Design: Type

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Breaking the rules:

Jorge Restrepo

It is in some ways difficult to talk about

typography when you create it the way

I do.

Some time ago, tired of the work I was

making using my computer, I decided to

leave behind all the things that tied me to

my desk—clients, administration, and

accounts—all of the everyday tasks I was

used to. I knew this was risky, but it was

necessary. The idea was that once the

decision was made, I could relax and

breathe new life into my work. It wasn’t

long—just a few weeks really—before

I wanted to begin working again, but I was

not going back to my computer and my

old clients. I decided to look for new

beginnings with a pencil and paper and

went back to school.

Faced with a blank sheet of paper, it was

clear that I needed to learn to work in new

ways, so I turned to a technique that I had

always wanted to explore more

thoroughly—collage. Searching for points

of reference, I found many of them in the

art of Rauschenberg, Warhol, and others.

I learned the technique of cut and paste.

However, something was missing, so

I began to introduce typography to the

equation. This typography was not

created on a computer, but by using hand

lettering—a difficult technique to get right.

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Breaki

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I am not about to give you a lesson in how

to do hand lettering. I believe strongly that

the best approach to hand lettering is a

personal approach, where you achieve the

results through your own aesthetic and

style. Instead, I would like to discuss the

process I put together for each of my

projects, remembering that the collage

technique provides me with the motivation

for drawing letters. My technique is all

about deconstruction—every new collage

I start provides me with the ideal way of

creating new letterforms. I start by taking

existing typographic forms, and then I mix

everything together, adding and taking

away, until I create what I call

“Frankenstein typography.” Every new

project produces something different,

and sometimes I will create a complete

new alphabet, but other projects I only

create a single word or sentence.

I might take the stem of a Garamond A,

a serif of an art deco alphabet sourced

from an old magazine my Grandmother

gave me, a swash from the typography

found on a favorite vintage poster, or an

arm from an antique postcard for the

Mercado de las Puglas restaurant in

Mexico. Mix all of these elements together

and you have everything you need to

create a beautiful new character.

It is a difficult process mainly because

there are no guidelines to follow. There is

no sketch or plan so you never know quite

where the process will end or what your

finished type will look like. However, this is

what makes the process so exciting.

Without a plan, the mistakes and the

randomness provide you with your best

design tools. I always try to go with the

process, without going back over a

letterform to make another attempt at

forming it. I also try to use lots of different

paper stocks and surfaces such as kraft

paper, watercolor, and canvas and use a

wide variety of tools including brushes,

colored pencils, pens, and markers. The

right letterforms for each of my projects

result directly from the experimental

process.

The letters have to be drawn with

confidence directly onto the collaged

composition, so you cannot be afraid to

make the marks. It can be a risky

procedure, but if you experiment first you

will in most cases get the results you were

expecting. I do not mind admitting that

some pieces have been ruined during

construction by the bad execution of a

letterform or spilled and splattered ink,

but I do not think of this as a problem.

It is my job.

The process can be very time-consuming

too, as in the case of 1970, which is a

biographical piece, a self-portrait if you

like. All the separate items of text carry

some context with events in my life. It took

a month to complete, with about twenty

days spent on the typography. I used

charcoal on watercolor paper—not

recommended—but it allowed me to

create the exact feeling I wanted for the

piece, something a little chaotic.

The key to everything for me is to

deconstruct. Whether a piece is analog or

digital, a personal piece or something that

has been commissioned, everything is

constructed from deconstruction.

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Ragged:

Type