Tuesday 22 January 2008

A Night In The Department

Later is better than never, here are the adventures I postponed to blog about. Be prepare for everyday updates this week, I have a lot to tell… But let’s start from the beginning.

Another big step in our way to learn type design.We were back in Reading with a tough program: one week for an essay. After Gerry’s last guide lines and a slight topic change for me —from Arabic dictionaries to ‘Secondary types’ strategies in Arabic typography– we all got through 6 days of hard work outlining, writing, drafting, reading, note-taking, researching, scanning in various orders, a few times overlapped by sleep and food – Dan used to talk about blurry memory refering to this time of our lives.

Derek Birdsall said you always have to multiply a dead-line by π, since the University is not really joking about multiplication Manu, Dan aka lovely-effecient-super-proof-reader, Joke & I decided to spend the Sunday evening in the Department. Work, fun, gymnastic, coke light and printers were there too… Soon the evening turned into night and we had the pleasure to enjoy our first sunrise on campus (a lot before generating the definitive pdf files).
And by 12 pm on Monday essays were dropped in the box!

Others ‘we did it’ pictures here and here!

Saturday 19 January 2008

Vacances de Noël

Des couscous chez Mamane, des sapins de Noël, des vrais, des faux, des huitres, des bobouns chez Schen, des concert de jazz, des bierres, une amoureuse, des aubergines, des bornes et des bornes, des tours Eiffel, des nouvels ans, des friends, des bretons, des metros, des meufs, des mecs, des soldes, des tarrots, des Auchans, des décapsuleurs Coca Cola, des cousins, des maisons au bord de la mer, des vélos, des bisous, des copains, des copines, du coca sur les canapés, des nouveaux appartements, des cadeaux and so on. Hum, nothing really translatable…

Forever love les tout petits amis.

Last night in Reading

For our last night in the UK, a few days before Christmas, Yvonne got a call from one of her German friends whose boyfriend was playing in Reading – ?! – Without deeply questioning the probability of such things happening, Yvonne, Manu, Ibrahim & I went there. We ended in a ‘tuxedo cheap Oscar dress estate agency private almost over Christmas party’.
I must say we ruled the dance floor

Things We Don’t Have In France: Chocolate Letters

Two weeks before Christmas we had the pleasure to welcome Gerben, former student at the MATD and previous occupier of the Foxhill castle. He and some of his classmates were back in Reading to received the fruit of their hard work, during the so-called graduation ceremony!
Beside wearing a squarish hat he also brought us a little part of his Nerderlandish home country: a massive chocolate V. It seems that this not well enough known field of typography raise some challenging design issues, since all the letters should weight the same…
Thank you folk, congratulations!