Biography Lars Harmsen
Lars Harmsen (1964)
Dipl. Grafik-Designer
MAGMA [Büro für Gestaltung]
Born in Hannover, he lived the first 4 years in Chicago. For eight years his parents took him to Geneva where he learned French before coming to Karlsruhe, finishing in the french section of the European School. He first studied History and German language and literature in Freiburg before starting with design. The Grafic-Design studies took him to Basel, Boston, Saarbrücken and Pforzheim.
MAGMA was founded in 1996 (together with his partner Ulrich Weiß), a year later the first fonts where published under the label of Volcano-Type. The foundry has published over 70 fonts. The webblog www.slanted.de (launched in 2004) has become one of the most "up-to-date German-language website regarding typography.
Lars Harmsen his also cofounder of STARSHOT GmbH, a design company for sport products, now based in Munich.
2004 he designed, together with Ulrich Weiss and Christian Ernst the typography and photography book VERSUS, published by dgv Die Gestalten Verlag in Berlin.
Actually he works on the www.BASTARD-PROJECT.com that will be published by ACTAR in Barcelona in 2006. The project examines cultural identity and the influence of globalism and www on culture and design.
Biography VOLCANO TYPE
Volcano Type began designing fonts for a poster which was raw, smashed up and aggressive. There wasn't any font, so it had to been developed. And having developed one font, they got hooked.
The first design, Magneta, was "a bit polite." It certainly was, if compared to their Fone series, which is based on Letraset letters so worn-out that they only transfer bits of their colour to the page. The first serie of fonts responded to the idea "Everything is possible, and there are no barriers for legibility."
Later the label moved into two more directions: first using a font to express a political idea, and secondly more legible fonts.
The political fonts are based on the wingdings concept: when you press a key, you get an icon instead of a letter. Whether Cambodian genocide victims, symbols of peace and war, or camouflage patterns, they can all be typed using Volcano fonts. When you type your name using the Genocide font, you get other people's faces. That's disturbing.
1.
Header: Don't be afraid
Strap: Creating own fonts is also learning for life
I remember an exercise in art school Basel that I found quite boring at that time: we had to cut once into a black 4x4 cm square paper and than fold it into a new shape. Thousands of different options where possible - a great and simple way to learn about shapes, left-overs, inner-rooms, black and white. Type design is quite similar. It seems to be boring. You need patience. But it's a great lesson.
I often ask trainees to design a typeface. I don't consider type design as something that is only for the "big ones". An immature designer can learn a lot. The personal experience, even if the result doesn't leads to perfect or "really new" typefaces is a great training. Later in your career it helps you designing good logos, signets, CD etc. in harmony and balance.
2.
H: What you don't know won't hurt you.
S: The wisdom of Illegibility
This spring we have been in Hong Kong to work on our Bastard-Project, a research on cultural identity. We just came from Tokyo and felt quite hungry. Our local guide, the type designer John Wu, took us to a small street-bar and ordered a local soup. It tasted wonderful. I noticed that there where the same letters on the menu than on the huge stockpot. Asking John what it says John smiled and answered "Turtle. See: here the shelf, the legs, the head." WE HAD TURTLE-SOUP!!!! From that day I tried to "read" Chinese, especially in restaurants, hoping to discover snakes, dogs and what-ever...Lucky those, who can read!
3.
H: Neither fish nor fowl
S: Make the difference clear
Talking about font-sizes I think it is very important to mark differences clearly. You'll often need two different sizes of the same font close by close. The simple rule: 2pt makes the difference large enough to mark something bigger and smaller. With 1pt difference the gap is not big enough and it will lead to an "uncontrolled" irritation.
4.
H: Fonts are like music
S: The disappointment to see Rosewood on the OX-Font-Menu
My record collection is like a diary. I am neither a fashion-victim nor belong to those who listen to the music of their youth till the end of their lives (ok, except a very few records). I hate German radio for being main-stream-boring-****!
I love discovering music nobody else listens and love to share this experience with my friends. But when a band or songwriter suddenly turns to be mainstream, I strangely depreciate it.
Type is quite similar to music. Beside classic ones I use again and again there are a lot more that I employ intensively for a certain period and than never touch again. I felt very upset when I discovered ROSEWOOD on the OX-Font-Menu. It was obvious that this wonderful font would be robed of its virginity pretty soon.
5.
H: Rotis and Architects
S: Depending on their use, some fonts are a nono!
If a typeface with a strong characteristic is used for creating a logo, it is very important to look at the context. Rotis for example has been used by a lot of architects, following the CD of Sir Norman Foster. A lot of architects seem to love this Rotis. Forget about it when creating a CD for an architect. Rotis sucks!
6.
H: Shapes and spelling
S: Graphic-designers are blind for spelling
Don't just look at words trough the aesthetic glasses. Before ending your typographic work read closely every single world, especially the head- and sub lines. Its not because you're a visual-thinking person that you have to forget about spelling.
