Gold

Created for Erik Brandt’s Ficciones Typografika.

The idea behind this poster was to bring seemingly ordinary materials into a print situation.

An under appreciated, yet precious material: aluminum. Foil formed.

Scanned, dithered with upscaled digital noise, gradient masked. Bordered with the Golden Ratio in mind, as a way to frame the metal. Hand manipulated Letraset Helvetica type declares, “GOLD”. Not only a solid word, but one of typographic strength. These are some of my favourite letter forms (see Grand).

When working with one colour of ink, you are limited in binary, on and off, positive and negative. I took advantage of the yellow office stock Erik was using in other prints of the series as a way of access to a second colour.

The graphic speaks of faux gold/Fool’s gold in some sense. What I hope can be taken away upon viewing this is that you can create value to a print, it can be something of beauty and worth through only a few variables.

To quote myself in 2014:

I enjoy experimenting, distorting imagery, intentionally upscaling, stretching, filtering. Rules are just asking to be broken.

There’s something liberating about creating work with a pure visual power.

What I felt then I feel now.

The poster submission post can be seen here.

Published in Ficciones Typografika 1642 through Formist Editions.

“A perfect single, this one really showed off what was possible with the humble Océ printer and overcoming the limitations of one-colour printing.”
— Erik Brandt
Smith, J 2020, ‘One billboard in Powderhorn, Minneapolis’, Typenotes, issue 3, p. 8, https://hello.monotype.com/rs/800-DWE-978/images/TypeNotes_Issue3.pdf

Paperback
210 × 300 mm
624 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6484650-0-3 (Print)

Gold
Gold
Gold