Lettering Like a Party: Inside the Design of TypeCon 2025 with Designer/Artist James Plattner

All right. So, let me ask you about your your um inspirations. To me, it feels like it has a little bit of like 60s or 70s or something very expressive. Like what what was the impetus behind that design direction? >> Yeah. Um, I think this past year I've been really making an effort to just step outside of current design trends and take a little bit of a dive through history. Um, in search of some inspiration that isn't too derivative of just whatever is hot on the internet. >> Um, and yeah, I've gotten really stuck on the 70s, I guess, the whole like Lou Balon studio, all that stuff. Um, all of his >> his cronies and the really incredible lettering work they were doing. Um, I think there's just an expression there and like a a life to the letters that is hard to >> find anywhere else. Um, >> I've taken a couple of uh script classes from Ken Barber in the past year >> and that's been a pretty revoly experience for me. Um, it's made it difficult to not practice that sort of thing every day and try to work that into my own projects, you know. Um, so I think I think just the the 25-y year milestone, it felt like the theme for this needed to be just celebration, you know, um, and something that felt sort of historic, too. So, uh, you know, trying to do lettering that feels like feels like a party, you know, feels welcoming and also feels intergenerational in the way that Typcon is, you know. >> Mhm. Did any of this come across in the brief given to you or was it like hey you have total freedom whatever you feel like it's 25 and that's pretty much the only parameter. >> Yeah. >> Total freedom which is fun and scary at the same time. >> Okay. And why is it scary? >> Just overwhelming trying to the I guess the possibility of missing the right idea or overlooking something. Um, >> but obviously, you know, I'll always uh accept an invitation to do whatever I want, you know. >> Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about the format? So, I've seen it a couple of times. There seems to be a horizontal format. There is a vertical format which is like 25 in 25 or something like that. >> Yeah. >> Are there just two formats or are there more? >> I think the third one is typecon 25. >> Okay. Um, and the purpose with that is really just to keep things from feeling too repetitive and uh from a functional standpoint to make sure that that sort of free form lettering can work on uh different surfaces in different applications. >> Um, so you know half of it is utility and half of it was just sort of keeping things interesting, you know, things engaging. >> So outside of just the mark, how how much was it expanded into more of a system? because I see that you did do the the name tags. Um what other parts of the application were involved? >> Um so I think type face choice was the second big challenge you know um and I started with the lettering um sort of figuring that that would carry most of the weight visually. Um that would sort of set the president for what the what the feel was overall. Mhm. >> Um and then from there I I started doing a lot of exploring and seeing what paired well with those letters. Um and yeah, ultimately settled on Nick Sherman's uh Hex Franklin, >> which is yeah, it's just awesome. It feels it feels sort of 707s in the same way that uh the word mark does. Um and it's also just very useful. You know, there's a width axis, there's a sort of a display version, more tightly spaced, and a more functional text version. Um, so it really could just work for anything. >> It's cool. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about the color, though? >> Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, the third year in a row in Portland, it's starting to feel like a local thing, you know. Um, I know it's not forever, but um, I've been loving it out here. And uh I thought the colors might want to reflect some of the the spirit of the city, you know, and this being Rose City. Um >> that was sort of the impetus for going with these these reds and these greens. Um and then just making sure that there was enough contrast in the mix. So sticking to like three colors, keeping things from getting >> uh too overwhelming or muddled. Um, but still a nice punchy sense of like I don't know, floralness. >> Were the letter forms inspired by the rose at all or I mean >> a little bit. >> A little bit. Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. Nice and bulbous. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I love the shape of the mark. It's very organic. It feels like like you said celebration. And now that I think about it, it feels like a you know floral arrangement. Feels like a gift when you look at it. >> Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think, you know, I was trying to keep a lot of looseness in there as well and not get too rigid with it. I think that's another thing that I really love about Typcon is just that it feels like this this meeting of minds and a very celebratory uh informal in a good way. >> Um type of thing, which is easy to lose sight of sometimes that this is an interconnected social community of real people. you know, we're all across the world and the country and on the internet and >> sometimes it starts to just feel like business, but to be reminded that this is a community and everyone's super cool and fun to be around. Um, >> felt like something to lean into. You know, >> I feel like the community thing is really in that mark. >> Mhm. >> A lot of times everything is so businessy and corporate like you just mentioned and that it has to do with clarity and legibility. There's something slightly illeible about the mark that you just want to look at it longer and wait what is that? That's 25, you know, like you can't quite read it. >> Totally. >> And so it's more of like a visual puzzle >> that when you look at it, you're trying to like understand what the pieces are. >> Yeah. >> Was that was that on purpose? Was that intentional? >> Uh that wasn't intentional. I think I just get get lost in the letters sometimes and uh >> have a hard time restraining myself with the swashes and the overlaps and all the fun stuff. >> Totally fun. So, >> but I figure that's that's where the humanity can come from. So, thank you, James. That was great. Of course, my pleasure. I love talking about the mark. Yeah, totally. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Appreciate that.