[illustration] Painting A Picture of USC With Type

1785.

Nota Bene: I have just learned that Kelly Guimont, at the Extensis blog Manage This, has linked to this entry with favorable noises. I appreciate and recprocate. Please enjoy, and thanks for the link, Kelly. If you all like what you see here, consider linking? And if you need someone to do production work, I am so available it hurts (my skill set is down in the sidebar (AdobeCS3QuarkXPressjustsayin).

Some typographers talk of "painting with type", after they pass a point where they realize that glyphs are more than just shapes ... each one contains a balance of light and dark, each has a sort of personal value (value here in the light-dark artistic way, not in the "I'm fond of the letter S" way).

Today's Big O gives us an example of what we mean by that. As depicted by Quentin Lueninghoener, the USC Trojans athletic logo is reimagined in type. Some parts of it seem to make an ineffable point: the word SCORING in place of the visor, giving a point of view; the word OFFENSE forms a side-guard; cerebral sorts of things such as DEFENSE, PASSING, and BLOCKING which can be quite cerebral in as much as they are key tactical things, fill the cranium. And, above all, is the primary concern of the Beavers in tonights game: FINDING A CRACK IN THE TROJANS' ARMOR.

Type is most commonly found as you view it here; in sentences, giving visual form to thoughts rendering communication. Using it as effective illustration pushes the concept of type and what it can do to a whole new level, conveying not only simple communication but effectively illustrating abstract thought.

That the illustrator did it within the canon of The O's headline type spec is something I especially admire. This is one accomplished job.

Put this one in the "Wish We'd Thought of That One" file.

(Illo copyright The Big O, used for illustrative purposes only)

UPDATE: We found out, overnight, that the Beavers did indeed find the crack in the Trojans' armor, much to the dismay of USC;  Trojans 21, Beavers 27!

The Giant Killer's are back. If there's a sports heaven, Dee Andros is very happy today.

Tags: Typography, type illustrations, painting with type, The Oregonian, Quentin Lueninghoener

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