Helvetica - How a Letterform Became Part of All of our Lives

The movie Helvetica is a documentary about a type-face. Before you yawn-off (or click-out), wait a minute. Helvetica is a good movie. Really. At least for anybody interested in any of the arts, design, architecture and fashion fields.

Back in the mists of time when signs were actually hand-painted, I used to paint Helvetica as a letterform (type-form) on advertising billboards. (I was a billboard painter.) Helvetica was always a bit awkward to paint as it's roots were not from the brush and chisel roots of all of western languages letterforms, but from the machine age.

For more of an explanation about the roots of letterforms you must see the movie. Besides setting up the history of typography well, Helvetica the film has interviews with a variety of graphic designers who have completely opposite or divergent opinions about design from each other along with examples of their work so the viewer can make their own judgments.

Listening to contradictory opinions and design theories warms my heart. Strange -- but it does. I love that artists and critics do have strong opinions. And that they change those opinions. Been there, done that, over it is a credo that sits side-by-side with the purity of obsession over one thing for the rest of one's life.

About a week after seeing the movie Helvetica I was working with a designer on a logo I recently did for our family business, www.StandUpPaddleFlatwater.com. She was going through her list of fonts when I saw a name that intrigued me. "Let me see the font Switzerland," I asked her, wondering if what I thought I might see would be something funny.

I did see something funny. Switzerland looked almost exactly liked Helvetica. I don't know the history behind the Switzerland font, but I get the joke. Helvetica is a German made (and owned) type font that was originally supposed to be named after Switzerland. They changed the spelling slightly for the times. It was a marketing ploy of some type (see the movie). In response, somebody made a competing type form they titled Switzerland. A subtle joke tucked into a list of fonts. That's the kind of meaning in an everyday object that keeps the art world inspiring.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Planning the Creative Process

Creative projects of all types have two distinctly different parts to the creative process:

• The creation/planning phase
• The production phase.
  

Some creative projects have definite parameters, like building a bridge or constructing a home. Create a plan, follow it, finish it and move on.

In reality there is always a little cross-over between the two phases. Some challenge not considered in the plan has to be creatively solved during the production phase. The bigger the project, the more important that most of the creative work is finished in the planning phase, as resources and time may not be available to make many mistakes during the production phase. A smaller project, like painting a small image or composing a song can be more flexible (less resources of time and materials are at stake).

The trick for me (and other highly intuitive types) when we plan is to not feel hemmed in by the original plan. I know enough now about my creative working process to nurture my strengths.

I became very aware of the importance of planning a large painting when I painted billboards in the late 1980's. Until then, the most I would do before beginning a painting was a cursory sketch, and I'd often skip that step, preferring to work the sketch out in paint. When the painting became 24 feet long and 11' tall, there was much less room in the time and materials budget to make a mistake. For the most part, I eliminated as many errors as possible before I got to the production phase of the painting.

Planning was crucial when I illustrated a children's book, setting up the 17 paintings necessary for the text. I had to paint them all at the same time to ensure the same exact style from beginning to end. Because my style is very fluid, I knew that I would "loosen" as I painted the images. By planning a synchronized completion of the images, I ensured that the final pieces would fit perfectly together.

When I'm putting together a large project, I am most creative when I work with people who have a certain comfort level with what appears to be chaos (but is actually creativity). I recognize the downside to my strengths (sometimes referred to as a weakness) and set up a safety net. I'm not linear or tidy, and my organization style tends to look like a big wind swept through my studio. Hiring an organized, linear, tidy helper to handle the accounting and to keep my routine administrative tasks in order is one of the ways I plan for success. That leaves me free to do what I do best, and when that happens, my projects are much more successful.

All images and writing on this blog copyright protected Cristina Acosta 2008

My Life as a Ceramic Tile Artist, The Beginning

The year 1994 was the year that I saw my first work of art (my hand painted ceramic tile mural) on a magazine cover . Albeit, it was only about two or three square inches, nonetheless, it was enough to send me all over town buying every copy of the magazine I could find, sending them to my friends & relatives. I was sure I was going to be famous (and rich)!

I began creating ceramic tiles in 1991. I had just finished a two-year stint as a lettering and mural artist for an outdoor advertising (billboard) company, and was teaching college art classes in the evenings. I was so sickened by the substances I used in the billboard work, that I couldn't comfortably oil paint. Implementing a friend's suggestion, I switched to painting on ceramics. Completing a series of images, I sent them to the Ann Sacks Tile & Stone store in Portland, Oregon. Kohler Plumbing Industries had just purchased the store as the flagship for a national chain and I found myself serendipitously in the tile business!
I quickly joined a business class, bought a kiln and learned about the ceramics business. READ MORE. . . .

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Feb. 2008 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Happy Valentines Day! This is the month we honor love. Like most everybody, I've spent a few bummer Valentines Days over the years. Love I learned is a practice. So is art, prayer, parenting, exercise, eating and most anything else that you participate in with your heart and soul. It all becomes a spiritual practice, and each of us brings our unique presence in the practice of our lives to the world. Lavishing beauty on the world is my way of dealing with the negative news that streams from all around the world into my TV set, computer and radio.

Sharing beauty motivates me to begin blogging. I've discovered that I enjoy the artistic discipline of blogging. Writing, like painting is both a craft and art. Searching for things to write about is similar to beginning a painting. I sit quietly with my tools at hand, shut my eyes briefly to signal my mind that I'm entering my place of creative flow and begin.

Sometimes that place leads me to history. As a life-long artist, I've done a lot of different types of art jobs to stay housed and fed. For a couple of years I was a billboard painter. Now that it's a lost art, I wrote the essay, Painting Big - My Life as a Billboard Painter, about my history painting the 24' long outdoor ad murals.

All of this writing hasn't left much free time. I invented Santa Fe Chicken Rice for those days that I don't have much motivation in the kitchen. When you're not cooking or otherwise creating, remember to sign up for my blog. Send me your creative comments and questions and I'll answer them on the blog. Whether you're wondering what color to paint a wall, how to teach someone (yourself!) to draw, make a killer cookie or talk about art, I'd love to hear from you.

Live Happy,

Cristina

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Painting BIG - My Life as a Billboard Artist

Only twenty years ago, a young artist could find paid employment painting pictures. Fresh out of art school or with a good portfolio an artist could find a job that increased their skills at the same time they made a living. Sign painting shops, billboard companies and printing shops used hands-on techniques and tools to make their products. That reality is now a thing of the past in all of those businesses. In 1988 I was one of those young painters. I knew when I got the job of being a billboard painter in 1988 that the field was quickly being extinguished by computers, I didn't know that it would happen as fast as it did. On that note, I am sharing with you my piece of the history of outdoor advertising in the years 1988 until Jan. of 1991. In 1988 in Bend, Oregon, I took the job as the lead and only (it was a small town of 17,000, though the largest town in the region) billboard painter for Carlson Sign. Carlson Sign, owned by Dick Carlson and his family was the dominant sign company in the entire Central Oregon region. They owned leases for billboards as far north as Madras, Oregon, south into Crescent and Chemult and east into Prineville. This meant that on the billboard business alone, Carlson Sign was well financed. Though billboards today are far less numerous than they were years ago, on that foundation, Carlson Sign company continues to be the largest sign shop in the region (and Bend has grown to almost 90,000).

So how did a 28 year old woman, afraid of heights get the job? Not because I had a newly-minted university degree in Painting, but because I'd been painting merchant's windows with sales promos for 5 years throughout the region and become the go-to-painter for this type of work. College degrees were a bit suspect in a painting shop, but my boss put aside his doubts to offer me a temporary job until they could get a real billboard painter from a big city. . . . READ MORE

www.CristinaAcosta.com