San Francisco Type Art — Typophile archive

omar sandoval24 September 2014 · 22:08

SF Designs

Hello Everyone,
I have been a member of Typophile for a long time now and wanted to promoted my typographic artwork on this forum. Please let me know what you think of it and it's concept.

I design the visible relationship between typeface, landscape and culture (architecture, philosophy, art movements, politics).

Typography is to visual language as maps are to topography.

I am a pioneer in the land of topographic typography ( Check my work out https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omarsandoval/topographic-typography... ). I seek to shed light on typeface design, to generate insight, and to delight by setting my favorite cities in a face whose historical echoes and associations that harmonize with the forms they belong to. I paint by numbers, letter forms, and a palette of analphabetic symbols that have the same character, spirit and personality of each location.

Topography: originated in ancient Greece as the description of a place (topos, "place" and graphia,"writing"). This meaning is less common in America where it is synonymous with relief and elevation contour drawings. (Wikipedia)

Typography: also originated in Greece (typos, "form" and graphia, "writing").

Historical Interlude.

Typographic history mirrors topography such that it is the study of the relationships of human culture: politics, philosophy (structuralism, post-structuralism), architecture, and art movements (Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romanticism, Realism, Geometric Modernism, Lyrical Modernism and Post Modernism).

I believe Typography is architecture on a page; typefaces are buildings, leading floors, columns walls, tracking rooms, kerning furniture, letter forms bricks and the grid mortar.

Sam Lowry25 September 2014 · 15:06

First off, your link should be https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omarsandoval/topographic-typography...

Second, I'm not sure this is the best place to promote your kickstarter page, but I'm new here.

About the concept itself... For me, I like your idea of matching typography with topography, but I'm not convinced that the final prints as shown on the page, are the best way to represent this idea. The main problem is the use of typography as the medium for the art. I like the concept of type as medium, but it feels forced when one particular font is used which could never represent everything in a city. You are trying to give equal weight to a typeface and a city- the city will win every time. I think the concept works better if there's a focus on particular person/building/etc. (see https://www.behance.net/gallery/vader/698371 ). In that case, the typeface isn't relevant but the type tells a story.

Right now they feel a bit "ASCII art"-like to me and I sense you have the ability to go way further. I'd like to see you persist with the concept. Best of luck and never stop designing.