Typo Talks has been running for about 16 years in Berlin and this year was the first of hopefully many set in London. There were a broad range of topics covered over the three days from animation, art, signage, digital, print and of course typography. They were all loosely based on the theme of ‘Places’ but some more loosely than others. I can honestly say, there wasn’t a talk I didn’t enjoy and I even got to try a bit of calligraphy although I think I need a bit practice. I do plan to do a few detailed posts around some of areas covered, but for now here is just a few of my favourites from Typo.

Nat Hunter from Airside, ran through of a few of their latest projects but with particular focus on storytelling. I really liked the work they did for the Virgin Airlines inflight entertainment system, showing that a better design solution aids in a better experience, which then makes people happier, and then leads to other outcomes (such as drinking less from the free bar on Virgin flights, which then saves money).

“Pain is temporary. Suck is forever”. This is what Michael B Johnson from Pixar told us on Friday morning. I have always loved the way Pixar approaches a project and the attention to detail they put in. He gave an overview of a few stages of the Pixar process such as storyboarding and animation lighting, and finished on talking about the software they produce within Pixar just to ease the process and removing tension. After all, Pixar produce a playful product.

The talk that really stood out for me was from Karin von Ompteda. She did a very interesting experiment on typography, first conducting a survey to find the top 100 most popular typefaces and then analysed the individual letters with each other to find the areas of similar density. I won’t go into detail but I thought the images of each typeface placed onto of each other were really cool. I’d have then as a print on my wall.

An entertaining talk from Chip Kidd was a great way to end the conference. Briefly going over some book covers he had worked on over the years, he then told us about his obsession with Batman and the opportunity he had been given to write a Batman comic. All good stuff.

Like I said, I plan to do a few more posts on what I learnt at Typo so stay tuned. For now I’ll leave you with a few statements from Joachim Sauter on how to stay creative that I liked:
Reinvent yourself (every 7 years or so). Have the courage to fail. Share your experiences. Inspire rather than motivate. Teach.

After recently putting the call out for some fresh new talent to come and join the We Love team as an intern, we have found our “Robin”.

Reiss has been with us for the past week and has been working on a very cool project for one of our big clients, and is yet to even make one cup of tea. What kind of internship is that!?

We are all looking forward to having Reiss work alongside us for the next 3 months to share our knowledge and experience to help him learn the ins and outs of the industry, as well as have him inject some of his own style into the studio.

I’m sure we will all be pressuring Reiss into becoming an active blogger for us, so to get the ball rolling this is what Reiss has to say for himself -

“My name is Reiss Butler from East London. I studied Graphic design at Barking college from 2005 to 2007 finishing with a National diploma and a Higher National diploma both at distinction levels. I became a fan of print design as the majority of my projects were based around Book design, typography, Poster design and logo design. I then swiftly moved on to the University for the Creative Arts at Maidstone. Studying Graphic Design. I then moved from that course and onto the BA Hons Graphic Media course where my interests turned from print to digital. I graduated in June 2010 with a 2:1 upper division Honours Degree in Graphic Media. I have recently finished being a part-time teacher in Graphic Design and am now currently enjoying my time at We Love.”

Nathan is Kent born and bred, and we are glad he has decided to keep his talent local by joining the We Love family.

Keep an eye out for Nathan’s blog posts in the future!

Oh, and because he took too long to get a photo to me, I managed to find his Facebook and chose the worst photo I could find…