serial consign

Earlier this month, I was semi-inspired by a Dataisnature post on some recent work by Lia. In that post, Paul Prudence contextualized Lia's Isaidif project in relation to some of other great "drawing machines". To add to that list of projects:

First up is The Plotting Machine, a modified wide format printer that can be outfitted with a variety of "print-heads" to produce a variety of imperfect output. The project was developed by You Don't Matter, a design collective comprised of Martin Borst, Sebastian Cremers and Daniel Schludi. The device can be equipped with blades, a variety of styluses, and the trio of designers have even conducted some long exposure photographic experiments with the contraption. The statement for the project outlines some of the wonderful idiosyncrasies of the content output on this machine:

Most interesting and inspiring are all the little mistakes this machine produces, because of too much data, too much water, color, pressure etc. There are always gradients because the color gets less and less as the machine draws on. This expansion space describes the machine's actual identity. No Image looks like the other.

Take a look at the gorgeous output that this machine has generated - I'm particularly taken by the watercolor grid drawings.

Secondly, Rob Meek recently produced the above demo video for his Meek FM "typographic synthesizer" [see previous post]. While this device isn't a drawing machine in the conventional sense, the demo clearly illustrates the manner in which this system reads individual letterforms as reconfigurable vectors. The character of these "lines" can be modified and that shapes and modulates the sound travelling along these paths. This project is quite noteworthy in that it creates an interface through the intersection of two distinct disciplines.

[jordan hale / sabasa / 2007]

Last February my partner and I took a trip to Los Angeles. The voyage was by no means a vacation, but I did manage to do my fair share of show-and-tell as she had never been to the city before. Jordan is a graphic designer and typesetter and once she got a look at the signage of downtown L.A. we ended up photo-wandering extensively. For those that haven't had the good fortune of seeing downtown Los Angeles, it is a treasure trove of texture, grit and history. Much like Detroit, large portions of the downtown core were never redeveloped; original art deco architecture abounds. The city centre is now in an exciting (and contested) state of flux as the demographics and economy of the area is changing rapidly as downtown is suddenly nurturing a population of local residents again.

Jordan recently started contributing to Villatype, a blog dedicated to street type (or the typography of the public domain). Her first post is a selection of highlights from our trip last Winter. It is a great survey of idiosyncratic signage that covers everything from the old theatre district through Caltrans.