Category: Appendix

Mark Pavey
Now because last time we chatted on, and then I just stopped, and then I dived into and I realize I’d only record actually recorded like half half of what we’re saying. Yeah, like, what would be really helpful from you, I guess is a, like a kind of an expert opinion, or at least a kind of industrial opinion or kind of educators view of it. Because you know, one of the benefits of the fiscal masters is that you’re with all these, like, different people do different things, and you kind of riffing off, or everyone’s kind of different subjects. But at this point, especially because you’re doing something like yo niche within a niche, graphic design, and then typography, within that, at a certain point, that kind of feedback isn’t as sort of helpful as it can be. So for starters, kind of asked, as I’m presenting the kind of main question, I want to know, does it make sense? Doesn’t seem doesn’t seem valid? Does this see ready reason for me to be do? Actually, what I’m doing? is they’re the questions that I’ve continuously asked myself, whilst being stuck in this room.

Chris Wilson
Is there any context that you might that might help me? That isn’t going to be in the presentation? Kind of, I think you might.

Mark Pavey
You okay, yeah. So. So, this, I guess what I’ll be presenting is the, I guess it’s like an overview of the project up to this point. And I guess, if you imagine, like, up to this point, I’ve been going up a hill, this is me at the top of the hill. And then the rest of it is going to be like racing down the hill, kind of actually answering all the questions I’ve set making all the things I’ve said, I’m going to make actioning all those kind of like points that I’ve said, I’m going to kind of action so. So yeah, with that in mind, but they’ve been sort of at the top of the slope. Yeah, there’s anything that you suddenly think, oh, you should take a left rather than right there. But that’s the kind of helpful things. So how can we use this is insane. So I’m trying to think where I think last time we just kind of chatted, we were mainly just sort of chatting about the sort of making process and sort of craft and like the kind of 3d printing kind of element of it. And my proposal that I’d written for it very much was about the the making of a typeface, both looking at traditional and contemporary production methods, and also learning about how to actually design a typeface. So like the software involved in how to design the typeface, how to actually kind of do the things. And I was very, like geared up for this idea that I was gonna make a typeface like that was gonna be what the project was going to be, I was going to design a typeface, it’s going to make it and I’d given myself enough wiggle room within that proposal. So as to say, it could be physical, it could be created digitally, as as not having written my proposal in December, and not really know what 2021 was going to look like in terms of kind of access. A lot of my proposal stuff had looked at casting methods, actually. So I think I might have showed you or spoken about that with you in our kind of last chat. But what I kind of settled on, is actually that my project revolves around the construction and recognition of letterforms. And the creation of a set of tools to allow amateur typographers to explore the process of typeface creation. So I’ve wrapped that up in the name, odd foundry. So that’s the kind of like, project title. So initially, that had been more of a kind of commercial entity, you know, that was the sort of name that I was going to be producing these things under, that’s gonna be the name that I was going to be selling things under. But as my projects progressed, I feel like I’m leaning more towards almost almost like an educational output. Yeah. So there was a kind of watershed moment for me when I watched a talk by about the font hyper legible, where they were talking about how is this like team of three designers, over the course of like three years had designed this typeface. And at that point, I was like, wow, I’m not going to be able to do this in four months. And also it’s all of the you know, the design of the letter forms are what excites me less about working out kerning pairs and like all those kind of more, like very intense kind of components. of the design. So it was images like this from like thinking would type that, where I was beginning to kind of research about that components of platforms that I realized, What I enjoy most is, is like it was exploring letterforms rather than type of faces, and kind of almost looking at how I can create this suite of tools, which can take you from those kind of initial sketches of a form to something more finalized and something, you know, like a, like an actual font file, like a current typeface, because to me, there felt like there was quite a large rift between the two of like, Okay, well, how do I get from there, to there. So, over the period of the last, probably like four months, I’ve been experimenting with various different ways of making forms. So these are some really early examples. So these are like 3d printed resin blocks. And these were based on the kind of elementary forms, you know, like bar house, Circle Square, triangle,

mainly as a result of, of just wanting to get something created a wanting a kind of proof of concept of that these forms would work as 3d printed blocks. So by setting it as being the square Circle Triangle, there wasn’t as much digital design work to be done, it was more about the kind of creation of the block and then getting in a space and actually exploring how this could work. And the interesting thing about this was that sort of realization that, if they are 3d printed, I’m no longer I’m no longer stuck with the idea that everything has to be square or rectangular. So this is me kind of beginning to explore the kind of use of different shaped blocks that can kind of interlock in these different ways, in order to create forms that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to create if you just had a drawer full of lead, lead type or lead ornaments, something like that. So it’s kind of experiments progressed on I realized that those kind of elementary forms were kind of too restrictive, or looking at all the work I created there, or I was really doing was making kind of outlines of letter forms, in those shapes, rather than actually using the shapes to prompt the design of letter forms. So that puts me on to kind of this design where it was taking the triangle, putting it through, using an isometric grid and putting it through all these different variations of component parts on the left. And then looking at how these can kind of be combined into these different letter forms on the right hand side. And there’s some that work, there’s some that don’t work. I think, within this, I realized that the most interesting forms to be making the shapes out of are the kind of outliers that these kind of like weirder order shaped forms, because, again, they push your brain to be actually thinking in a slightly different way, rather than falling back on the kind of okay, well, I’m just going to make a, a shape out of these individual triangles that I’ve got. Yeah, yeah. So that’s kind of informed this next stage of designs where I’ve been working on basically a kind of tool set of these individual corner components that have hints of letters within them. So that hints and you’re all the shapes are kind of inspired by looking at those forms from earlier on the poles of letters, the strokes, the arms, all like that. Putting these through various different combinations, combining them together, into kind of different in different order to make these shapes and just kind of, again, use it as a springboard to explore these kind of fundamental shapes. At the moment, I’m still working through different variations of these, I think I’m approaching a point now where I am probably going to be making probably three different I guess, font is the best word for them. But that by font that’s more talking about, you know, the old school, you know, it’s like a type case, font of like, all these different components that kind of can be combined together in different ways. But making sure you’re able to make sure that they are although each of the fonts is distinct, that they have have common measurements amongst them so that they can be combined in these different ways. Kind of to allow you to take something for one something rather than create this kind of new form at the end. So previously, in one of my other units, I’d made a website for the foundry project that was only ever kept in the kind of beta stage like, this is what it kind of looked like. And this included these digital tools. So this was an area that you could draw on this canvas here, you can move the blocks that are on the screen around with these sliders. And it was just about trying to make that kind of exploratory feeling that we have when we work with letterpress, trying to make it accessible to kind of as many people as possible. So as the project is kind of reaching its culmination point, I’m now beginning to like code this new site much more extensively.

The The main thing that we’re kind of focusing on is making it for the kind of core pillars are that it should be accessible. And it should be exploratory. And that’s why I use this term playground quite a lot with trying to make sure we it’s really evident that it is a space for exploration to space, through learning through doing rather than a space necessarily, where I’m just going to copy and paste a load of information from my research journal into it and kind of expect you to read it. So alongside that, so there’ll be those kind of digital tools like working on that interface that I showed you earlier on, by integrating some of those forms that I showed you previously. So they would be able to be moved around and kind of almost like painted with like, almost like they’re kind of brushes or stamps on that Canvas. But more so still bearing in mind that I love the physical kind of component on this. So the idea is based on whatever is the more suitable medium to explore those kinds of shapes, looking at also making stencils stamps, stencils stamps, or continuing the kind of 3d printed element of it. But making sure as I said, the output is determined by what works best with the designs of the forms, rather than just saying this form will be available as a stamp as a as a 3d printed block. And as a stencil. That’s where I’m at, as I said, sort of on the downhill. Now. I’ve got got my Kickstarter component forms, got the things that I’m aiming to make. And now it’s about kind of putting it all into practice. So thank you.

Chris Wilson
Yeah, you’re welcome. I don’t know where to begin. I think well, I guess, if you’re my initial impressions, I think it’s looking really interesting. Full of potential, and there’s quite a bit crossover that have got that you’ve got kind of a number of aspects there that are kind of, you’ve got lights going in my head for future things. So yeah. Hope I can give you some useful comments. Where do you want me to start? I think

Mark Pavey
of what do you want me to sort of we’ll back to the start of the presentation almost or

Chris Wilson
do that? And I guess, are there any specific questions you have, that I might be able to give some thoughts on four areas that you are maybe unsure of? Or kind of, because I guess you have some similar intentions? Beyond? Let’s see what Chris thinks. Yeah, I’m not lost for words in the slightest. I just want to make sure we give, we can have a discussion in kind of the most effective way.

Mark Pavey
Yeah, I guess my, my desire to like get you involved was you know, for a start of it, like really respected all the work you’ve been doing on your kind of PhD and the kind of like the, you’re at the you got a valuable perspective on the kind of craft contemporary letterpress craft contemporary print craft over the past, like, three or four years. But I think more than that, it’s also your role as an educator, you know, as somebody like working with amateurs, you know, passionate amateurs, that’s how I would kind of describe myself as with regards to typography. In the same way as I don’t describe myself as a printer, I describe myself as a print maker, because I feel like that gives me enough wiggle room to be wrong about things because I did so I did a poor With my first year students about, like, type design, and that was, it was helpful because I was able to use some of them I kind of research for my proposal, but I think what I found was there was that gap. Yeah. where it’s like, Okay. There’s a grid. Yeah. Here’s the grid paper ad like, what do you just draw some letterforms on it? Yeah. So it was trying to take away take away that fear, almost to the kind of fear of fear of a blank screen, fear of a blank piece of paper, by immediately introducing people to these sort of sort of funds like the wizard, these ones sort of fundament? These these sort of forms. I think these ones still need some more work, because I think the ones that I’m most excited by, are the ones that have these more kind of quirks, I guess, because I think it’s, it’s the quirks in a typeface that make a typeface really interesting, exciting. I think the example I gave someone else’s, you know, like, in Futura, you know, like the really sharp points where it terminates on the capital M, which, in some ways is disgusting. But in other ways it like it makes future kind of what it is it gives, it’s kind of gives it sort of like a look and feel. So yeah, absolutely. I’ve completely lost my train of thought thinking about a future there. But yeah, I guess going back to that initial point of like, asking for your perspective, as an educator, when you’re teaching about typography, when you are teaching students about how to kind of perceive letterforms, and things I Are there any gaps that you find that they have? Are there any, I guess, are there any holes in knowledge that you feel like what I’m creating could help fill is essentially?

Chris Wilson
I think, undoubtedly, yes. And I think that’s helped me. Your thoughts, they’re really helped me to kind of know where I want to structure my feedback. I think it the answer? Yes. I think there’s loads of room for this to be hugely useful. It’s, it’s a huge area. So I think in both in terms of your kind of this is a Master’s project. And also as a an actual kind of design project in its own right. Where I think, what could enhance this, what I’m interested in knowing through this present, that isn’t in this presentation, and it might just be more how I think about things is where and what are the driving deliverables for this project? So what is it because that because I can see loads of potential and I can see what what you’re heading towards. But we’re kind of times when you talked about how you’re refining and working on these components here. It’s not clear to me at the moment, what your metric is for success and what you’re heading towards. So I’m not, I’m assuming that that does exist, I’m not knocking you be really interested in is kind of magic to me, I would be approaching this from identifying a need for some form of class, or workshop based tool that is going to instill a foundational understanding of typography in students at particular level, and then perhaps some form of needs analysis, to look and try to identify, okay, we’re going to get across kerning, looking at visual language across a set of characters. And it could be that there are specific tools for that specific shapes. Or perhaps it’s developing a arriving at a set of individual character forms or component shapes that can then be applied through a number of kind of mini workshops. So I be and I think constraints for me is a really interesting idea for this and both in terms of the design process that you’re undertaking, but also in terms of actually kind of the kind of a pedagogue foundation for the task that you’re trying to get across to students. So you’re actually imposing on them a physical constraint, which is the both the virtue and The challenge that they’ve got to come up against in bioprinting. And in a way this, I’m thinking about this, because this is stuff I’ve been writing about recently. That’s sort of a metaphor for designing in the totality. So you’re giving them component things that they can only do certain things in certain ways. And then their job is to create something that that ticks the boxes, and is original within that constraint within those limitations. So yeah, I don’t want to I don’t want to kind of just blurt out too many things that that led me to think about, particularly when you were showing me some of the 3d printed blocks, where obviously, from my through my through eyes, I’m seeing everything as hybrid printing and post digital printing. And I think you’re doing something really interesting. And that because you’re not only trying to innovate, a set of forms for a specific kind of workshopping task with zone goals in mind, perhaps, but you’re using kind of hybrid approach to create them. And I think there could be some Well, to me, what really stuck out when you talked about kind of the kind of unique characteristics and the types of form that you can create with those digital processes. I, I begin to kind of lean into that. So I think the fact that those are unique things may add, make more of that. And so that this becomes, well, how can you use that to make this more iconic? But in this at the same time? What came what that unique capability? How can it be used to achieve your goals in the classroom more effectively? So the fact that you can have kind of particular curves? And you can have shapes that aren’t the traditional kind of modular set of dimensions? How can that be used to the advantage of achieving this kind of typographic literacy?

Mark Pavey
Yeah, that’s really interesting that I think it kind of is sort of solidify something in my mind where, at a certain point, I’ve realized, I’ve got to finish something for the hand in Yeah, I’ve got to finish something for the masters. Like, if this was just a personal project, or, you know, it would be just about exploring the 3d printed element of it would just be completely kind of explore to around that. But I guess, feeling like I had to, and then actually enjoying that I had then done that kind of further research, kind of, like, adding on more of that educational kind of component, more of that kind of like, the way that we learn, you know, why do we print? Why do we think printing is actually helpful as a kind of, like, design tool? It was I will, it was research done begrudgingly. only have one side of my brain fighting the other side of part of the brain, but it has been, yeah, like helpful, I think something that you said there about almost being a bit more specific with the aims of each tool that I’m creating could be helpful there. Because at the moment, I guess I’m being a little bit more casual with that, let’s say where it’s like, okay, that’s, I’ve got these three different sort of sets of mica, three font. Here’s a curvy one. Here’s Luke one, his sharp one, combine them together as can make these kind of interesting forms. But I guess you’re saying like, yeah, design one, which is specifically made to encourage a student to look at the relationship between stroke widths or something like that almost, right. So it’s almost like, here’s a thick, here’s a thin, you can see that they are, you know, once, twice the width or twice as thick as the other and that when they combined together, they make a letter form like budoni, or something like that, or? Yeah, I think that that’s an interesting prompt for me, especially actually, at this point where I’m like, I need to be making these need to be kind of finished them to always if I specify for giving myself a set of parameters of my aims for what each of them should be kind of doing. I think that before, I think

Chris Wilson
I think your example is a good one. The only thing about it, I would, I would be just want to clarify is that I’m not I think you you’ve got lots of room for them to be I don’t have to be incredibly specific. It could be like, maybe it’s kind of just like three, three and three sentences, three bullet points, what are the aims of this project? And I think not knowing the particulars of the module you’re doing within the masters. But with this, my assumption is with this being within education. This is inquiry. So I think something particularly hard for people, like ourselves coming from kind of practice background, we want to start making things immediately, because we’re used to making stuff and delivering for the client and the amps and the app, we envision, envisage it just automatically, that the end will be a final working thing that can go on the shelf. Whereas I can only imagine that you’ve, you’re encouraged here to actually have inquiry into the asking questions. And your answer might be more questions. And so I think that might be helpful in almost ring fencing, which I think is what you were alluding to before, like, you could perhaps you could be, you could be exploring the uses of most modular components like this for many lifetimes. And I could, but it might be worth so kind of, once you define what your aims are here, you could then do the same task with kind of like, Okay, so what are the kind of driving deliverables? What what are the attributes of what will? What would be a sufficient answer? Or kind of resolution for the project? The answer is, I guess both your personal aims, but I guess more value in some ways made shooting the Masters is, is a triumph as well.

Mark Pavey
I mean, I will be, I’ll be honest, and say yeah, like, personally, I feel like I need to get a good grade. So like, there’s an element of that where it’s like, if I’ve gone through all this over the last two years, then like, Yeah, come hell or high water? Like I’m gonna do as much as I can to?

Chris Wilson
Yeah, I don’t see why. Yeah. I don’t think it would, I don’t see you having to kind of stretch yourself to find a synergy between the two.

Mark Pavey
I think it was, like ask I said about that almost like we grow. begrudging be gradually doing more research, trying to give it kind of more, I think that has actually been really helpful, I think, yeah, like what you said about being about just wanting to make things and just dive in in that was like, there’s a time and a place for that. And I’ve made sure I have sort of, like, got that out of my system. Yeah, one of the things he commented about is like, Yeah, what is your sort of gauge of success? You know, what? And what that was, one of the things I kind of identified kind of early on is like, yeah, how can I? What sort of frames of analysis can I kind of apply to these two? To be able to kind of analyze whether these forms are successful or not? And well, kind of set it down was a lot guessed all theory. So you know, like, the law of continuation, the law of simplicity. And one of my things in the background, mine has been the idea of Yeah, maybe these fonts should kind of explore one of those principles. Yeah, what or, because actually, I will say, you know, as a, as a mid 30s, graphic designer, and like, teacher for the last like three or four years. Now, I didn’t know what gets taught what properly. It’s like, well, six months ago, when I like really went hard on it, like I understood this sort of basic nature to say, Oh, yeah, you know, guest out is the kind of, it’s everything about something. It’s, it’s the, it’s like, what makes a book a book, but actually like getting down to kind of real guest art theory, which is Yeah, like that your brain seat will perceive a like that, if I hold my hands up like that, that our brain sees a triangle rather than my hands like not even like kind of connecting and all those kind of parts. I suddenly thought, Well, yeah, all my tutors have really done a bad way. A bad job of explaining, Guess how it is and, and I’ve just been playing into that, like with my own teaching. So yeah, maybe gas guest dog. Maybe that’s like that’s, to me. It’s sort of quantifiable. I could use that as the basis for wild or to have them perhaps. And yeah, as he said, I think I certainly, I certainly want to keep it growing and keep kind of progressing with them. There is just no way to stop it. It’s know where to stop within the time frame.

Chris Wilson
I think that’s an add on artists, I’m certainly something I’m cognizant of at the minute because I’ve got this deadline, and it is very, makes you much more aware and accountable to start at the end, and work back what to do, how do things fit in. And I would say, kind of look, try to get your kept almost get out some formal specification based off of what you need to do based on your module, or based on the time you’ve got based on what you’d like to achieve. And I don’t see why something like a kind of a set of these designed components that can be used to in a workshop setting to instill students with a particular set of kind of understandings of of kind of cashed out. And maybe it’s kind of about ground and foreground, with with it in the context of creating letterforms. I think I mean, that’s not like as an example, on the top of my head mark. But like, I think you could kind of make it if you can make the goal that you want your tool to achieve very specific, that perhaps could be a really advantageous anchor for the all the activity that you put in and that you’re driving towards. Because I think half of the problem here is that I think I certainly can, and I can imagine you can do probably different things. But there’s so much opportunity here. Yeah,

Mark Pavey
that’s that’s what I’m like, panicking about where’s that feeling of like, feeling like I haven’t done enough, but also done loads. Because it feels like I’m constantly at the moment I discover something new. I’m like moving back that goalpost. And and it was that realization of like, yeah, okay, I just need to like, I need to put that flag, both of you. Mixing metaphors need to put the goalpost here and stop moving it need to get something finished something can’t finalize, and then kind of continue to develop it kind of past that somebody was already like, oh, did you Oh, this is a really interesting PhD. And as I’ll go leave that for a little bit.

Chris Wilson
I know I’m sure it would. And I think that I think the fact that you’ve got this material, and there’s all this potential that people can recognize, from what I understand, you’re about to have lots of guinea pigs at your disposal, once you conscious take up the new job. So I think there’s loads of room to for this to almost be the starting point, like the completed masters to be a starting point for a continued piece of multiple projects, perhaps I’d be keen, I don’t have to like, kind of tell you things that may be too obvious. But I’m stressed that perhaps if you if you’re going to be defining what your outcome is going to be and what you’re hoping to do, so we’re gonna achieve short soon, I would definitely lean on your tutor to get some confirmation there. And kind of the inside line, like, kind of between like, as, as to busy people. I want to get I want to get the best result possible. I’ve got all this stuff, you want to have the most straightforward marking process when you see my work. How could how what would like if I do X, Y, Zed? How do you think that we’ll manage our manager there? And what should I limit or expand certain areas? I’m guessing you should have ample opportunity to have that conversation.

Mark Pavey
No, that’s interesting. I mean, it’s been weird doing the Masters because I’ve also taught on this masters are marked on this masters a couple of times, but not on this module. So it was almost like one of the previous modules I was able to be like, Well, I know I know what everybody else got wrong with it. So I’m gonna I’m gonna be very, that’s really hard.

Chris Wilson
I can. Yeah, I doubt you’ll meet many people who can empathize with that because I can feel very similar to that where I’m in, in a meeting with my supervisor, visor as a colleague, and then like that afternoon, I’m meeting her as a student. And it’s very, very strange.

Mark Pavey
I found that the more frustrating thing or worse for me is realizing like oh no, I’m becoming that person in the class that hasn’t got anything cooked yet that I’ve just got all these ideas but I haven’t got anything actually to show for it. And I’m just the person that’s been thinking all week rather than actually doing things things. So yeah, actually, yeah, that that feeling of the last five weeks has been the fire behind me just to be making just be creating just to be presenting soft color. finalizing things but yeah, I mean, I think that’s been really helpful man like, I’m glad I mean, at the at the most basic, I’m glad you understand it. Because as I said, you know, it’s difficult when you’re just in your own head. Oh my god, the conversation with yourself over and over again about

Chris Wilson
what I’m assuming that I understand that and I’m glad that you think I understand that I think I would be I’d be more much more confident in saying I understand it if it was set out. And this might just be personal to me. But if if the presentation was, here’s what I set out to achieve. Here’s why is the goals? Yeah, here’s, here’s what I’ve done. Almost like the good old kind of just does design thinking kind of Double Diamond style. Research Development? idea. Yeah,

Mark Pavey
I think I think almost like one of the problems that I’ve had is that, and actually, that was, that was my like, big kind of written in marker pen at the top of my like notepad of like, what am I doing? Like? Yeah, I want to make a typeface but a typeface about what a typeface that looks like, what a typeface that does, what all that is meant, for what and a lot of that beginning of part of this project has actually been trying to kind of answer that. And that’s why sort of more and more I’ve done it, the more I realize are actually, it’s about education. It’s about sort of learning through play and learning about how these very complex forms are made up a very simple form. And like, these are how you is how anyone can kind of make these elegant forms out of these kind of component parts. But yeah, I think that’s a good point, I think I need to do, I think I need to really like put my finger on what I want to create, so that I can work back from that,

Chris Wilson
I think that would be wasted. A couple of points just to clarify that I’m not, I’m not meaning that as a kind of a negative criticism, I’m conscious this, this is midpipe presentation, that what you’ve described there sounds to me like the process of doing a course, it’s certainly similar to what I’ve done with the PhD. I’ve probably said this to you before, but I had a friend and colleague who has his doctorate. So to me, like, the trouble is that the only way you know how to do a PhD is to finish doing one. And it’s it’s that thing, but in a way, that is what it’s for. And that I think most of the time, when you do see one of these many different types of kind of flow charts for the design process. It’s a post rationalization of what’s happened. But that could be a really good thing to do in the coming months toward the close of your project. Because in my opinion, it’s going to make your it’s going to give the person assessing it a much nicer experience and probably be allowed to award award lots of marks.

Mark Pavey
Yeah, the my worry has been that I’ve just been not making enough statements about what it is I’m doing in my journal. So I based on a few other of these kind of conversations, like yeah, that’s something that I’ve done is every now then now, I’ve gone back in my journal, and I’ve actually put like, what my aims at that, why I was doing that, why I’m doing this next thing. Yeah. Like you said, make it easier to mark make it kind of easier to understand.

Chris Wilson
Evidence, the learning you’ve got there. And as you and I both well know, kind of the things that don’t work, like the unforced errors, or the blind spots that come to light

Mark Pavey
shouldn’t be well rewarded, because that’s why we’re doing it. Like I’ll show you what are the the the subject of errors there actually, I’ll show you one thing before I let you get off and get back to your stuff. But this the most fun part of the project has actually been finally getting enough time to make mistakes. So these were these were residents, like they’re included in my project as a sort of oddity but they they haven’t been something that I’ve explored in sort of the more you know letterform kind of creation side of it, but this was resin, resin print that ran out of resin half like right towards the end of the printing. So these should have been blocks that were just completely flat. But because of the way you know that it builds up layer by layer, some of it had resin still there, some of the areas didn’t so these are Yeah, these light forms that look like this. They almost look like kind of geographical contours on Wow Yeah. Like Is it? typography? Yeah, and I’ll show them to Catherine up but the print technician at Solon, she, as she was saying how they look like chaos blocks that I’ve never heard of before. But then she showed me there, there’s something that some brides did a video about like a while ago where basically these chaos blocks were used as almost like fingerprinting stuff. So they got, they would get a mold, and they would drip lead into it, which then solidify it and you know, set at like different rates, but even still be this block that can be moved around, but the actual printable surfaces or their read like this, so it was used for Yeah, like, almost be like a kind of printing signature on something. So yeah, everybody’s got caslon. But only I’ve got this chaos block. So if you’ve got a piece of paper with this chaos block on, you know, it’s been printed by

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Me: What will be helpful for me to get out of it is up until this point, a lot of my presentations about the project have been to the rest of my group, I’ve had discussions about the project with some other printers and some other typographers. But that was kind of before I’d done the actual sort of work, so to speak, that was more than the kind of research stage. So just some perspective on from your point both as a typographer, a graphic designer, and also an educator would be really helpful. So my project primarily revolves around the construction and recognitions of letterforms. And the creation of a set of tools to allow amateur typographers to explore the process of typeface creation. So at a certain point, right when I was writing my proposal, it more revolved around actually designing a complete typeface and going from start to finish marketing that. But I felt like the moment I started, I actually didn’t feel inspired by it, I done a lot of a lot of prep, actually, about how to create a typeface. So like learning about software, learning about how if I wanted to create a physically whether as so that I could print with your heart to actually create, like different letterpress blocks, and all that kind of research is no fun. And then actually, when I actually started designing the typeface, then sort of passion sort of got a little bit lost for me. And I realized that actually, the thing that I’m more interested about that project was a second year more about how we recognize letter forms and how we construct a letter form. So it’s more about creating a suite of tools for that middle part of a process for so when you kind of theorizing a design, how do you get, how do you fill in that middle part to then kind of get the end point. So I wrapped up the project in the name, old foundry. So that is the name of the actual I guess, what foundry organization, social media handle website where these tools were actually going to be hosted. You know, obviously, with the intent of foundry being in there, there’s a kind of a callback to lead across boundaries and natural kind of casting kind of production of type. And a lot of the design decisions within the kind of branding have been an attempt to have sort of one foot in historical one foot in kind of contemporary, which is kind of reflected in the the oval branded by itself. So as I said, as a starter guide design in my initial letter forms, I realized that the thing that interested me was really about what makes a letter a letter, what allows us to perceive one letter as being different from another, what allows us to actually perceive different letters within different typefaces, as being collected into those kind of different types of faces. So, this is a slide from the thinking with type book by Ellen Lupton that was used to help me identifying these kinds of different sets of components. So throughout the project had been trying to experiment with different methods of creating letter forms. So this has taken place in the physical space. So these are 3d printed letterpress blocks by resin that could be combined in various different combinations, exploring different layouts and amalgamations of them. And the benefits of using 3d printing to start the actual cleanup is quite minimal in comparison to originally looks at casting, laser cutting, but then obviously, you have to mount it up to type height, which has all its own difficulties, and the other was CNC routing. But in order to get access to all the different materials needed for that within the lockdown, that was a real difficulty. So this was just some initial experiments or kind of proof of concept as to whether 3d printing would work, which it did. They’re robust, they’re cleanable, the actual printing service surfaces, very good. So something that I I’m going to continue to explore kind of later on in the project. But also as I’ve been generating the letterforms be looking at different ways of constructing it. So this was seen on the left is a set of various different components that could then be recombined into different letterforms on the right with that Trying to first identify all the different combinations and different explorations of the shape on the left. And then seeing how those interactions between those shapes are kind of worked. I think some of these letters are more exciting and successful than the others. And what I kind of realized was the most successful letters were the ones that had that made use of more of a kind of order shapes, for instance, guy like this one, or the kind of skewed components, because they were what actually pushed it into being more recognizable as letter forms that were part of the typeface. Rather than kind of a series of logos, I think, or just a series of letter forms made out of triangles, which is what happens, I think, when you use some of the kind of more what kind of simpler shapes within that. So this next stage has been all about trying to refine the production and the creation of some of these letter forms. And taking these kind of root forms that I’ve identified as we occurring across multiple different letter shapes. And making like slight change them changing the width, changing the height, and then we combining them, or testing them by recombine them into these kind of different lead flows. Really not? Yeah, so this is still with the kind of thinking that I’m interested in. I think this slide shows, again, the more interesting parts are sometimes like, these smaller, almost kind of like signature, parts of it, you know, I think that’s what makes these forms interesting is actually this kind of smaller, more detailed component of it.

Sally Hope:I think, quite interesting, actually, when you do go through these exercises, and you have a set of component parts, and then you start playing with them. I think for me, that’s, that’s the most exciting thing, because then you start to get a real feel of how everything works together.

Me: I mean, it’s interesting you say about playing there, you know, that has you say another kind of late slide this, the whole project has been about trying to encourage play, to encourage some of that same fluidity that you can have with an idea when you’re kind of, let’s say, working in in letterpress, where you have a kind of set of immutable components. And you, they will say, Okay, here’s your 20 parts, you go to ours, just explore these, look how these shapes can be combined in different ways. can’t copy and paste, you can’t cheat, you can’t squish them, stretch them. But you know, there are your blocks. And what you get out the end of it are a kind of an honest exploration of those kind of components. So I said, I’m still, my, my proposal hasn’t locked me into an explicit amount of things to create. So I’m sort of experimented with lots of different forms at the moment. And as with the other one, I found that these kind of components almost like this kind of serifs seem to appear to me to be the more interesting parts of this so far, when you can combine them into these kind of shapes. And also with the idea that if I do end up creating these three, I guess I would call them typefaces, but they’re not really, if I call them font that at least is a correct term in that they could be digital fonts. But yeah, I see them very much more as components. But the idea is that they could be interrelate to each other that if the proportions are similar, if the sizes are similar than they could, you know, this one is from that very first slide. And this is from the second slide, so can combine in those kind of different elements together. So the end point of this will be the creation of website for our foundry, which is going to be as I said, a playground for letterform exploration. So likewise, I haven’t specified in my proposal, or I gave myself enough wiggle room not having been writing the proposal at Christmas, not really knowing how the next six months we’re going to kind of play out as to whether I would have any access to anything physical, or so, but I also realized, I mentally, I’m Myself needed something physical, as part of this project to keep me interested to keep me making things and keep me kind of getting in, to create. So the website, as itself got more kind of host the project and provided a suite of different tools for you to actually explore these different letterforms, and some of physical and some digital. So the digital tools build on something that I built in a previous module. So this was a very early on prototype for the odd foundry three website, which has a canvas on the left side, and then a set of sliders on the right. And by manipulating these sliders, you’re able to change and rearrange the position of the shapes. And you can also with the cursor draw straight onto this aiming to kind of create this immediate way for people to be able to actually interact with shapes, and also an immediate way for people to interact with these shapes with some of those kind of inbuilt limitations of physical tools. So looking back at the way that we create with depend the way that we create with, with with lead press one, we’re kind of exploring it with the frustration that sometimes digital tools don’t feel like they have any limitations. And thus, I think what ends up being created can be a little bit what can be harder to make decisions. And sometimes those limitations are actually really successful in narrowing down how we want to create another kind of forms that we want to create. So one of the digital tools will be redesigning this and integrating some of those, some of those letterforms, those kind of shapes that you’re seeing. So you would come to a page like this and be able to immediately start moving shapes around. The interface has got a recording feature. So if you press start recording, and you start moving the shapes around, when you’re finished, if you press stop recording, it exports, anything that you’ve done as kind of like a 10 second movie, so that can be something that can be put kind of straight on to Instagram.
Yeah, that’s really helpful, because you don’t really see that in these sort of typeface blogs Do you can sort of play and then that’s it all disappears again. So that’s actually really helpful, that’s really helpful. Likewise, he’s got the feature just to hit a keystroke, and it saves whatsoever on your canvas, as as a JPEG, as well. But the more more I’ve explored, it makes me realize that some of these forms, I’m creating suit, a digital toolset, and some of them suit a physical tool set. So there still will be a kind of component to that. Very early on, as I said, when I was really thinking about it, as laser focus has just been designing a specific typeface, it was very much more a commercial project. Whereas I think my desires are that it’s now more of a academic project where these tools are being created to actually help people you know, so with the, the kind of core pillars of it are that it should be exploratory and accessible. So the understanding that, you know, not everybody has access to a printing press that everybody has access to a 3d printer. So I will be selling printed blocks of those shapes for you to be able to be explored them, if you do have a press stamps, like a set of stamps, if you want to explore them that way, at almost the lowest end stencils, so that you can make use of them. And they can be used with gridded paper. So they’re all in the kind of same type sizes, you know, standard standardized sizes. So in the next week, my kind of aim is to finalize some of those forms that I’ve been making and actually kind of formally allocate them into different fonts. Yeah, I think I’m going to aim for probably about three different combinations of them or or three different variations of them. And then launch the website for about that, hopefully, the end end of June, and then spend kind of July, adding to it if I have more time to create another typeface or another font within that time. But I think more likely it’ll be about getting these tools out there and actually spending some time myself exploring them and encouraging other people to explore them. So that the kind of final part of the project and when I’m biting up the final report of it, I have some more kind of evaluation that I can do as the kind of like success of the project based on other people’s interactions with those components.

Feedback

Sally Hope: Wow. I just want to play with it.

Me:…now I’m getting very much into a niche for graphic design, and then even more of a niche typography within that to get kind of your opinion as to what what works, what doesn’t work? What excited you, what kind of forms succeeded?

Sally Hope: I really like the set of component parts that you had with the sort of swooshes and everything, that for me really resonated, because there I could see, I could see so much history being really discovered. The sort of mark the hand, the Circle Square Triangle type bauhaus stuff. So I thought it was beautiful. And then the sort of details where the sort of semi circular being cut out of a block as well, you know, I’d be excited if I saw those in the letterpress area, I’d be absolutely itching to get my hands on them. Because I think that I’m a sort of designer by discovery. When you’re looking at typefaces, especially for jobs, I spent hours just looking at those tiny details. But also the love of those details. So for some of those images, you know, just some of those forms where they were just printed really large. I just love to do that, because it’s that case of inking them up, putting on the press, peeling them back goes back to that sort of foundry. You founded your object to put it together, almost you found and found it.
I think it’d be something for students really to learn from, I also think designers to learn from as well because we do sit in this digital world now. I was always fascinated by the tactility of type, like you go into the letterpress you set it your hands on all over it. There is that sort of experimental element where on screen you’re setting and you’re like going yeah, no, yeah, but where you’ll probably be more experimental in the prep process when print making, you’re making very different discoveries.

Me: a lot of my research in one of the previous modules, like the digital media module, which is the one that really is kind of fed most into this with the creation of that kind of interface, was looking at the way that a tool relates to the marks that it makes. Early typefaces attempting to imitate handwritten forms, you know, hand carved forms, forms that were either made by chisel or made by, you know, kind of reeds. And about how frustrating working in a digital space can be because, as I said, like, there’s none of those limitations. The angles that are sort of made by using that in some of those tools are directly inspired by dip pen, calligraphic kind of typefaces. It’s interesting, you said about the Bauhaus because that’s what that very first 3d printed blocks were about. I need a proof of concept. I want to get into the print room tomorrow. If I’m just doing square circles and and triangles, the elementary forms, I’ve got myself a set of shapes that I don’t have to spend the time on the computer scrutinising. I can spend that time actually creating the blocks and then exploring them.I Found early on, as I think I mentioned, the things that I ended up making were just letter shape letter form shapes, almost using them as an outline in some places. And now the sort of next stage, the most exciting part of choosing a typeface, is kind of zoom in on those little details like zooming in on feature of the shape. For instance looking at Futura and the apex of the M, where it has those kind of lightning sharp points. And understanding that it’s those little quirks that make those typefaces interesting, and the kind of blocks that I am making, they need to have some of those oddities in a thing in order to then make the actual resulting forms interesting, and to actually make them make people push them. The aim has been to create these shapes that have hints of letters, shapes in them. But making sure that there’s still a gap there to be filled in by the design process, it’s why I’ve tried not to make just explicitly say here’s a circle. It’s trying to say, if there are going to be more circular forms, that would be like, probably a fifth of a circle, you know, so that in order to then fill it up, you then have to join it with another shape, so that people are less likely just to use one of those components kind of by itself.

Sally Hope: We did an excercise with students where they had to look up two different typefaces and go through the differences between them. And I’m thinking, oh, they’re gonna hate this, but they loved it. Because they started to look at the nuances of what these differences are. You’ve got all of these typefaces with what are are the finest differences between them all, and these differences matter so much.

There was a really gorgeous project. I’ll dig it out for you. This is an MA student in Holland deconstructed a typeface but she made this contraption out of wood with a pen in it. But what was fascinating was you put in coordinates, almost like a loom, and it created these different forms.

Me: I guess that is a really concrete explanation of the fact that there are recurring shapes, curves, angles recurring throughout the letters in a typeface

Sally Hope: You could have had a computer to do analysis, all of that, but because she’d made this beautiful thing. It had physicality, form. You can watch it, you can play with it, you can make stuff.
I think it’s a beautiful project mark, and I just really loved that first set of typefaces. A few things you might consider is the relationship between type and pattern. And so it’s almost deconstructed it becomes these shapes you can use as pattern. You could also look at not just the positive forms but also the negative forms. Have you looked at Alpha Blox

Me: Early on, Alpha Blox was a big inspiration in the project. But I feel like Alpha Blox always looks like Alpha Blox. It has such a rigid set of shapes. The many shapes are so simplified that it’s actually quite hard to create more elegant, different forms. I feel like if you gave me a set, you a set, Rich a set, and Hannah to set and then we all spent two hours separately making stuff. The forms that we would end up creating would all be quite similar due to the rigid way they are combined. Where as Super Tipos Veloz is more inspirational, because there are more variations.

Mark Pavey 0:02
I’m good. Thanks for joining me. No problem. I was absolutely terrified because that we were I emailed you last week. And we were just chatting about times are like scheduled to end. We had daylight savings kick in Sunday. And I have like, absolutely no concept of date, day time, year or anything anymore. So I didn’t think to like, factor it in. We’re working out the kind of time difference. I was like, Oh, is it? Yeah, I’m glad that we’re both doing this at the same time. And yeah, thanks for joining me for that nine o’clock. Where you always Yeah, yeah, nine o’clock, I got my coffee somewhere. But you were you’re an educator as well as it do you work at a university alongside your kind of practice?

Ryan Molloy 0:52
I teach graphic design at Eastern Michigan University. I’d say that’s my full time gig and then my like occasional freelance, and then just making type on the side is my research slash creative, scholarly, whatever

Mark Pavey 1:06
I like the kind of work you’re kind of in CNC work is that when you say scholarly work, is that as part of like, a kind of further degree? Or do you mean, it’s like a kind of professional?

Ryan Molloy 1:17
Or just a professional research? You know? Yeah, yeah, we, they consider making a form of research.

Mark Pavey 1:28
So that’s the benefit of a career in graphic design teaching, isn’t it that that research is messing around with a laser cutter or messing around with it like a CNC machine for light? Right, exactly. Making use of all those very expensive University resources? Yeah. Yeah. I guess I’ll give you a little bit of kind of context to, I guess, just who I am. And like why I wanted to kind of chat with you. So I’ve been printing move for, I guess, about the last 15 years since I graduated. So I’m 35. Now. So in that sort of 15 years, I’ve traveled around places, so about 1010 or 11 years ago, like I traveled around the state and I printed at Hamilton, and then at hatch show print, I interned there and then interned at at yeehaw for a period before that kind of dissolved, been over the wayzgoose a couple of times. Taught print tours that afternoon, like evening courses and letterpress printmaking at the London center for book Arts in the UK, all alongside kind of my own kind of stuff. And more recently in the last three years actually teaching so I I’m a lecturer at a graphic design course in Southampton and I’m just moving that sort of part time and I’m now moving into a full time role place called Bournemouth arts university. So as kind of part of that, like transitioning into a kind of full time undertaking a Master’s drama, kind of, I guess, formalize all the kind of stuff I’ve been doing just in my spare time for the last kind of like 10 or 15 years. And I’ve experimented with 3d printing before, like laser cutting, all that kind of stuff that you know, everybody dip their toes in. My focus for my Masters has been so I don’t know how I how much information kind of gets out of the UK these days as we seemingly are now so secular and kind of cut off from everything. But be just sort of, again, how it’s reported. But we’ve been in various states of complete lockdown for almost a year. Exactly. Now it’s so my master’s is a to two year course. And I’m now in the kind of Final Four to be the final six of it. So various kind of little modules. And now this is the big kind of chunk where you ask, it’s like you either choose to do an essay or you choose to do something kind of practical. And last year, yeah, as we transitioned into, like fully online learning, I was really missing having that kind of physical interaction with students actually like being in the print room making things at Solon where I teach you got a really amazing print studio. It’s literally we’ve got our kind of clean studio, and then a wall and then our messy studio with a couple of Anna cooks down the cord or laser cutter woodworking and I was like, Oh yeah, this is gonna be the best summer ever getting access to all this stuff. Also the students are gone. And then obviously, yeah, locked down here. And that never happened. So I started, we had a digital module. So I started making some digital type design tools, which is something I made in p five j. s, I sort of JavaScript. All that I’ll just screenshare if you want to kind of show you my Go for it, kind of where I’m at with it. Do you know us been so many different the last year teaching about every single different video platform possible zoom is the one that I’ve used least I think they should be. Yeah, we will transition to teams for the kind of last seven or eight, eight months. So that’s where I’ve kind of been out. So yeah, this was something that I made for one of the other projects, and it was a it’s kind of what I’m choosing to take on further from my actual proper master. So I’ve just got to call the project of foundry as being a kind of playground for kind of letterforms. I think playground is the sort of best name for it that I’ve got so far. Because there was a kind of realization that I love type agafay. But I don’t also wouldn’t class myself as a typographer. I think, looking at some of your work, I think I saw a similar what, maybe as a question here, do you class yourself as a type or prefer? Or do you class yourself as somebody that uses type?

Ryan Molloy 6:03
Ah, I don’t know, I think I classify myself mostly as a designer, then necessarily typographer? I don’t know, I would say most of my graphic design work that I do tends to be type focused. Even like, if I’m doing client work, I tend to do more type, like typography usually is the central focus of it over like image base. So I guess I could consider myself typographer. But, no, I think I just consider myself a general just a designer.

Mark Pavey 6:35
I mean, is it Yeah, cuz I feel that looking at your work. Like, I feel like you’re kind of unrestricted by maybe more of that conventional. I’m a type designer with circular glasses and like a turtleneck kind of vibe going on. So I’m actually

Ryan Molloy 6:53
currently doing the type with certificate program. So also, in six months, you will be a typographer. Legally classified as a typographer? Oh, yeah. So I think like that was partly driven from the fact that I’ve been designing type and realized at some point, I had hit limitations of my own knowledge. And just felt like I would like to expand it. So I, and it was offered online, which was a good opportunity for me to kind of jump in and be like, Hey, I can now do this program online. I don’t Yeah, in California, or New York to do it.

Mark Pavey 7:33
I mean, it’s this sort of, there’s been so many awful things about the last year. But one thing as you know, as as debilitating as well, I don’t know how much online teaching you’ve had to do. But yeah, we’ve been yet fully in Twitter for the last nine months. And I sort of debilitating some of that is Yeah, the benefits of online. Yeah, online courses, online lectures, every like conferences, everything being so accessible to students has been, yeah, genuinely amazing. So this was Yeah, I taught this is all built with something called p five. So I’m a kind of web designer in my, I guess that’s what pays my bills is web design. So I wanted to teach myself like a new new coding language. And this is a couple of different sets of digital tools for you to be able to create. Well, the aim is to create kind of let letterforms so the this is the sort of one which has got everything in so you can kind of draw on it, you can move around, Why call these kind of foundation shapes. And it’s trying to give you those kind of restrictions that I think make letterpress printing, so kind of enjoyable as that kind of cathartic process, you know, have you, okay, I’ve got my, I’ve only got what’s in the drawer, I’ve only got these kind of spaces, I’ve only got a kind of a binary on or off of ink. And then that’s also sort of moved into more of a, that was where I was just seeing everything that I could do with the process. And this is now more of a kind of slightly more of a strain chronic grid based. But you’re also able to draw on it with these. And it’s like it introducing randomness to it as well. So this is all kind of randomly shaped, blah, blah, blah. So what I’m looking at doing is, I knew I wanted to make sure that for my laptop and master’s project that I wasn’t completely digital. I think in order to stop going insane. I have to have some element of physicality in my work. And I’d originally planned to do a whole kind of thing of taking some of these forms and looking at your sort of laser cut angle. Creating, I guess the most obvious touch point is p 20. twos alpha blocks, you know that that kind of like modular system or or having a brain fart or sports the other one Keepo like an Italian

Ryan Molloy 10:18
super people do potato velhos. Yeah. Which I learned about it. I like recently. Oh, is amazing. Yeah.

Mark Pavey 10:29
Like I had a lecture. So the last, I guess, like 10 years, I’ve been going to the letterpress workers printing conference in Milan. And somebody from familiar plumbers gave a pechakucha about super cheap or villas about five or six years ago. And they had, I think, because it is a Spanish typeface, originally, they had a lot more access to the actual matrix is order just I guess, generally, it’s more in use in Spain, because what rather than it being kind of in the UK. So yeah, that was my sort of thinking, Okay, I’m going to create some kind of modular letter form system where you can kind of play with it. And then we went into super heavy double triple lockdown, where we weren’t even allowed out into universities to use anything. But that’s prompted me to then buy a 3d printer. So like a resin 3d printer. So I’ve had it for like, a couple of weeks. I’m just kind of working on. I’ll stop screen sharing, and you can actually see my face.

No. See what I’m saying about? Not? So there we go.

Yeah, so just like 3d printing. The other moment is, these are just like completely tired pipe blocks, experimented with sort of like infill, and things like that, I think you can probably see even that that one is a little bit wonky. So it’s like, it’s been a really fun process so far. But I think the reason I wanted to talk to you, I guess getting into that is were seeing the, the Macon type lecture last year, it was the moment of realization of, I think that you’re doing some really, really amazing stuff with the type design where you’re integrating the tools into the actual creation. And that like, honestly, like watching it, I was like, like, I like a set up in my seat. And I was like, wow, that’s actually it’s not just replication. It’s not just like, Okay, we’ve got laser cutters. We’ve got 3d printers, like whatever, we’re not just taking something old and making a kind of poor copy of it or, you know, trying to refine a port copy into something that that kind of loses its kind of heritage in the kind of process, though, I’m not sure what you whether it’s got a name, but the one where you’ve got the it’s quite a decorative, like outline. And then depending on how fast the CNC is running, oh, very, give me that variation in the kind of stroke width.

Ryan Molloy 13:13
Yeah, I don’t think I have a name yet. I’m still trying to figure out and design the rest of the set. There’s some characters that I just haven’t. This is where that limitation of like, font design skill and ability also kicked in. was, I mean, I’ll pretty much up until now was self taught, like in terms of type design? Yeah, so let me see if I could grab that one. This your basement? Yeah, it’s my basement. I know I have it somewhere. Yeah, so I think you’re talking about this one here. Yeah. Oh, that’s it. Yeah. So that’s that one. And then this one kind of also borrows that same principle. Yeah, of just using the tool as like without using like, how easy Can I make it with only using one bit, basically. And using that for as many generative forms? Yeah. So I think I talked who was I talking to about this? Also, they had asked me a similar question about that. And I think a lot of it came about just from sitting next to a router for long amounts of time, when I was like cutting halftone and other patterns in it. You know, because there’s that point where you also can’t leave the machine in case it decides to run awry. You’re kind of tethered nearby. I mean, I do walk away for periods of time and then check on it periodically, but I have had like the router just all of a sudden decide to take off to the gym to get like the bits snapping or anything like that when you’re doing that. That happens, particularly with like those fine v carpets. You know, it’ll happen it kind of sucks. You can either I have to hope that you could restart it and everything stays in its alignment, or you just kind of you lose that block and it becomes furniture. So I make use of as much of like the waste as possible for things like, Oh, well, this blocks shot, I’ll use it for cutting furniture. Yeah, so I think a lot of it came about just from sitting by the router, kind of wondering a little bit of like, how can I make this process faster? You know, when I made like, these halftone dot ones, and also the like, like, chromatic overlapping one that has all these like, halftone, like graded lines. I mean, just to cut all of that just takes a crazy amount of time. Like, I think at one point, I told somebody that like a CNC isn’t faster than, you know, the pantograph the Pat, like Jerry can add virgin wood type can probably make type faster than I get. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Pavey 15:57
I funny that you say that, in that? I think a lot of people’s assumption of like, yeah, that transition from it. But as you’re using more contemporary production methods in it, is that Yeah, there is this this kind of like, switch on it. Yeah, that you Oh, yeah, you’ve just CNC that type, you put that in, flick the switch and like gone off. And then five hours later, you come back and oh, here’s your like, perfectly, kind of produce stuff. And I kind of found that with a 3d printer in there. It says there’s as much manipulation in or the exposure times and the resin and orientation of blocks on it of it kind of being like, you want to maximize your build plate. But also, you don’t want to create too much suction and then get, I think I’ve got a failure somewhere where there’s a failure. So that’s that had like suction failure on it. Which audio, I print, this one was printed that way up. So interestingly, like it failed at the bottom, but then still continued up. Right.

Ryan Molloy 17:04
And that also with the resin, you also have like to make sure that the resin can escape. Yeah. You know, like, I’ve tried the resin printer and resin. I mean, for all like the printing methods, it’s just not fast at all. You’re not saving any time.

Mark Pavey 17:21
Yeah, I think for these kind of inch blocks. Yeah, obviously, it’s a type I think on. So I’m just using a mano, what’s it called? A Mars mano two. And they take those took two hours, right? Yeah. But then there’s all you know, cleanup, time curing everything like that? Yeah, I think I said, What drew me to your work, was it yeah, that sort of, I could see that you’ve got good enough at the tool to then begin to be exploiting the tool and to be kind of thinking, Okay, yeah, how can I get less waste? How can I speed this up? How can I lower the possibility of like breakage, or things like that? And I think that is like pushing the type design into this really much more interesting area, I think, rather than Yeah, just trying to said, designing something digitally, and just expecting like a perfect reproduction of it, to then read that letterpress print where it’s like, well, what’s the point in, you could have just done that as a polymer, you know, like, like, we’ve had access, but I have these kind of discussions with students quite a lot, where they’re sort of knowledge of the process. Or even just with the kind of members of the public, when everyone kind of workshops, their knowledge of the processes, like, there was what type, and then nothing happened for 50 years, and then all of that got thrown in the bin. Because, yeah, Mack turned up, and that was kind of it where it’s like, well, actually, no, you know, there was there’s plastic type in the 80s. And there was like, a polymer type, or just a photo type. Yeah, and, and, Robert, and I think we kind of really getting into an interesting period in I don’t know what you’d call your kind of style or type design, whether it’s kind of because it’s, I guess it’s time that is meant to exist, physically, isn’t it? But it’s the same kind of, I think, exciting period where we went to type on film, where suddenly you weren’t restricted by like, the amount of lines and you got all those, like insane 70s I think, in the letterpress educators video that you said you’re inspired by that letraset Oh, yeah, the rise one. Yeah. Where it’s like you could do you could only kind of do that with film or with kinda letraset because it just would have broken or like, it wouldn’t have been like, yeah, having like, one old guy had rattling out every individual slides over Just like oh, you wouldn’t have been consistent with it like, yeah. I kind of feel like you’re just on the cusp, or or I guess printing in general is on the cusp of that. I guess it’s being called Digi log, right. Like, yeah, right. Analog digital. I think you got really interested. Yeah, your heads in the right place. I’m looking at some of your work on your site. So there’s a few things I recognized. A like graffiti writing. Be an Aesop Rock, quote, like down there at the bottom. I guess it’s kind of again, why I asked you Do you consider yourself like a kind of typographer? I just wanted to, like, what was your kind of background sort of getting to where you are now.

Ryan Molloy 20:47
So um, my undergrad degree is in architecture. And I think like, I go back to it a lot. Like I’d never really put two and two together. But I think like, when I was in architecture, a lot of my thinking and thought process was tied to at least once I got into like, the professional world a little bit was I tried to make ties to the material. And it was like, What is this material doing? How do we use this material as much as possible? And then or that kind of material thinking and I think that’s what carried over to my design. And I somewhat joke like when I was in graduate school, that’s when I learned how to letterpress it UT Austin, where they have the Robert Kelly collection. Oh, wow. That was a you saw the, the, what’s it called the angled block the angled octagon, um, so I think like, there, that’s where like, you know, use like nisbets, octagon, and a couple other like, really fun typefaces. I got, I used that space, before, David shields got to it, and catalogued it and archived it up. So it was kind of a mess. But it was kind of fun that way. And so yeah, I think at that point, I was doing like really gimmicky things. Like, trying to like emulate like computer like effects at the time. Like to date me like flash was big still. Oh, no, like, you’re talking about language you’re talking about? Yeah, so everything was like, oh, Flash, every website? I mean, like design is kinky. All that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so like, I was trying to like, say like, Okay, how can we like take some of these effects of the screen and bring them to print. And so I was doing like really dumb things. And I have a print somewhere where it’s like, printed with the heat sensitive ink on the letterpress so that like you would have this hand bill that like you hand out to people and if they held it long enough, like the type of disappear? Oh, yeah. You know, I, you know, I was like, always interested in that relationship of screen to print. And I was also at the same time doing a lot of 3d type work, like, making crazy 3d fonts, nothing that was being digitally produced, like physically. Partly just because I didn’t have access to like those resources yet, like the 3d printers were all in the engineering building. You know, they haven’t made their way to the art building. Um, and so I had been doing a lot of like digital kind of 3d modeling, like trying to merge my background of architecture in to like, design. And so Postgraduate School government got the teaching job, came up to Michigan didn’t have access to a letterpress anymore. And so I think I focused largely on like, doing a lot of 3d type work, and kind of playing and experimenting with that. And that that time, more access to digital machining had happened. And so I want to say like some a lot of my earlier work is kind of crazy 3d type. Where I’m like, these kind of stacked locks. Yeah, slip

Mark Pavey 24:08
slip cast blocks, was it? Yeah, so like, eight foot tall kind of thing?

Ryan Molloy 24:13
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like that, which is all cast concrete. And then also, there’s like some really crazy colored ones that are like this weird modular system that I worked with. Both of them I worked with a colleague who teaches architecture, who’s now the head of Clemson’s architecture program, Jim Stevens. And like, we would just kind of sit there, he had access to all the tools and I like we’re just gonna be like, Alright, what are we going to do now? So yeah, making giant concrete walls of type. You know, that way about a ton? Because we didn’t hollow out the blocks,

Mark Pavey 24:50
I think, is it? I mean, you stuck on like a really interesting point there, which is, yeah, like you You lost access to a printing press and like, so. Much. For me, it was a similar thing like kind of graduating, losing access to the kind of print room but like, well, I studied by accident. I was a so I was working as a framer at a gallery in Brighton. And the guy that ran it, who was an illustrator who wants to buy a life opress you’re like, like a pet? Yeah, like a Victorian stone life though press. And he heard about a guy about half an hour outside of Brighton that was restoring them. And like me and him turned up in this like Volvo expecting to be I don’t know, it literally, I’m a short guy. And the guys working with those, those are pretty black short, dude. And I don’t know how we expected to get like a Victorian lighter press in the back of a Volvo. Like, that’s the most kind of absurd part. But the story but he was. So he was doing it on this ground, sort of just an old guy who had that he was like an old art collector that had just come on, had just been somebody was like, you like old stuff. I’ve got all this type, if you want it. So we had all this wood type, a Colombian press now be impressed. And like I was able to organize that. So I was able to print them for free if I organize his stuff. So did that forgot, like three years? But yeah, it all kind of craft is so frustratingly linked to that old audit to access to a press? Isn’t it? There’s that immediate kind of gatekeeping. And I think where we’re at now is really exciting. Because it’s like, not only do we have sort of, we own the means of productions, right, like, I’m right in thinking you literally got your CNC machine in your basement. That’s right. Yeah. Like, next year. Yeah. You know, everything has been sort of scaled down in size. And we can just kind of go my 3d printer system, my garriage. You know, that’s a little proof impress, just kind of background there. But even without having access to that now, we’re able to kind of 3d print or proof impresses, if you’ve kind of kept up with that kind of thing. We’re in a kind of funny, I think the craft is in this like, again, a really interesting point where we’re becoming de shackled from, okay, yeah, you’re some. In order to do this, I’ve got to either be part of an institution, or I’ve got to be on really good terms with some 65 year old guy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And you got a vandercook press for like $500, rather than like 20 grand now. Kind of sell for? And yeah, I think that element of being able to own the means of production, I think it’s like, is your CMC machine. Is it something which is have you made it? Is it one of those ones that you have to

Ryan Molloy 27:56
it’s a kit, that’s one of the ones that you assembled put together? And yeah, it’s a millwright is the brand as the manufacturer, I think it’s the carpeting is the one I have. Yeah. And actually, I did a lot of research. Mostly because I used TNCs. Before I used to go to a maker space that had a maker bot. Yeah. And then at school, we had a couple shape pocos. And I hated the shape pocos. Mostly because, like, anything that uses that, like, band kind of mechanism, you know, to kind of pull it back and forth is out. Yeah, like it just loses its tension from time to time. And like, it’s just it wasn’t, so I wanted to make sure I had something that, you know, was going to be able to do some pretty fine detail. But I couldn’t afford, you know, a maker bot. So, um, you know, so I found that I did, and I think at the time, no, right was like, just on the scene or kind of, they had been established enough that they had gotten really good reviews. So I tried it, it actually it’s been pretty great to use I think now we also have an x carve out in our studio, which seems to have come a long way from like, when they first came out

Mark Pavey 29:17
is ridiculous, isn’t it is I think I was? So I did 3d printing with with filament printing. Right? Wow, I think about seven years ago, like just as when they were beginning and I was looking back at some of the pictures of the process early one and I realized it was at that funny stage where it was like, you could buy one and then you 3d printed the parts to then make another one that you could then sell on to go like, cover the costs of it and I look back and I think wow, I’m really glad I didn’t buy one then actually because the quality of it was just awful. You know, like, I don’t know if you’d On extrusion, sort of like stuff, but yeah, you will. But there is this interesting part with when you’re creating type that way is it gives you a like a grain to it, you know, because it’s extremely, it’s like you’re kind of icing a cake. I had a discussion last week with a guy called Chris Wilson, who’s doing a PhD in digital log. It’s kind of funny, he interviewed me for his PhD, like five years ago. And now it’s like, I’m doing a Master’s. And he’s still doing his PhD. So I was able to check back in. How about a little bit of reciprocal knowledge, like, like going on here. But yeah, a lot of his works kind of looked at that. And again, it’s like, creating type that is kind of true to the material, rather than trying to try to just emulate an old, old, old technology. Again, this goes back to that kind of thinking of feeling like we’re just on the precipice of a very new period of analog wrestling, print, printmaking. Being an educator, do you find your students are kind of coming to you? What sort of before pre faced that? What level of students do you teach? What sort of age do you teach,

Ryan Molloy 31:15
um, undergrad and graduate? I mean, we have a very small graduate program, so and it’s mostly individuals, like individual students kind of one on one. And so we have students that are in our MFA program. And I would say like, that’s just really kind of more it’s mostly independent, driven with like, faculty mentors. And so I teach everything from our graduate students, to our undergrads, and mostly everywhere from I would say, I don’t know if our university levels are the same as the UK, I’m trying to remember. So basically, at about that sophomore level, so like, Introduction to graphic design up through, you know, senior graphic design, so it’s that kind of 18 year olds off with some more like, maybe 1920, right, up to like, 22. Well, we have a lot of students too, that are, you know, they went to community college, you know, had other things. So, I would say our student population, we’re what’s considered a commuter University, commuter school. So a lot of like, very few students actually live on campus. Well, not very few, we have a growing population students living on campus. But it used to be the predominant amount, and still is our students that just live in the area. So Southeast Michigan, are our biggest student population. And a lot of those students. I mean, I have students that are a big one was say that she wanted to graduate before she was 30. The other day. So I mean, I have a student, you know, who, you know, for whatever life like took some classes at one university moved, took some classes at a community college changed her degree. And finally is like, I’m going to be a graphic designer.

Mark Pavey 33:03
They kind of accrue credits. Do they? Is that how to do that? Okay. Yeah, it’s a bit more intense. In the UK, it’s a bit more like, if you find out if you fuck up the three years that you missed it, you missed it, you get to, like, you don’t get to them.

Ryan Molloy 33:16
I’ll top it up somewhere else, right. Yeah, yeah, I remember that about the use cases for the US systems a lot like you could kind of, you know, hop from institution to institution. A lot of I mean, the downside to it is that that’s probably why we have this giant student debt issue.

Mark Pavey 33:33
Yeah. You sort of encouraged to just take a lot of time.

Ryan Molloy 33:38
Find yourself and your passion. And, um, yeah, and so I think like our population ranges from, you know, students right out of high school to students who’ve had a lot of other experiences. So like, yeah, I mean, on average, I’d say my students are in their early 20s. But I do at gay use only get like somebody that’s like, late 20s. Or I had a 50 year old student. Last, actually a 60 year old student last semester, who’s just this woman who likes to take design classes. Oh,

Mark Pavey 34:11
yeah. You know, I know those. I know that I know that market. When I was teaching printing at the London center for book arts, we’d get a similar because that was like evening courses. Yeah. And it was you’d get design students, writers, they were always like a really, sort of people that use words, I guess. They’re interested in the process. And then just people that just love doing courses that they just love. There’s like an evening arts course. And they’re just sort of, you’d go into this whole spiel about type history and they didn’t glaze over a little bit and they just kind of want to get on board. Like, like start kind of using things and see with that in mind with that kind of level of teaching. Are you finding your with your own kind of research, where it’s at now or your own kind of production methods are you kind of bringing that in into the classroom, he kind of, or are you? Or are you kind of introducing them to traditional print, and then letting them find their way to contemporary print.

Ryan Molloy 35:11
So I teach a course called experimental type autography. I think I’m the only one who teaches it, or since we’ve added that course, or much changed our curriculum. And in that course, I do introduce letterpress printing to them. I don’t bring in the digital fabrication component, mostly. But we do kind of play around with things like let’s use Legos to print and, you know, there’s a lot we have some bases that will make type high Legos with. And I do think I tried to the whole course is kind of predicated that like, type as, you know, something that’s malleable, flexible, you know, that could be torn apart. It’s all about breaking the rules. And so even then, like, when we’re doing letterpress, I, I think I have them type cityline of type, you know, of metal type? No, no, no, what I like, correct, right? And then it’s like, Alright, now, here’s a bunch of one type, have fun, you know, and make something that isn’t traditional and properly typeset. It’s like, out the gate, I’m asking them to like, question that process a little bit. Um, we have a course that’s taught by one of our instructors to teach a sculpture and kind of 3d design, which is a digital fabrication course. And so we get a lot of students who end up taking that, and then come to me, saying, oh, like I it’s an elective course for graphic design students, and a fair amount of our design students are familiar with, like what I do. And so what happens is, then they’ll come to me and be like, Hey, I have access to this laser cutter. Now, how do I make a plate for the letterpress? And so I’ve worked with a handful of students kind of in that mode, just kind of like, hey, we’ll troubleshoot want to make acrylic type shirt? Let’s make some acrylic type.

Mark Pavey 37:12
I find it really weird to think. Yeah, cuz my, I was taught by, you know, a 70 year old guy, who had been in the trades, man and boy, retired and then got bored. And then came, came into a university kind of a teaching environment. And one of the things that prompted me to, to travel around the states and go to Hamilton or go to hatching and go to u haul and, and a couple of other like book, arts, places in the kind of middle was realizing that there’s this whole generation of knowledge, which is going to be alright, that’s already beginning to get lost. Like there’s a guy called battle head in the UK, who, who used to work for vandercook in the UK, like, but he was like their salesmen, vandercook salesman, but because he was industrially like, he was the person that maintained like everyone’s presses, like everyone knew basil, and he obviously died. I think about a year and a half, maybe maybe two years ago. So yeah, that knowledge drain is already kind of beginning to happen. And I think, thinking forward kind of 10 years, I think it’s going to be really exciting to think, what are those students that learned experimental typography from someone like you or me at a university level? What are they going to be doing with it is there and it’s kinda like, cuz I think Look at all that you’re letterpress educators video, you get showed some student work where they had, yeah, like laser cut just individual letters. And I kind of set them out that kind of loose. I think it’s something that Daffy commented on in that same making type lecture that you do for your leg press united, where it’s kind of like, do we still keep making type? type? Hi, are we like if we’re making type type? Hi, are we kind of needlessly attaching ourselves to the past? Or actually, if we just using the presses but using it more freeform like laser cutting something loose? Even like data using like laser cut line? Oh, and sort of mathematical type pie? Yeah, I wonder where you kind of sit on that? Yeah, I think looking at from what I could tell from all the stuff on your site and stuffing Instagram is you work with Tai Chi blocks, right? Yeah. Is that so that you can use them alongside antique or kind of historic blocks as well? Or do you kind of feel like there’s a, I don’t know, almost like an honesty in kind of keeping it. That kind of high.

Ryan Molloy 39:52
I think it’s kind of a mix of both a little bit. So yeah, I think one of the reasons is all of the equipment’s already. Except for Tai Chi. And I, I had done some experimentation early on like with like acrylic, like laser cutting acrylic and mounting it to MDF, when I was kind of first getting kind of started with this idea of exploring Kind of, yeah, so I, the big jump was I moved from that big concrete wall to like making tiny blocks of time. And a lot of it was like, Oh, I think looking at that big concrete wall, I was like, Oh, this is basically movable type, just not, you know. And it was funny because a colleague of mine who taught ceramics, she was just basically like, one day, like, you could do a giant rubbing of this. And I was like, you could print that, you know, because like, I had been toying around with like, I had a craft cutter that I would use as a pen plotter, and I was like, Well, I’m using pen plotter, I have access to 3d printers, like I’m gonna make type, you know, that’s this big, because I can’t ship you know, 1000 pounds all the time, everywhere. And I just wanted to have an excuse to get back to printing. And so yeah, I think like the, the type high thing was largely borne out of all of the equipment, you know, for press is already established that way. And I just didn’t want to do that much make ready, which is kind of funny to say that because the amount of effort that has to go into making Tai Chi blocks is probably just as rigorous. Yeah, and maybe even more time consuming, but like, just adding a bunch of like paper underneath.