Issue No 13: Thinking Aloud

A Colour Diary

A little while ago a room in my home was repaired and repainted.  
In the course of the renovations some parts of the walls were rubbed back.  
What was revealed was a brief history of the colours that had been engaged over the 130 odd years of the house's life. 

The colours we select to surround us must reflect were we are emotionally...it simply can not.
Colours are a constant necessity in our lives just like air is. 

Next time you are changing the colour of your space, think about what you need in life and then find a colour that will help you find it.

Street Type

Typography, or as most people would refer to this art form, lettering, is ubiquitous within our contemporary society. 

The words and numbers engaged everywhere that our eyes may settle are primarily intended for visual communication. 

These forms are vehicles for information whether from a practical sense or for a more abstract purpose.

Typography has become a vehicle for post modernist design over the past 30 years.  

Some may say that this style of typography it is not intelligible, not legible and therefore a pointless exercise. 

Others may just enjoy looking at the letterforms as a visual object that communicates a notion on a more expressive or emotive level rather than an analytical, immediate, objective level.

These pages show some examples of street type that have not started out as an exercise of postmodern thinking…

but haves found themself distorted into something other than their original intent.

Looking at the letterforms of most alphabets (dreadful script fonts do not count) one can find the perfect form and balance that has been inspired nature; 

the perfect balance between negative and positive spaces.  

All of these observations help one’s sensibilities in appreciating the world around us, in all its forms (2D, and 3D).

The following paragraph from '100 ideas that changed Graphic Design' written by Steve Heller and Veronique Vienne addresses Street type in the form of street slogans. 

“What we read in a distracted state, while crossing the street, for example, is not necessarily less memorable.  

In fact, what we see with our peripheral vision might be more striking, because it is perceived by receptor cells in the eye that are more sensitive to black and white figures and to unexpected motion. 

Furtive slogans scrawled on walls, plastered on top of scaffolding, or stenciled on the sidewalk are just as likely to be seen as colourful advertisements prominently located at the center of our field of vision.”

Idea No.87 from '100 Ideas that changed Graphic Design'.

Because this area of the visual world is so important to us all, there exists many different opinions and theories and practitioners. 

All these thoughts are valid if they assist us in coming to some understanding of what we are looking at and how it affects us. 

Willi Kunz, an important German typographer, wrote a wonderful book entitled ‘Formation + Transformation’, and the following passage comes from said publication,

“Regardless of what style (of typography) is pursued, an important criterion in evaluating a design is clarity. 

Good typography is clear typography.  

The designer’s intent must be immediately clear and the design must speak with an unmistakable, clear voice that penetrates today’s clamorous visual environment”.

The video below is a wonderful example of what Kunz has stated. 

Type must communicate. 

Typography must adds value to our world and not be yet another piece of visual rhetoric that contributes to the confusion that surrounds us.

http://vimeo.com/36167291 Street typography from Tom Williams

Look a little closer

Look at little closer at this image and you will find more than you initially thought was there. 
It is full of tiny details and textures and things that people have taken the time to say visually.

The ‘street’ and the passive walls that define this universal space offer themselves to artists or anyone else who feels the need to utilise them as a platform to make a statement.  

Wallism is truly a modern movement within art. It is ubiquitous and global.

This example is from Hackesche Höfe, Berlin.  (Got to love Berlin!)

Great taste

Taking it all in, not just looking at what’s around you but truly absorbing the experiences, and the feelings these experiences trigger, is so essential. 

It is a good thing to allow the places, experiences, and objects that have been apart of your summer, to become apart of you because being conscious at all times is not tiring, it’s enlivening.  



These images are some of shiftazine’s summer moments at Roller Door Cafe in Islington, Newcastle Australia. 

A place where there is always delightful creative expression present both on the walls and in your coffee cup.

Steps of Butter

THERE IS A HOUSE in the inner city area of Redfern that has stood for 132 years. 

It has a staircase that is made of wood. This wood is now old and worn and has been painted and stained and vanished many, many times. 

It would be impossible to estimate how many feet have trodden up and down these stairs but the evidence of these journeys is present in the wear of the tread. 

So this staircase needed a refresh. It needed some care and a new look.  

And then a smart, articulate artist called Yiorgos said...”Why don’t you paint them fluro yellow?” “Why not!” was the response.  

The paint was purchased but only after a long debate at the paint store about what was being done. (Everyone has an opinion.) 

The stairs were scrapped and sanded and filled and sanded and undercoated and sanded and THEN FINALLY painted. 

Not once, not twice but three times.  

AND NOW there is a stair case that looks like its made of butter.

Nothing else to say

Joy to the world

Thank you all from around this beautiful planet we call home, for supporting and engaging in Shiftazine.  
I truly hope it has brought you all a little joy.  
Soon a new year is upon us and I am sure it will be filled with more inventive, and witty ideas soon to be realised.  
A wonderful and joyful time to you all.  Love Shiftazine.

Blue: “Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again”

Blue is a colour that is constant in all our lives.
Australia is defined by its unbelievable blue sky, and is only rivalled by a Cretan blue sky.
One longs to dive into this blueness if only gravity did not get in the way.  
No matter where you are in the world, it is always there. 
It is associated with the notion of reliability, and therefore the colour is a part of the fine Australian expression 'true blue' which is self explanatory.

The information below is but a small selection of interesting facts concerning this primary colour. 
If you want to know more about blue and all the other colours, read a great book called 'Color' (American spelling) by Victoria Finlay. 
It is full of delightful insights that will deepen your love and curiosity for all the colours in the spectrum.  

The modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from the Old French bleu, a word of Germanic origin, related to the Old High German word blao. 
In heraldry, the word azure is used for blue.
In Russian and some other languages, there is no single word for blue, but rather different words for light blue (голубой, goluboy) and dark blue (синий, siniy).

Several languages, including Japanese, Thai, Korean, and Lakota Sioux, use the same word to describe blue and green. 

For example, in Vietnamese the colour of both tree leaves and the sky is xanh. 

In Japanese, the word for blue is often used for colours that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the colour of a traffic signal meaning "go".

Blue is traditionally associated with the sea and the sky, with infinity and distance. 

The uniforms of sailors are usually dark blue, those of air forces lighter blue. 

The expression "The wild blue yonder refers to the sky.

Blue is associated with cold water taps which are traditionally marked with blue.

Bluestocking was an unflattering expression in the 18th century for upper-class women who cared about culture and intellectual life and disregarded fashion. 

It originally referred to men and women who wore plain blue wool stockings instead of the black silk stockings worn in society.

Blue is often associated with melancholy- having the "blues".

In the late Roman Empire, during the time of Caligula, Nero and the emperors who followed, the Blues were a popular chariot racing team which competed in the Circus Maximus in Rome against the Greens, the Reds and Whites.

In the Byzantine Empire, The Blues and Greens were the two most popular chariot racing teams which competed in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. 

Each was connected with a powerful political faction, and disputes between the Green and Blue supporters often became violent. 

After one competition in 532 AD, during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, riots between the two factions broke out, during which the cathedral and much of the centre of Constantinople were burned, and more than thirty thousand people were killed.

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue#cite_note-7)