by: becky broughton; oct 10, 2003 for JOMC 222 Visual Communication
Originally of San Francisco's Tolleson Design, Sterling formed Jennifer Sterling Design in 1995 in hopes to make text sing. Her sixteen-person firm reinvented the field in specialized type design of corporate identities and literature, packaging, and books and was listed in the 1998 Graphis Design annual as one of the top 12 in the world. Clients, such as Yahoo, Adobe, Microsoft, Hillary Clinton and Mandeleine Albright, just to name a few, come to the firm looking for a contemporary approach to visually communicate a message on a large or intimate scale. The two works below, Sci-Arc poster to the left and Fox River paper calendar to the right, are good examples of her specialized type design. Sci-Arc is the size of a bus shelter graphic and was produced for a Southern California Institute of Architecture lecture series. The poster is made on a perforated grid that can be torn out for a more intimate look.
Fox River paper calendar is a small piece that reflects Sterling's commanding understanding of printing and materials, as well as type. She used polypropylene for the cover that is foil stamped in blue. Inside the spars pages are 24-hour schedules for each day that have no rules to separate engagements. Sterling does not stay inside the lines of design, her throw-out-the-rules approach and daringly experimental designs are wonderfully matched with her impetuous personality.
Sterling's designs are best know for being sophisticated visual images with innovative typography. Sterling was once quote by Julie Decker as saying, "I wanted to make type sing - to work towards that one moment where type is no longer type but an object, without losing the message." 1
This intent is entertained not only by imaginative and sometimes crashing type but also with the use of due-cuts, embossing, and unusual materials. Sterling includes elements such as converging solid and broken lines, large, monochromatic fields of color, and hand-drawn letterforms and characters. Even though print is a static medium, Sterling's work has been called kinetic and ultra-contemporary. Matt Davidson of Adobe quoted Aaron Betsy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as saying that Sterling’s uses of these elements are " a snapshot of the continual process of recombination that marks our modern world." 2
Sterling was invited to exhibit her work for 3 months (March 30, 2001 through June 24, 2001) at the San Francisco museum of Modern Art. She created the first poster above for the exhibition. It was intended to contain type styles and design elements that appear in the exhibit. Amazingly organized, Sterling was quickly able to shift through scanned type stamps, hand-drawn character, decorative flourishes, and geometric shapes that were neatly stored on her Power Mac G4. Sterling used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign to create the poster. To put a twist on it, She decided to publish per letterpress, to give the work a handcrafted, fine-printed character. Letterpress is the oldest style of printing, dated back to the late 19th century. This experimental decision gave the poster a de-bossing effect that gives the work tactile and visual value.
Sterling drew inspiration for some of her type from P. Scott Makela, a groundbreaking graphic designer and multimedia artist. She uses a mixture of his font Dead history as a tribute. Makela's typefaces were made for what he wanted to say for the moment and it allowed him to create a voice for the now. Makela past in 1999.
Sterling also created the corporate identity for Unicast, a web advertising company. The second group of images above are logo examples for Unicast. Sterling is also very talented with web page design and animation. Here is a link to one of Sterling's ads for Unicast's Superstitial which is meant to play between loading pages on the web, like commercials.
Sterling is steadily published in Communication Arts, ID Design Review, American Center for Design, Type Directors Club, Graphis, the AIGA and other award publications. And recently designed the front cover for One magazine.
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ZZZ | Her much anticipated first book, Jennifer Sterling: Sterling, was released fall 2003 and includes the three works above as examples. It is a 224-paged hardcover with 500 color and black and white illustrations. Most of which have been accepted into the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, the SF MoMA, the Library of Congress and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Steve Heller wrote in her forward that the book "explores the delicate balance of sensual organic forms, tactile materials, classical typefaces, and the subtle yet dazzling techniques that mark her approach to design. Early concept explorations are juxtaposed against the final product, illuminating the creative process." 3 Her book can be purchased at Gingko Press. |
For the future, Sterling wants to work on more web projects and expand into product design. Davidson quotes it well when he says, "And why not? She's already proven that type can sing anywhere." 2
Bibliography
1 Decker, Julie. What's in a Font? Lost and It's Sterling: Leading Type Designer Arrives. January 9-15, 2003, vol.12: ed. 2. http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives/documentbc92.html
2
Davidson, Matt. Design Diva Jennifer Sterling Uses Type for her eloquent Arias.
June 2001. http://www.adobe.com/print/features/sterling/main.html
3 Unknown. Jennifer Sterling: Sterling. http://www.gingkopress.com/_cata/_grap/sterlin1.htm
4 Emigre. http://www.emigre.com/Bios.php?d=9
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