Craig Ward

Concentrating further on the idea of the written word as a series of illustrations, I have been looking at the work of Craig Ward, as he is a strong believer of this statement.

The name of his online portfolio expresses this perfectly titled 'words are pictures' as he tries to go against all traditional type design and wants to celebrate each letter as a piece of art.

I found this interview extract for 'Bak magazine' very interesting...

"Each letter should have a flirtation with the one next to it" says Mac Baumwell. In your opinion, what qualities make a typographic composition good enough?

Unlike most other creative pursuits there are a lot of rules that you can choose to follow when working with type. In doing so you’ll create something that is considered ‘right’ by the wider typographic community: there will be a grid; things will line up; if you’re working with body copy you shouldn’t have more than 15 words per line and so on and so forth. Of course, you’ll run the risk of creating something that’s been done countless times before. The best typography acknowledges the rules and work that has been done before and decides how to interpret it and to what extent to follow it’s lead.

On a personal level, one thing that unites all good typography is scale and contrast. Some people are afraid of using type above 12pt and hide it away in the bottom left corner of a page – what I try to do is the opposite; to celebrate the type. As soon as you enlarge type it becomes something else – more than just a series of letters. It becomes a shape or a set of curves – something abstract; it takes on a gender and a character and the craftsmanship of the type designer really comes to the fore.

(link to the article)