Art Nouveau fonts struck me as really similar in appearance to fonts designed for people with dyslexia, like OpenDyslexic. Like, they bulge in different places and stuff, and that’s a really big deal when it comes to these fonts, but the point is that it looks like it’d be easy to take the principles of accessible font design for dyslexia and apply them to graphic design for a new generation of Art Nouveau inspired work — like Solarpunk.
I love the thought that an aesthetic movement could have accessibility baked in like that — not placing aesthetic over usability, or even working accessibility in despite the aesthetic goals — I mean using the art style as the mechanism for accessibility.
Art is, at least partially, about taking up space in the world to make room for human experience as a priority. In this case, with this movement, that could be very literal.
And that got me really excited, because Solarpunk is so obviously equipped to be totally all about that — I love the idea of Solarpunk planners and designers and architects keeping in mind as a real priority making their spaces deliberately pleasant, comfortable and helpful for people with disabilities, not just tolerably navigable to meet code. I love the idea of a basic principle of Solarpunk design being ”Every human is worth the effort of significant care in design choices.” The idea that accessibility is a form of beauty that the Solarpunk art movement prioritizes.
And it fits right in with the punk part of the movement, because it screams “Disability is what happens when you build a city to use its people, not for the people to use the city.”
(Edited shortly after posting because the last sentence was confusing)
On this Fine Press Friday we present some pages from Will Bradley’s design and printing of Stephen Crane’sWar is Kind, published in New York by Frederick A. Stokes in 1899. Printed on dark grey paper, this is the only edition of Crane’s second collection of poems, published a year before his death.
An artist, illustrator, filmmaker, printer, and type designer, Will Bradley (1868-1962) was one of the foremost American graphic designers of the 20th century, and this work is one of the most visually-memorable American trade publications of the 1890s. Although Bradley’s style exhibits many of the hallmarks of Art Nouveau, his aesthetic was also strongly influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement. Often criticized as an American knock-off of Aubrey Beardsley, Bradley’s early style was already well-established before Beardsley’s popularity in the mid-1890s.
Our copy of War is Kind is yet another gift from our friend Jerry Buff.
“Art Nouveau” is French for “new art”. It is also known as Jugendstil, German for “youth style”, named after the magazine Jugend, which promoted it, and in Italy, Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularised the style, and in Holland as “Sla-olie-stijl”, Dutch for “salad oil style” after a advertisement poster for this product that was made in that style.
That scarlet blush of health you see on the lady’s cheeks and gown, and the strength of the dog she carries with her – all to promote iron pills to combat anemia, with a 15-day regimen. Available at all the best pharmacies.
