Publifluor: Resharpening Blobby

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst

Blobby is an idiosyncratic typeface by self-taught letterer Crystel Crickx made up of a set of fat shapes, psychedelic and incomplete.

Ultradependent Public School

For two months in April–May 2023, UPS transforms BAK into a schoolhouse with distinct study areas: a gymnasium, a copybar, a bootleg library, a gift hall, a microcosmicroom, and a cafeteria.

Resharpening Blobby by Publifluor (David Le Simple, Femke Snelting, Ludivine Loiseau, Nathan Izbicki, Olivier Bertrand, Pierre Huyghebaert, and Sophie Boiron) When the self-taught letterer Crystel Crickx met a graphic designer in the late 1990s, Blobby was the result. Blobby is an idiosyncratic typeface made up of a set of fat shapes, psychedelic and incomplete. In this two day workshop, The Publifluor research group invites you to join the study and documentation of Blobby, and to draw and cut together its missing glyphs. Blobby is an out-of-category UFO in the already unusual universe of adhesive characters that Crystel Crickx sold for many years in her shop Publifluor in Schaerbeek (Brussels). In the period between the introduction of self-adhesive vinyl and the availability of inexpensive digital signage, Mrs Crickx made a living using a self-invented process, in which she stockpiled hand-cut characters in various sizes and colours. Her customers could buy these letters by the piece and then place them on their shop windows. The characters were adopted by a group of Brussels-based designers, who digitised and published them as a typeface. Released under an Open Font Licence, the typeface has been put to use in many contexts for already twenty years. With a new release of the digital font in mind, we propose to bring Blobby back to life and to the streets of Utrecht by producing a set of dingbats, numbers and characters which for the moment only twists the plastic cells of their vinyl existence.  With the help of our freshly resharpened Blobby stock, we will offer Crickx care to nightshop owners in the neighbourhood, composing messages together on the spot. To open up the history and the various elements of the Publifluor archive, means also to look for possible local echos, and to try to meet them. Thursday–Friday 25–26 May 2023 12:00–18:00 hrs HospitalityCollective vegan lunch from 12:00–13:00 hrs. Meal included in the enrollment fee. The abundance and variety of the menu depends on the luck of the b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN’s dumpster dive. NotesRegistration is required.

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Publifluor: Resharpening Blobby

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Publifluor: Resharpening Blobby

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