Type
We finally made a decision on the text font we will use for Form Music. The font is called «The Neutral Typeface*» and is beeing developed by german type / graphic designer Kai Bernau, student of the kabk in The Hague.
Every now and then we get a fresh version of the font from Kai since it is still in the works. Nonetheless, it is not too far from getting final.
We favor «The Neutral Typeface*» because it picks up on the most commonly known features and details from different epochs and styles which fits exactly in our concept for Form Music. On the other hand, it still expresses a certain restraint and neutrality.
As a matter of fact, the idea behind this project was to create a font that has no associations to anything but a typeface itself — a neutral typeface
Like in the imagery, It was important for us to find a font which not to be associated with a single musical style.
Check out the
font specimen!
*Working Title
Website Development
In the meanwhile, we're working hard on the designs for the Form Music website, which will be based on abstract geometric forms posted ealier here. It's taking shape and excerpts will be posted here on monday.
And there's another new name on our guest list:
Erin McClellan helps us to build up the website, he'll be our flash-expert for all the moving and interaction going on there.
More about this collaboration soon!
seb_and_d - 13. May, 14:22
Seb and D were pretty busy working on the imagery lately.
None of the sketches we did for the imagery layer convinced us really – Until now. We think the designs we did the last days are pretty close to what we were looking for.
As written in the brief we got from mark, the imagery is supposed to have an organic feel and should not be associated with any specific style of music, since Form Music is covering them all.
The organic Forms we intend to use are generally based on research of various techniques of visualising music.
The loose forms of the imagery are put in shape by the graphical forms of the second layer – which means – Form Music gives a shape to the complex and unmanageable amount of music expanding every day and is able to guide their clients through the dark and scary forests of the music industry.
Check out the gallery!
Inspired by Engadget, we developed an Automator-Plugin that makes an Audiofeed of the latests posts of this site in seconds so you can put the audio file on your iPod and listen to it while on the train - or whatever.
This is a Mac OS X Tiger feature only!
Download it here.
seb_and_d - 5. May, 21:57
Check out the revised designs of the graphic layer in our latest gallery. These graphic illustrations are visualising the process of filing and choosing certain music-tracks for potential clients. The lines are proportional to the 7", 12" vinyl records, audio cassette and the CD.
The picking of music tracks for certain projects is illustrated by dragging the discs out of their sleeves.
This concept is visualised in an abstract and formalistic way to honor the company's name "Form Music".
We ordered 60 T-Shirts in royal and black on monday so imagine them with these graphics on - Nice, innit?. The T-Shirts will be up for sale during the exhibition of this project in july. More details soon.
Furthermore, we are constantly working on the imagery of the second layer, which are the photographies we took in Photoshooting III. We experimented with lots of different structures to give a "screen-feeling" to this pictures and to make them look more coherent to the graphical layer.
seb_and_d - 28. Apr, 22:12
Finally, we are presenting the photos we took yesterday in this little gallery.
To provide a subtle and emotional expression for film in the imagery, we basically took long-time exposures of moving images. We realized that music videos worked out better than others due to their fast cuts.
Needless to say, your comments are very welcome.
We used Videoclips by the following bands and DJs:
New Order, Queens of the Stone Age, DJ Shadow, Boards of Canada, Autechre, !!!, Aphex Twin, TV on the Radio, The Tough Alliance, Tortoise, The Album Leaf, Interpol and others.
seb_and_d - 26. Apr, 14:14
It's true, it has been a bit silent here lately, due to not only the birth of my brother's daughter «Hello Emma!», but also to a few presentations and meeting with our professors where we discussed the imagery, typography and first sketches.
Last week, we mainly developed the graphical layer which will be placed above the imagery. Deriving from the music formats of the 7", 12" vinyl records, audio cassette and the CD, a composition of simplified vector graphics will express the substantial part of FM's work, which is sourcing and reviewing musical data on the basis of certain valuation criterias - organizing, filtering, and structuring.
To give you an idea of what we are talking about, you can take a look at a few samples here.
From monday on we will conduct another photoshooting.
We had the idea of long-term-exposure photography of projected film to emphasize the sublime moment, where music and film merge*.
So come back next week for a new gallery of images.
*Quote by Mark Kirbyseb_and_d - 23. Apr, 21:53
The last days we digged through a massive amount of fonts to find a suitable text font for the visual identity of Form Music.
We believe that starting out with the right text font will make it easier to develop other parts of the typographic layer like the headline font, logo &c.
Our first selection featured grotesk, slab-serif and a few antiqua fonts. We got rid of the antiqua fonts and focused on grotesk and slab-serif because we wanted the font to express a balance between seriousness and modernity. Furthermore, its style is supposed to suit the imagery.
We're looking for a type which is, in coherence with the imagery, able to show the character of Form Music, the people behind it and their musical competence.
Today, we narrowed our selection down to ten.
Take a look at the pdf here or click on the image.
Here is a list of the fonts and foundries featured in the pdf:
Schulbuch Süd | FontFont
Schulbuch Nord | FontFont
Geometric706 Md BT | Bitstream
Serifa | Adobe Systems
Geometric Slabserif 703 BT | Bitsream
Geometric Slabserif 712 BT | Bitsream
District | Garagefonts
Gotham | Hoefler Type Foundry
Bryant | Process Type Foundry
Bryant Alternate | Process Type Foundry
seb_and_d - 13. Apr, 15:33
Go here to download 622 music videos of all sorts and styles.
[Via IT&W Mac Essentials.]
seb_and_d - 13. Apr, 01:24
Now that we have developed two different approaches to the imagery, we are interested in your opinion.
Which of those two do you personally associate with film and music in general?
Please make a choice.
We would appreciate a short note in the comments.
63.64%
(7 votes)
Approach - Light
36.36%
(4 votes)
Approach - Water
Total: 100% (11 votes)
Created by seb_and_d on 12. Apr, 10:45.
This poll was closed on 23. Apr, 21:26.
Gallery: Approach I – Light
Gallery: Approach II – Water
seb_and_d - 11. Apr, 21:58
A second approach to the imagery in the gallery section:
seb_and_d - 11. Apr, 21:41
Amongst others, Wired Magazine are provoking the death of the disc as a data carrier – in this case music. A lot of media are slowly disappearing from the market.
So we thought about giving them a new mission:
The dimensions of the 12" vinyl, the 7" vinyl, CD and cassette will be transformed into:
a. A set of lines that will constitute the second layer we mentioned in the visual concept. [left]
b. The layout grid.
[right]seb_and_d - 11. Apr, 15:52
For everyone who is interested in music and it's visualisation, we would like to recommend «Visual Music» by Kerry Brougher, Jeremy Strick and Ari Wiseman.
The book covers the visual approach to music from abstract painting of Wassily Kandinsky and Frantisek Kupka to the mid-century experimental films of Oskar Fischinger and Harry Smith to contemporary installations by Jennifer Steinkamp and Jim Hodges.
The book was just released by Thames & Hudson.
seb_and_d - 9. Apr, 01:05
Upon request:
Since some of you asked for a longer version of the light projection video,
here's a new quicktime in better quality for you to download. [.zip / 6.1megs].
Audio: «Shish» by Chronomad taken from «Sokut»
seb_and_d - 8. Apr, 18:21
«We have, therefore, in colour, as in music, both discord and harmony, wide in their scope and mutually dependent. We can in both produce series and sequences of harmonies differing in their degree of pleasantness. We can change them into discords and resolve them again into harmonies, we can, in fact, use colour as we use musical sounds.»
A. Wallace Rimington
seb_and_d - 8. Apr, 17:36
A gallery with a few of our favorite images from today's shooting is now up for viewing.
I might also add that we have got a little contest for you to ease the pain of commenting. The reader with the most commments at the end of this project will receive a super-duper present including all developed products and maybe a few things more*… . The winner will be announced in mid-june.
So register a username, and you might get the chance to win some stuff.
Cheers and night night!
*Hint: Music-related. ;-)seb_and_d - 8. Apr, 02:07
Had the first photoshooting today - moving images filtered with a manual technique – resulting in abstract forms.
Check out the
movie* today. Image gallery will follow tomorrow.
*Song: «Echoes of Me» by Deru taken from his excellent album «Pushing Soil»seb_and_d - 7. Apr, 22:44
Today, we bought a few things from the second-hand shop like lights, monitors and an alarm clock to take a few pictures for the imagery. It's rather a test than the final thing to see how the lights turn out on digital photography.
We rented a studio for tomorrow to conduct another shooting…so check back later in the evening to get a glimpse of the imagery.
seb_and_d - 6. Apr, 22:51
It's about time to tell you about the products we will develop during the next 2,5 months…in order of priority
01 Website
The site will be the core product. It has to be the strongest reference point with information about the founders, concept, services, artists, composers etc etc.
02 Compilation CD
The samplers will probably have a specific topic or theme and will be sent out seasonally. Music will mainly be published on Vertical Form. Graphically, the samplers may have a generic concept that could be adopted differently.
03 Stationary
Letterhead, business card and packaging for CD-sendouts.
Optional products:
Sticker, Badges, T-Shirts, Screensavers, Posters, Flyers, Brochures, iPod cases etc etc
seb_and_d - 5. Apr, 22:16
We know it is pretty hard to imagine how the layers we mentioned in the concept might look like. We didn't have a clue either!
The last days we dicussed* a lot about the way these layers could interact with each other on every product.
We developed a few digital sketches which illustrate how the abstract photo-images could work with the structured grids.
* means: scribbling, banging heads against walls, photoshop-tennis etc etc
seb_and_d - 5. Apr, 22:12
Form Music to the point:
Form Music's task is not only to source music, but also composing music for the TV-, film- and advertising industry. The expertise of FM is clearly a tremendous knowledge in the field of music.«Obviously, the very essence of our business is the skill myself and my associates have in marrying visuals with sound and music»
«The company target market is young twenty-something film makers or advertising creatives right through to heads of departments and executives in their mid fifties. Musically, we are covering styles completely across the board, therfore the look should not be affiliated or associated to any singular genre.»
The imagery will divided into two layers:
The first layer will represent the musical landscapes in which FM acts and is represented by abstract photography, incorporating a visual sense for the agility and the emotional power of music when merged with the moving image. This layer should be able to communicate the world of music and film in general - subliminal but stunning.
The second layer will communicate a substantial part of FM's work, which is sourcing and reviewing musical data on the basis of certain valuation criterias - organizing, filtering, and structuring. This approach will be visualized by a strong and clear graphical structure, e.g. a grid, which collides with the artistic aesthetics of the first layer in the background.
Typography
Since Form Music will be working with well recognized agencies from the film and TV-business, a subtle seriousness must be able to express plausibility in the appearance. On the other hand, the information layer is intended to have its own character.
More details concerning typography will emerge while developing the imagery.
seb_and_d - 5. Apr, 21:17
Form Music to the point:
Form Music's task is not only to source music tracks on the basis of certain criteria, but also composing music for the TV-, film- and advertising industry. The expertise of FM is clearly a tremendous knowledge and access to an immense database in the field of music.
Imagery
A substantial part of FM's work is browsing and analyzing data on the basis of certain valuation criterias - filtering, organizing and structuring. The musical landscapes in which FM acts, is represented in the imagery by abstract forms which fit into a global structure. Structured chaos to clarify the diversity, agility and the massive amount of all sorts and styles of music. The chosen forms should be able to communicate the world of music in general.
The process of choosing and filtering music will be visualized in the imagery of the identity. It is represented in two different hierarchical levels. In the first level, we visualize the cherry-picking of individual tracks, in which individual forms are removed from the structure and turned upside down. The forms have different colours on the back, so that extracted parts will be able to form other elements of the identity e.g. the logo.
On the second, more complex hierarchic level, the form structures overlay and result in new [typographic] forms.
We will develop a flexible, global design that is able to work slightly different with the respective media. Thus, the interactivity of the forms will surely play an important role on the website.
Typography
Since Form Music will be working with well recognized agencies from the film and TV-business, a subtle seriousness must be able to work to express reliability in the appearance. This condition led to the decision that typography should have a structured and clean character.
seb_and_d - 29. Mar, 21:31
A few logo designs for the sake of orientation.seb_and_d - 29. Mar, 21:30
seb_and_d - 24. Mar, 16:23
