MELLE HAMMER / with guest type-designer Mark Jamra August 5 - 9
"The best music becomes inaudible after the first few bars".
"There is always a message before the message, a message about the message, and the message itself".

The Letters of Definition.
Exploration of the narrative qualities of individual letters. Visualize the borders between words and image. Typography inside out. The Letters of Definition is an exploration of the narrative qualities of individual letters. With competing experiments participants will envision how type can be used as an organizing, an articulating or even a meaningful tool in design...if the face of a type is marked by its style...if a typeface is medium-defined or content-related. Then: what is within the reach of gestures to be made by the designer? How do we orchestrate the experience that precedes reading? Join Melle Hammer to search for the story beyond content. He'll share the methods he employs at his Amsterdam design education center, Drift [passion/eager], which "interrogates, teaches and supports the design of words and images." Guest typographer Mark Jamra will be on hand to provide second opinions, a different perspective and the element of surprise.

BIO
Melle Hammer 17-3-1956 it's a boy! habit: Amsterdam. On and on surprised and confused... career began as a graphic designer at a not to be mentioned advertising agency when was eighteen just before he graduated after studying at Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie, Amsterdam. He started at Total Design Amsterdam, In 1987/88 Hammer stopped his career as advertising designer/creative director and restarted together (in a permanent fight) with Bas Oudt began Plus-X; "Plus-X wants to go further than just filling in the assignment. We take a personal attitude towards the job, the profession and life." Hammer has done stage design for opera, designed furniture and industrial products. In 1997 he produced the title sequence for Johan van der Keuken's film "Amsterdam: Global Village." Hammer worked together with Jaap Blonk on an experimental theater performance for voice and typography. He published the series, "Confetti" and is now publishing "Ekster: [Magpie]" see details below. He organized 5x High-T(ypography): presentations and lectures at werkplaats typography in Arnhem, the Netherlands. As an educator, Hammer taught typography at the Rietveld Academy, was chair of the design department at the Jan van EIJCK Akademie from 1999 through 2001 and has lectured and led workshops in the Netherlands as well as in Stuttgart, Paris, San Francisco and Portland, Maine. He is currently organizing Drift, an educational happening he founded in Amsterdam. Drift is a meetingpoint for designers, advertising-designers and artists initiating various workshops on the design of words and images.

Ekster: [Magpie] is a kaleidoscopic series of loose, sixteen-page quires, starting with a sheet of paper which is printed and folded to achieve the form. Each quire is made by a different designer and produced by a different printer. Both receive part of the printed edition to distribute in their own circle. The remainder is distributed by the publisher amongst the subscribers.