idsgn (a design blog)

Guerrilla typography

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July 14 2009

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In neighborhoods around the globe, illegible handwritten flyers are pasted everywhere from bulletin boards to telephone poles. With Cardon Copy, recent SVA graduate Cardon Webb has taken it upon himself to clean up the ’hood—one missing cat at a time.

Following his mother's advice: “Leave it better than the way you found it,” Cardon took to the streets of New York City finding uninspired eyesores and treating them to an extreme makeover. Replacing the handwritten (or at best, Micosoft Word-created) posters with typographic works of art.

Cardon Copy, takes the vernacular of self-distributed fliers and tear-offs we have all seen in our neighborhoods. It involves hijacking these unconsidered fliers and redesigning them, over powering their message with a new visual language. I then replace the original with the redesign in its authentic environment.

Whether or not the replacement posters will actually help find “Cookie” or a job for the friendly cleaning lady is debatable (I'd like to see what the original creator thinks), but it is undeniably easier on the eyes. 

Cardon was recently honored with a solo exhibition at the Type Directors Club (TDC) in New York.

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For more, see Cardon Copy.

Filed under: typography

By Skylar Challand

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