Colophon
David Bennewith
Oudeschans 35
1011 KT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email

All material copyright David Bennewith and authors, not to be reproduced without prior permission.

About.
Established in 2007 Colophon is interested in typography and relies on examination, rehersal and writing into subjects surrounding [typo]graphic design. Future, intermittent, publications are planned.

Links.
The National Grid
Lineto
Lüthi and Andreasen
s/f
JC
PE
Plastic World
WT b/w JVE
Bik Van der Pol
Studio Ahoy
Mobile Carrion
Sortby
Bracken
Daymark
Performance
Weekender
Well, duh...
More as we think of them...

Speculative text (in progress). Full of generalisations.
A production ain't no thing.
They are operating in the left field and also in the midst of processes – but are unrealised (as yet) in terms of their potential. Alternative ideas of production might offer possibilities only if they can fulfill a requirement [however abstract] that will circumvent or replace another one. Production in graphic design, in this case, needs to be re-thought; in terms of paradox, exercise, reception and exchange. Because now it operates mostly as something rather defensive and clearly ambivalent. Have you seen the film? Simply showing processes is not enough. You might propose a halt to production, or a subversion of the means and outcomes of production that goes beyond an 'outcome is not important' paradigm; which still has yet to become widely implemented. How this fits into language, personal and civil, is still of importance. Voice can be stripped of voice: stripped of talking; word; of thing; of act – fact. For the utterance of individual and the choir (filter, container, shelter, and sign), no objects are required, but outcomes ... upset upon each other. You must but you may not at all. Paper/folded/archive.
So then, are you going to relinquish distance? Might as well. Because towns are being replaced by clusters; coupled with easy access to a means of creating a surrounding culture, one without too much detail [or attention to it] for that matter. This might be a part of a point. A point to begin with. Things packed up and put against the wall soon relinquish spirit and access. It is then the plugs, the ones that give the juice to the lights, that have a strong part to play. They provide the means for these things to be made found again. Although this re-discovered matter eventually winds-up more rough and general, like snacks becoming more nourishing than meals, projection suddenly becomes more powerful than print. All these packed up things might really need is the appearance to bleed colours and light! While the other sort is still and simply absorbs. Then: What becomes the neutral thing here? What is speaking to what? Without much practice! These things become force-fed: composition, exchange, resonance, maintenance, material, this font – all acting nimble and itchy. And this irritation so you can finally wear your voice on the outside; these things will play to your voice like insects. Reminding us that, sometimes, in our bodies (that will never be worth it), there are parts that can be heard – not listened to – but heard. Restricted by the tongue lapping on the inside of the mouth. And some cramped fingers. The acquired parts for making seem – essentially – each time the same and yet the process is always very different, so backwards ... Maybe you must act in-kind to the matter in the outset. This must be how it becomes activated and finally able to transmit clearly back inside. Apparent, maybe, but not obvious.
In not an entirely pleasing way all software has started communicating, don't worry, it just happens in the background. You might be happy about it! Here, backgrounds and skeletons become very important. Not there to be fully-noticed, just fully-functional. These things that seemingly aren't even 'made', they simply (nowadays at-least) exist. Inside wood, inside stone, inside friends, inside bone, inside paper (& even ink); just inside – structures for all the creeping messages – mine and also yours. Makeable additions, always mutable, transforming, communicative, anesthetised [vice-versa]. Acting with a thing. Acting with anything, being told and (op-)positioned in a forceful way towards it, from influence to subject. There is the dialogue which takes the outcome back to influence again. & adding it all up, these seem to be the possibilities available for now – the most overlooked.
Typedesigners and linguists, now that might be a meeting! Either it will be: hands around your neck, like this necklace. Or: a way to move ahead. Here [ • <– right here] we find a careless environment. Tied up with gossip and copies [constant messages], causing (along older, familiar, places of access) walls to form. Feeding off rotting corpses, hoping for visions; or even connections, that will – must – eventually occur. Not readily sacrificing the positions and circumstances of the upper eschelon. Endorsements, precariously connected to output and vice-versa. Safe and (weirdly) able to move it on down the line. Not a bad deal there. Sadly, these are not supporters of independent thinking, but only of a perceived audience. Watching from the distance to which we are always placed, this exterior:
Fields of paradox, but of inspiration.
Ambivalence, that of choice.
Fallacious, like the melody.
Method, familiar, all wound-up; strangled.
An instance of Memory, that might cause chaos.
Don't trust the too prolific – they are bound to be completely dogmatic.
It is difficult to believe things work in this way. Work seems fake. From the top, the middle and the bottom, through and in-between each there must be possibilities, outs. Keep working, please keep going. Only wish that the fear of time all collapsing won't happen, again. Making information is, as it seems (at this point in time at least), at it's most flexible. Image the bastion and text full of contranyms. Just try to justify your own now-a-days when going it alone. When did this change? You don't have your own work – you have someone else's. Tell them "It's over!" It's over. Not to be too calculated. Try to be forgetful of how – or even the moment – it was made."The first word spoken, then the message itself."
"Should a word have two meanings?"
"Should words serve the truth?"
Erasure, not by mistake. How can work be erased? What things make erasing possible? In what places can erasure function? In here, looking for a new way to *_*_*_*_* *_* *_*_*_*_* about design.
Impossible to describe what it will look like, because it will most-probably look the same. At least in history it hasn't been short of it's challengers, detractors and mis-users; probably, hopefully, neither in the future. Keep an eye out for the too prolific – they are bound to be completely dogmatic, y'know. 'A patient waiter is no loser.'

REPETITION
to the effect of eating itself
& forgetting how
it might begin to differentiate itself, again
like the head that vomits itself
like necromancy
parculiarities
submersion
never to be again, Fan

INTENTION
to risk and to find it's vocabulary
by decipherment
to find lost details, obliterated because of necessary limitations of design software
find a place of context
visit the consequence of roles changing, and instigation of said roles.
in accordance: speaking will change, spelling will change, recognition will be altered
mistakes, built in, visible, penetrable.
take-away options?
erasures
and disconnected to commerce, at all costs
knowing that it is not the technology that will change it.

RELAPSE
inevitable
on all sides
always
metaphors

Begun in process, then becoming outside of it. Development?