Our typography tour now takes us to the stunning works of designers like Christopher Haines, Cris Wicks, Ben Heine, Nelly Furtado and others who have designed and created Typographic portraits — contour art — painting portraits with type, letters, and letterforms …
PORTRAITS MEET TYPOGRAPHY: Contour Art
All month, our Fonts Fest pieces have been slightly blurring the lines between traditional typography and the art of turning typography into art for its own purposes. Such is the case with these striking pieces, all hewn of typography, letter forms and typographics. In all cases, we attempt to contact the artists or designers for permissions to utilize their works, and to link into their sites. Unfortunately many post their art to sites like Deviant Art, and then vanish to parts unknown. We’re still trying to contact several, but for now, please enjoy their works …
Illustrating patterns in data
Everybody wants to do an art piece of Obama. Except this piece was created back in 2008, utilizing patterns in the apparent chaos of real life data. This terrific piece is by Jeff Clark from Unionville, Canada, with an academic background in Applied Physics and Mathematics.
See: Jeff Clark’s site
Christopher Haines, Master Illustrator
This was an illustration for Computer Arts Magazine #111, about typography — All of the elements were hand placed in Illustrator.
Christopher Haines is an Illustrator and Designer from Perth, Australia. He has been involved in digital media since 2001 and has worked with a number of international clients. His style is a complex mix of photography, 3d and digital painting which combines to create a bold and unique style.
Cris Wicks : eye for type and art
These images are by artist and designer Cris Wicks. The images are so large, and there is so much detail, you really have to view it that large to really see everything in the image. So far we’ve been unable to reach Cris for comment, but we keep trying. Catch up with other works by Cris at
Type FACES volume one continues on the next page
Continued …
Monochromatic and Color
Both of these are from the “China Doll” who did a great job building faces from type — unfortunately, China Doll is gone from Deviant Art, to parts unknown.
We have not been able to track her down. That is if it’s a her. Both here are beautifully done, with type following the correct contour.
The typographical works of Ben Heine
Ben Heine is a designer in Belgium, taking photos and drawing now for almost 10 years. See the gallery at his web site for some spectacular works!
Nelly Furtado Typographic Portrait
Linh Chi is a very talented graphic artist and designer with a marked propensity toward typography. Her typographic portraits are stunning. Linh is from Ha Noi, Vietnam. Don’t miss her portfolio at
Screaming type portrait
Goblina is the handle, but Mada Goblin is the name the watermark says. She’s a student of art, and that’s about all we could glean from the DeviantArt page. Her gallery has some other truly sparkling art …
Gosingtian: Typography Humanity
The artist’s name is simply “fade319” but we all know him as Mark Gosingtian. He’s a 23 year old freelance graphic designer, involved in layout, graphic apparel, page design, logo design, illustration, packaging design, graphic design, and branding. His gallery shows some totally awesome vector art.
THE ABOVE ARE SPECTACULAR EXAMPLES OF WORK. As we follow this thread of typography and font stories, always keep in mind that this kind of design work doesn’t just happen. It takes hours and hours of planning and exploration into the elements, the layout and above all the overall intention of the piece. Yes, there are some software packages that can come very close, but they just cannot replace the visual hand of the artist and designer.
When you embark on such a project, always have a specific goal in mind, and always keep the viewer (or reader) as top priority in your planning. This is an excellent exercise in discovering the pure shapes of letterforms, you should try this kind of assembly at least once. Give it a try. You might like what happens.
And don’t forget to send in your masterpieces!
thanks for reading
Don’t forget … we encourage you to share your discoveries about
favorite or famous graphic designers and illustrators with other
readers. Just contact me, and/or join the forums
Next:
Fonts with Attitude Too
Thrill ride: Fonts with Attitude
You need the Most Important Typography Books
Follow along through the History of Typography
See the Gallery of Classic Fonts & Typography used in this years festival
Don’t miss this series of featured Typography stories
Comments about front from DTG Readers
DTG readers answer Q: If you only had ONE FONT?
Designers talk about fonts: Good, Bad and Ugly
If you missed it last year, catch up with the 15th Annual Fonts Festival