some new ideas and techniques to take away as Digital Designers and experiment with. It was also interesting to see the make up of a typographer as a person. The level of focus, intent, and obsession even, was incredible. Everyone we spoke to afterwards found Jeremy in particular a real eye opener in terms of just how 'into' your craft you can really get!

Next up was David Quay, a typographer based in Holland who has quite literally devoted his life to typography. Even at the tender age of 10 he was fascinated with the typography in old western 'Wanted' posters and would spend countless hours drawing his own. Not that he even knew what typography was at the time.

David was commissioned to create the new typeface for the City of Bath. David's process on this typeface couldn't have been starker from Jeremy's, as a commercial commission with a six-month turnaround time. He took us through the research he'd done on Bath itself but also on other cities. There was a reasonably scathing look at Southampton's recent typographical refresh, as well as a quite complimentary look at Bristol. It was interesting to be shown that while Bristol 'works', the same approach would be totally at odds with Bath.

There was also the battle of identity vs legibility and usability. For example the people of Bath hate the new bus station, something that David considers to be a splendid piece of architecture. Yet they love the newshopping centre with its bolted on faux-Georgian façade!

David ended up producing a family with both a Sans and a Serif as it was decided a richer hierarchy was needed. The Sans having something of a nod towards the 'highway' classics, but somewhat softened to suit Bath's character. The Serif then giving a stronger nod to the Bath's typical Georgian roots.

Back at the Arnolfini bar, conversation was flowing and it was clear that these two great masters of type certainly left us all with plenty to think and talk about. We have to say it was also really refreshing to see such a respected typographer use an emoticon :)

It was a really great evening put on by WEDF and we can't wait to see what they put on next!