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December 1998. By Collin Berry.
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From
New York. "Two Part Harmony"
Graphic
designers are notably passionate about type and music. Today, the disciplines
are merging as increasing numbers of
foundries and independent designers issue new releases that please the
eye and the ear alike.
There's a moment early in Incident at Cima, the 1995 CD by a band called
Scenic, when Bruce Lichers electric guitar, underscored with e-bow and
quiet taps on a ride cymbal, soars into the key of A minor, echoing across
the sonic landscape. The sound evokes the minimal geography and spiritual
vibe of the band's hometown of Sedona, Arizona. For its fans, the moment
(and there are many on the disk) comprises one crucial element of the
Scenic experience, but there is another: the tactile, old-fashioned artistry
of the CD folio's typefaces, dingbats, and matte packaging. These design
elements, combined with the grainy images of cacti and clouds and Scenic's
instrumental, spaghetti-Western sound, work in sync to transport the listener
to a fully-realized artistic realm. Assiduous and consistent, Incident
at Cima is a brilliant media hybrid: printed on letterpress at Licher's
own Independent Project Press, Scenic's CD is music you can feel, literally,
in your heart and hands.
The territory where type and music overlap is rich with artistic possibility
and historical precedent. Hatch Show Print, the venerable Nashville letterpress,
has been in business for 120 years, cranking out posters for country artists
and the Grand Ole Opry since the genre's earliest days. Ed Benguiat, before
he became one of America's most prolific and well-known typeface designers,
played drums with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman's jazz bands in the post-WWII
era. More recently, type houses like T-26 and Emigre, independent designers
like Elliott Earls, and printing companies like IPP have begun combining
music and type in new ways: signing their own bands, launching their own
record labels, printing CD covers, or even, in the case of Wilmington,
Delaware's House Industriesk, leveraging their own letterforms using the
well-oiled machinery of the music business.
A broad domain where independent artists have carved their niche, music
and type belong together: It's rare to find a studio without piped-in
sounds, music to soothe the scribes immersed in detail-oriented work.
"No one listens to music more than type designers," says Jim
Marcus, a designer, musician, and partner at T-26, the edgy Chicago foundry
whose Thickface record label is a year old. "Design is something
done with all of your senses. While you're working, your ears are how
you know what's happening around you. I've never known a single designer
who liked to work in silence." T-26's founder, Carlos Segura, was
a drummer in Miami in the 1980's. "I never even wanted to be a designer,"
he says. "I've always been music." Segura originally designed
handbills for his band, and later used a stack of fliers as resume material
to land his first design job. Twelve years later, the foundry's letterforms--Glue,
Suspension, and Superior--still occasionally reflect the band-flier esthetic,
but Thickface's music roster is all over the map. While artists like Deep,
Woolworthy, Everplastic, and DJ Razorface aren't exactly household names,
their tribal/trip-hop/ambient genre-jumping, paired with T-26's reputation
for innovative letter design, bespeaks a consistent taste--and reasonable
hope for the label's success.
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