Adamant, gentle and strong

Date: Opening on 12. October 2009 at 19 pm.
Location: Graphic Collective Gallery, Beograd, Obilićev venac 27.
Duration: The exhibition will be open until 17 October.
Time: Open: 11-20 h; Saturdays 10-16 h

 
 

Belgrade calligraphers, the group  of handwritten letters masters related with Faculty of Applied Arts, got a pair in the growing group of “Belgrade typographers,” the authors of typography, whose expansion is related to the introduction of computers concerning graphics technology and the advent of digital typographic fonts as the main means of graphic design.

In the twentieth century, typography become a product of the printing industry, and its design and production took place under the control of large companies, and thanks to the digital revolution it was returned to artists – creators of typographical forms, which are again was given the opportunity to transform, in their own home, drawings into fonts which can be used in the same way as the ones that offer a large providers.

Vedran Erakovic, younger offshoot of Belgrade calligraphers, skilled in handling reed, cut pen and brush, a lover of renaissance italics and antique cyrillic, and new expressive manuscript experiments, could not resist the temptation to transform fine outlines of his letters into typefaces as well as a few its predecessor, the calligrapher who persuade typography. He test himself into different categories: from typographic interpretation italic handwriting, through extremely linear geometric letters to classical literar family with calligraphic characteristics.

Employment in the Politika brought him the opportunity to participate in the redesign of its daily paper and to attend the creation and help in adjusting the font family specially created for this newspaper. This experience introduced him into the technical and aesthetic requirements needed by the newsletter and awakened in him the desire to do one newsletter to his own liking, with simple and reduced forms and maximum readability at small sizes. As he said himself, he knew exactly what he wanted. The result is Adamant, family letter presented in this exhibition, also Vedran Erakovic master’s thesis at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade in the field of Scripture.

A wide range of weight that ensures that each opportunity can choose the most appropriate set of fonts is obtained by applying a multi-master, where the variation in weight gain using two basic fonts that are simultaneously drawn.

 
 

Although form letters entirely subordinate to its purpose, which is printed in the difficult conditions of newspaper publishing, for poor quality paper, the letters drawing is subtle, and forms serif with rounded ends. That makes this letter firm in construction with simple shapes, but softened details.

While visual quality of letters could be seen at the exhibition, look at the style and forms of letters on the scales that are part of the exposed composition, characteristics that makes it a valuable and functional graphical tool can be assessed only by applying the modern programs for piling where special benefits come handy resulting in OpenType-programming environment, devised to facilitate access to refined requirements of superior typographic design.

These benefits will soon be able to bring users around the world, because Adamant will be found into assortment of Greek company Parachute. Also, Vedran Erakovic for Adamant won the award in the category of typography in the renowned competition Gryphon 2008, a free version of Adamant BG is available thanks to the cooperation of the Secretariat for Culture, Belgrade City Assembly and Association Tipometar.