Paul McNeil is a typographic designer with experience in brand and corporate communications. He currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Typography at the London College of Communication where he was Course Leader, MA Contemporary Typographic Media from 2010–15. Member ISTD. Fellow HEA.
He works with Hamish Muir and together they form MuirMcNeil. Founded in 2010, MuirMcNeil’s activities are focussed on exploring parametric design systems to generate appropriate solutions to visual communication problems.
We got a lottery ticket from which we had to choose 6 different numbers between the number 1 and 49. The numbers I chose were; 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 and 48. With those numbers we were supposed to create patterns with small black squares on a white sheet of paper with the dimensions of 21 cm x 21 cm. allegedly the sheet of paper could be completely filled with 49 small black squares. We had to make 6 times 6 compositions since we chose six numbers and there are six different procedures. This would result in 36 panels in the end.
Blocks: Construct one single black rectangle or square from the black squares with at least one side touching its edge. If one rectangle is mathematically impossible, build two rectangles.
Glyphs: Use the black squares to make six versions of a single letterform. I chose the capital E to work with.
Diagonals: Starting at the bottom left hand corner, place black squares so that they are completely connected to form stepped black diagonal stacks.
Chance: Distribute the black squares randomly to fit on the grid. Don’t cheat, avoid any subjective choices.
Even spread: Distribute the black squares as symmetrically, evenly and broadly as you can across each white template.
Faces: Compose the black squares to represent facial expressions.
We spend almost 1,5 day making those 36 compositions. This workshop is really as the title suggests; working like a design machine. I really liked for once to just follow a simple instruction which doesn’t need a lot of thinking during the process. After one procedure was done, it was interesting to take a look at how the six compositions would fit together. The faces were just fun to do, but the blocks play more with white space for example.
The second step of the project was to connect all six sets of the six compositions in a sequence. Always running from the lowest number to the highest, paying attention to orientation, without gaps between squares. Afterwards we started connecting everybody’s sets from the same procedure together, going from lowest number to the highest. This resulted in 6 big carpets with a sort of gradient of black and white.
In the end we also put those 6 carpets together, resulting in one huge carpet. It was super interesting to reflect on the patterns and shapes that were formed. Some parts of the carpet work better and smoother than others. Finally all small compositions formed one big composition.
This workshop showed that you can create something systematically by giving yourself a simple working guide. The steps of the process were easy, but the project showed that a process can be easy with an exciting result in the end. This workshop showed me a new way of approaching a project and I would like to apply this method in a project in the future. I also liked that the workshop was in the end about the total picture and not just about your work as an individual.