CyberGraphics established in 1991, is a multi-disciplinary, full-service design studio and digital type foundry commercially available to all studios. We understand that a Universal design solution approach, which does not address the specifics and context of each project, makes for ineffective communications. Effective design can only be reflected through the basis of true collaboration with clients, and it is this principle that leads to project solutions that are visually distinct, a dynamic experience and enduringly memorable. These, as well as an element of surprise and insight are some of the foundational principles upon which Cyber Graphics sets its precedent like this domain for example.
Welcome to the Era of Design
All businesses, no matter what they make or sell, should recognize the power and financial value of good design.
Obviously, there are many different types of design: graphic, brand, packaging, product, process, interior, interaction/user experience, Web and service design, to name but a few.
In this post, I am referring to design as a broad and deliberately applied discipline, with the aim of creating simpler, more meaningful, rewarding experiences for customers.
You see, expecting great design is no longer the preserve of a picky design-obsessed urban elite—that aesthetically sensitive clique who‘d never dare leave the house without their Philippe Starck eyewear and turtleneck sweaters and buy only the right kind of Scandinavian furniture. Instead, there’s a new, mass expectation of good design: that products and services will be better thought through, simplified, made more intuitive, elegant and more enjoyable to use.
Once lost in translation,
a Classic properly revived by a new Font Star
In the 1980s nobody new the names of type designers. Today people say, 'Christian Schwartz designed a new typeface, lets check it out.' It's like being a Rock Star. The personality of the type designer is a public figure in the graphic field, which goes back to the role of the type designer of the 1920s. Fresh off his latest gig with Meta Serif, he revived Helvetica to its original state.
The digital version of Helvetica that everyone knows and uses today is quite different from the typeface’s pre-digital design from 1957. Originally released as Neue Haas Grotesk, many of the features that made it a Modernist favorite have been lost in translation over the years from one typesetting technology to the next.
Type designer Christian Schwartz has newly restored the original Neue Haas Grotesk in digital form – bringing back features like optical size variations, properly corrected obliques, alternate glyphs, refined spacing, and more.Read more: http://www.fontbureau.com/nhg
I am a minimalist freak when it comes to music. This is the stuff that I listen to during a design session for a client or CyberGraphics Software division for that matter. Gnossienne No. 1: Erik Satie, Piano: Branka ParlicIt is what makes me tick a designer. A symphony of colour, painting with light - music by Erik Satie, piano: Branka Parlic, film and concept by peterthepainte. The Three Gnossiennes were composed around 1890 and first published in 1893. The piano solo versions of the first three Gnossiennes are without time signatures or bar lines, which is known as free time.
To put the music into context, the font Akzidenz-Grotesk was released in 1896 wich was the foundation of Helvetica.
An extensive selection from the work
of Willem Strydom has been assembled by the
Rupert Museum Stellenbosch
Integritas, Consonanta e Claritas is how Thomas Aquinas defined the principles of beauty. It can also be interpreted as wholeness, proportion and luminosity. In this exhibition of sculptures and unique drawings with colour the sculptor explores those central values. Reality is the point of departure for resolute investigation beyond the surface.
See exhibition at www.carvedveld.co.za
Download PDF catalogue
Intrigue –the graphic designer’s code
“intrigue –the graphic designer’s code” is the title of this visually–exciting book. Consider the book to be a portal into the mind of Jan Erasmus, one of South Africa’s finest graphic designers. The work selected for discussion and reproduction represents projects which presented a real challenge from a designer’s point of view. In these projects Jan challenges conventions and Modernist design principles, often making use of a deconstructive approach.
Making use of over 130 illustrations, Jan discusses the motivation and approach for each design created. From universal starting points inherent in the subject, he describes his engagement in a thought process leading to significantly different and unpredictable interpretive results. When designers understand something of themselves and their approach, design becomes an exciting personal process which produces insightful work containing an element of surprise.
Buy one intrigue book
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The North Pole is melting
In typography I am exploring immersive moments through interactive media. I created an awareness project with Jared Tarbell code and Daniel Matthews based in London, who composed and mixed the emotive atmospheric sounds about the white paradise melting away at an alarming rate. Lalibela was used to emphasize some moving thoughts. Pump up the volume and experience this dynamic 2.3Mb interactive file.
Experience the 2.3Mb flash file sporting Lalibela.
Brand new waycool T-designs
T-#3 = Uberwicket! Screen-printed in warm red onto stealthy good quality matt black cotton T-Shirt. Logo based on the idea of privacy. ‘As more Internet users grow cautious about Google's seemingly unquenchable desire for the private, personal data of its users, one entrepreneur is using the search engine giant's own algorithms to offer consumers a choice. It's called Scroogle – located at Scroogle.org – and offers searchers all the power of Google but none of the privacy concerns’. If you want your tracks made invisible after 48 hours, then this number is for you and don’t be evil. If you think no one is tracing you, then view the Collusion Demo at http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/ a FireFox plug-in that shows you the all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web. It also sports my latest slab serif, 12 font family in Beta format called ‘Azania’ released later this year.
Limited edition 10 poster set + 1 FREE standard
‘Intrigue-the graphic designers code’ book
The set of A2 posters was produced and printed between 1995 – 2009 by the late Wolfram Heckl. When I started distributing Emigre Fonts I decided to print a run-on with printed one side only and pack them away unfolded. I kept them back for this occasion when I can release them as a very limited set of posters. It includes posters used to promote Emigre, CyberGraphics & ITF Fonts, Intrigue book and other services. Only 7 signed and dated sets are left. Each set of posters ships with a free standard copy of Intrigue-the graphic designer code book.
See more detail and order 10 poster set.
Saul Bass: On making money vs quality work
Lets see what one of the most famous designers has to say about this age old topic. Is it not the reason that clients hire us for?
A new catalogue for Julia Meintjes Fine Art
There are difficulties in weaving with 18-carat gold wire, and the first little bowl was an experiment. It began in 2002, when Julia Meintjes was assembling an art collection for a Sydney-based company, RFC Corporate Finance, which offers investment and corporate advice in the resources, energy and industrial sectors. The company has clients in the South African mining industry, and when the MD, Rob Adamson, saw a woven copper bowl by an artist from Mdukatshani in the Thukela (Tugela) Valley, he asked whether a similar bowl could be made in gold wire. The commission was given to Mzonzima Dladla, and because of technical, creative and logistical challenges, it was more than two years before that first little gold bowl was completed.
Other bowls would follow, some in 18-carat gold, some combining gold with various coppers, silver, brass and shakudo. In 2008 the University of Stellenbosch commissioned a special edition of six bowls, which were presented to a select group of their donors - and the project was formally named Threads of Africa.
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Thinking a-round: mapping sculpture
We live on the tip of a continent which has been an incubator for three-dimensional creativity for generations. Africa’s character is intrinsically influenced by hand crafting objects in the round. Imagine how different an exhibition of sculpture would be by artists from any continent other than Africa. Thinking a-round developed from the desire to pay tribute to three-dimensional ‘thinkers’ in our country. We hope to pose questions, both to the artists and viewers to the exhibition, about the choices artists make in relation to materials, methods, subject matter, functionality and scale.
To read more, download this pdf catalogue.
Wim Crouwel's advice for young designers
'I'm very jealous of young designers starting out now - on the one hand,' explains the graphic designer Wim Crouwel. 'On the other hand, it's becoming more difficult to find your own way'.
Lalibela, a new font family from CyberGraphics
Have a look at Lalibela in action. In typography I am exploring immersive moments through interactive media. I work on “that emotion for the moment”. I did an awareness project with Daniel Matthews based in London, who composed and mixed the emotive atmospheric sounds about the white paradise melting away at an alarming rate. I used my new font Lalibela in it’s right habitat, to emphasize some moving thoughts.
Experience the 2.3Mb flash file sporting Lalibela.
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Custom fonts
A custom typeface design is an important component of either a corporation’s branding or of a product. In most instances, the best solution to a corporation’s branding needs is a proprietary typeface design. Not a core font or commercial font that everyone has and can buy nowerdays.
Whether it is a new typeface design or a modification of an existing one, a custom font guarantees brand distinction. CyberGraphics Digital Font Foundry has the knowledge to develop most fonts solutions for your branding needs. If you already have some wackey idea and wonder if it could be fully doveloped and manufactured, email jan@cybergraphics.bz and attach some example.
Go to font_design.html to see some work.
This is a cloned font
SAF font was published by http://fontfabric.com/saf-free-font/ as a free font. They did not even bother them that the typeface they published under the name SAF was not only a blatant imitation of Menyaka, but even gave credit to FIFA WC 2010! The Created field in the font information shows no credit, but the perpetrator didn't know that the original said FIFA. It shows the Creation date and Copyright was FIFA WC 2010 yet the original I did was created during 2006 and Copyright 2006, FIFA. The last thing that struck me was that SAF font only have caps? Manyaka was a full on ASCII 256 Glyph PS1 font as upper and lower case with all the glyphs in the same style.
It was posted and some responses were published:
The Colour District says:
…Fontfabric is doing an excellent job of providing top-notch fonts for us designers. Don’t make them regret giving us free (and excellent) typefaces.
fontfabric free font – SAF « urban taster says:
[...] a comment » One of my favourite font foundaries fontfabric has a free font up for grab! Inspired by this particular casual font, spiced with some African [...]
ALPHA says:
Thanks for the free FONT (that is what we’re here for, not to talk about the photographs you used). Love it, it’s feels very African in a woodcut way.Keep up the good work.
No one mentioned CyberGraphics at all. I did bring it under the attention of FIFA. They commissioned me via Switch to design a propriety font during 2006.
See the original Menyaka font_design.htm
Carvedveld domain for the sculptor,
Willem Strydom
Jan Erasmus uses Flash as it was originally intended, to open up new possibilities in viewer entertainment. He does this by offering users an interactive system that allows them to guide the site through several levels of nodes that work together to create a truly unique virtual exhibition experience.
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New branding for the Industrial Clothing Company
This industrial clothing site is a nice example of giving a fresh image to utility clothing. The navigation is made simple, the graphics have superior quality, it loads fast and runs smoothly. What else does a Flash site need besides a new logo that went greener?
Site_Specific
The aim of the the Site_Specific event is to promote site specific art in southern Africa, to facilitate communities in the care of and appreciation for their environment and to support and co-ordinate art and environmental creators and patrons.
We are a not-for-profit association of people who are passionate about site specific art. We describe it as a form of communion with the land that changes one’s perceptions of given surroundings. It is like being given new eyes. Even after the art has been reabsorbed into nature, the memory of it persists and informs one’s interaction with the landscape. It doesn’t demand huge amounts of visual literacy or education to be moved by the experience of an great land art piece, it is immediate, and it enhances one’s own sense of being in the world. Land art allows one to integrate the often split concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. Sometimes it is a celebration of the land that sustains us, often it reminds us of the temporary nature of our shared existence.
Go to http://sitespecific.org.za to see some South African land art.
Branding
"For years, graphic designers, especially those who subscribe to the ideas and philosophies of Swiss design or modernism, have argued that logos and typefaces should be used with consistency. Such, they say, is crucial to the recognition of corporate identity. We disagree. Recognition does not come from simple repetition of the same form, but is something much more intelligent, something that happens in our subconscious. We believe it possible for recognition to be achieved even if the logo is randomised and does not have fixed positions on letterheads and other applications."
Go to branding.html to see some brand marks.