Crafts

Dutch Design Daily

1 / 6

By

By

By

By

By

By
Novo Typo www.novotypo.nl

Offgrid Berlin

By 25-08-2021

A DIY proposal for Creating a Self-Sufficient Graphic Design Studio

Mark van Wageningen / Novo Typo present his return to the three fundamental elements of analogue graphic design—letters, ink and paper—in an exhibition that offers designers a way to respond to the economic and individual vulnerabilities by means of an exercise in self-sustainability for graphic designers.

The workshop-style exhibition is an opportunity to learn and to reflect on how to de-standardize and autonomize in order to be truly self-sufficient. On the background of this exercise lies the need to face a global overly complex system of production, supply chains and restrictive industrial standards, that have shown their dangerous disruptive effects, specially at the beginning of the pandemic.

Based on the core idea that a typographic design studio that designs and produces its own letters should also be able to make its own ink and paper, Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin will show how we can produce our own locally sourced paper and plant-based inks, in order to create our own tools and methods.

By independently selecting the raw materials for the production of paper and ink, a new and bespoke standard is defined. In the process, the designer and the artisan should be one and the same person, free to choose how to produce and visualize their designs, thereby regaining control over their end product.

Book
“Novo Typo Offgrid” is the latest book by Mark van Wageningen. Aiming at inspiring the pursuit of different approaches in graphic design, the publication is an in-depth presentation of his concept of the self-sufficient design practice, which proposes a new standard for polychromatic typography by using plant-based ink and recycled paper. Novo Typo Offgrid is available for order via www.novotyposhop.nl

Mark van Wageningen is the founder of Novo Typo, a typographic design studio and font foundry based in Amsterdam. The design output of Novo Typo is a mix of commissions and self-initiated projects, and it has attracted the interest of a variety of international design magazines, blogs, and publications. As a self-proclaimed ambassador of digital and analogue multicolored typography, van Wageningen presents the work of Novo Typo in several international design conferences and festivals. He is the author of design awarded books, such as “Typewood”, “Novo Typo Color Book”, and “Type and Color”.

Exhibition ‘Offgrid Berlin’
A–Z, Berlin
8 July until 26 August, 2021
a-z-presents.com