Letterforms are captivating. They help create stories and pictures in your mind when you read. Through letterforms, we access and retrieve important information at any time and – through them – experience the world differently. Letterforms can function in an extremely small or an enormously large version. Letterforms help typeset texts and “paint” pictures. In fact, typographic characters show a rich and varied spectrum of forms. In past centuries, letterforms were a part of major art movements; later, in the 19th century, they became more fashionable and stylish and in the 20th century more systematic! And what is new in this century? The workshop will explain and show the very character of each letterform in its details. We shall focus on a number of type signs with regard to a concept based on the visual rules of the three basic shapes in Latin type (circle, square, and triangle), the different stroke and curve directions and their terminals. The interaction of drawing by hand and further development on the computer allows for a differentiated and, perhaps, new awareness and appreciation of type forms.
Prof. Philipp Stamm, 1966,trained as a typographer before he began his studies at the Basel School of Design in Typographic Design and Visual Communication. His thesis project dealt with the topic of “The Extension of the Latin Alphabet for the German Language”, published in the Swiss Typographic Magazine 1/1997 et al. His type design work was exhibited in 2000 at the Künstlerhaus in Vienna and 2004 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. In 2001, he designed the Gutzwiller Corporate Type for a Swiss private bank. Since 2000, Philipp Stamm has been a lecturer in Type Design, Typography, and Corporate Design at the HGK Basel FHNW. Apart from his teaching activity, he has worked for eight years on a documentation of the complete typographic work of Adrian Frutiger. Over a period of two years, he also conducted interviews and discussions with the well-known Swiss type designer. In 2008, the comprehensive monograph of Adrian Frutiger’s type design was published in German, English, and French – Heidrun Osterer, Philipp Stamm: Adrian Frutiger – Typefaces: The Complete Works. The second edition, revised and expanded with an index, was published in 2014, the third edition in 2021. His new book was also published by www.birkhauser.com in 2020/21: Schrifttypen · Verstehen / Kombinieren – Schriftmischung als Reiz in der Typografie and the English edition: Understanding Combining · Typefaces – Typeface Combination as Typographic Stimulus.
The Institute Digital Communication Environments (IDCE) offers workshops for students, educators and graphic designers.
The workshops afford insights into topical themes of visual communication in a study programme reflecting the rich tradition of the Basel School of Design. Practical exercises with a high level of professionalism form the core of the workshops focus. Reflection as well as contextual knowledge will be conveyed by way of input sessions, allowing participants’ work to be judged within a contemporary, future-oriented context relevant to professional practice. The trinational Rhine River Valley is a unique cultural environment with easy access to France and Germany and to sites such as the Vitra Design Museum (G), the Isenheimer Alter (F), or Ronchamps (F). In Basel, the Fondation Beyeler, Tinguely Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Schaulager, and Museum of Contemporary Art are world-renowned. Besides its museums, Basel offers a rich mixture of cultural events.
Institute Digital Communication Environments (IDCE)
Through digital media and the democratisation of communication channels that goes hand in hand with it, the critical handling of their visual and interaction-based design has become decisively more important, because the social relevance of information and communication has thus fundamentally changed.
