Notes

ISO 216

"ISO 216 decribes the international system of standard paper sizes - in other words, the so-called «A-sizes». We’re always quiet interested in standards and formats - what we particulary likes is the relationship between form and content as it manifests itself within these formats: the way content is shaped by format, and the way format is shaped by content.
However we’d like to make clear that we never see these format as «neutral». Just as with Helvetica, we think that these paper sizes have a lot of ideological and political weight - which makes them all the more interesting to us." p.370

An Alphabet of Influences (lecture). Design Indaba, Cape Town, February 26, 2014 / REDO Conference Prishtina, November 1, 2014 / Universitat der Kunste, Berlin, November 11, 2014 / UCLA, Los Angeles, January 26, 2015

FORMAT

"About how there once was a time when every format contained its own specific data. And about how nowadats, the CD-rom format is capable of containing ALL data. And about how even this ultimate format will disappear, to make place for the final step, the myhtical and platonic non-format." p.353

Lost Formats Preservation Society (introduction), Emigre Magazine, issue 57, 2000

FORM AND CONTENT

"We’re really interested in this continuous interaction between form and content: Form determining content determining form, etc It’s a continuous flow, and in the ideal situation, you can’ really distinguish between form and content, they constantly change place."

"A good example is the LP, the 12-inch vynil gramophone record. The standard LP can only contain 45 minutes of music, so most albums by rock bands are aproximately 45 minutes long. This is a very good illustration of the way in which a given format (in this case the LP) can determine the lengh of an artwork (in this case a rock album) in a very direct, physical way".

"In fact, many artists have used this format in a conceptual way. For example, a lot of Brian Eno’s amient composition have exactly the length of ine side of an LP, the maximum amount of music."

"Bust fast-fowarding a couple of decades brings us to the CD- and the lengh of the standard CD is 75 minutes , ecause those who developed the CD wanted to make sure that Beethoven’s Ninth could fit in it. So here you see the reverse process: the capacity of a format being determined by the lengh of an artwork."

"And that’s exactly what we find so fascinating: this constant interaction between form and content, between humans and their physical environment, betweeen the material base and the superstructure."

"There is also what we consider to be one of the modernism’s most defining characteristics: this state of eing permanently aware of the way in which our material environment shapes us, and how we, in return, can shape our own material environment. This continuous interaction etween form and content is a very good example of this."

On Grids (an interview with Pierre Delmas ouly and Patrick Lallemand), ink magazine issue 1, France 2007

more about the book: https://www.experimentaljetset.nl/archive/graphic-design-now