diverted to portland: flying the colours of flomm!

A PERSONAL HISTÓRY oF FLOMM so far     PART 7 of 10 

“Just stay home, don’t go out­side. You’re fucked.”
—Murphy’s Law or some shit
 

Sum­mer 2013. 

Noth­ing was align­ing, it was con­stant Mer­cury ret­ro­grade be­fore every­one was meme­ing it. And noth­ing felt right AT ALL.

But I went for it. Like, wat could go wrong? Cept maybe everything?
 

like com­ic con, but for fonts
The So­ci­ety of Ty­po­graph­ic Afi­ciona­dos is awe­some – they put on an an­nu­al Ty­pog­ra­phy Con­fer­ence some­where in the Unit­ed States (Min­neapo­lis this year). I was in­volved heav­i­ly in their 2010 Los An­ge­les Type­Con, in­clud­ing their Ed­u­ca­tion Fo­rum (I was the crowd warm up ‘ice break­er’) and run­ning the Af­ter Par­ty at the equal­ly awe­some In­ter­na­tion­al Print­ing Mu­se­um.

So I want­ed to do the big pub­lic pre­miere of the FLOMM game at TypeCon.

And you kno Howard Stern’s no­to­ri­ous MTV Fart Man ap­pear­ance as de­pict­ed at the be­gin­ning of Pri­vate Parts (1997)?

Well, that’s kin­da wat I end­ed up do­ing. With the days and hours just be­fore be­ing even mor fucked up.
 

it’s an adventure!
I love to leap into things with­out look­ing – some­times it works, some­times it to­tal­ly blows up in my face. 

Years ago did a Street Fair thing with Psy­che­del­ic Light Artist George Hold­en that was prob­a­bly the most la­bor in­ten­sive, messed up mess ever. It did lead – how­ev­er – to George’s con­cert-back­ing liq­uid light shows hap­pen­ing again (he’s avail­able for hire). And I got a cool SF MUNI shirt that day, one of my fa­vorites.

But if you ever want to do a Light Show at a hot, sum­mer Haight Ash­bury Street Fair, make sure to turn off the sun first. Oth­er­wise no one will see the cool gels and oils pro­ject­ed on the in­side of wa­t­ev­er not dark enough tem­po­rary struc­ture you are sweat­ing in that took four hours to build.
 

portl& 2013
FLOMM! THE BAT­TLE For MOD­eRN 1923’s pre­miere in Port­land, Ore­gon, USA at Type­Con was like a lot like my ex­pe­ri­ence with George.

I had man­aged to snag a 20 minute spot on a Sun­day morn­ing, 15 Au­gust 2013 at 9:55 a.m., my talk would be titled:

Ne­o­Retro­Mod­ern­Flom­mism:
(RE-) BUILD­ING A VIDEO GAME FROM THE 1920s

I had my plane tick­ets – and a friend to meet me at the air­port. I was go­ing to stay at her place in the Port­land sub­urbs, an awe­some 50s ranch house sim­i­lar to the one the bank took from me. 

Some­thing like, 30 miles or so south of Portland.

And pub­lic tran­sit – bus + light rail – went from her house to just out­side the ho­tel where the con­ven­tion was happening. 

I had a bor­rowed, some­wat wonky lap­top with me, all I had to do was fin­ish up my slides (I had 3 days to cob­ble them to­geth­er), throw in the game trail­er be­ing edit­ed and ren­dered by a for­mer awe­some stu­dent (the cli­max to my pre­sen­ta­tion) and give a url to the au­di­ence to test dri­ve a beta ver­sion of the game. 

At this point – my new pro­gram­mer, who I call The Life Giv­er (it fits) Noam Weiss was set to up­load a demo so every­one could play. 

And FLOMM! THE BAT­TLE For MOD­eRN 1923 would make an ap­pear­ance sim­i­lar to wat THE FU­TUR­IST MAN­I­FESTO did in 1909 in Le Monde that his­to­ri­an types are still talk­ing bout to­day.

(And I re­al­ly wish I knew wat that re­al­ly meant at this point – cause it hadn’t sunk in yet how in­ac­ces­si­ble Mod­ern Art re­al­ly was around the time Marinet­ti was rous­ing rab­ble. And wat I was about to do was bom­bas­tic annnd maybe not wat my au­di­ence was ready for on a Sun­day morning.)
 

un­rav­el­ling
My friend was able to dri­ve me to Light Rail thru Fri­day night. But, Saturday/Sunday I was on my own. Be­cause she got a call from a friend – med­ical emer­gency – and had to leave town. 

Leav­ing me alone in her house.

The next boot to drop that I wasn’t go­ing to kno about un­til it hap­pened: The bus I had to take to Light Rail doesn’t ac­tu­al­ly run on the week­ends.
 

night at the station
There was a the­o­ry bounc­ing around that every­one who wasn’t do­ing any of the fun things at the con were sit­ting on the sides buried in lap­tops work­ing on their slides. 

And there they were. I was not among them tho.

Be­cause I was a grasshop­per – not an ant – and be­cause I had Fri­day night and some Sat­ur­day to fin­ish my pre­sen­ta­tion, I was do­ing the fun con stuffs and check­ing out Port­land things.

I wan­dered around all the hip­ster en­claves, ATE STREET FOOD at the HUGE col­lec­tion of Food Trucks piled up – some­thing Sacra­men­to is STILL MISS­ING THE BOAT ON; like, even Modesto knos a GÜD THING.

I hit up Powell’s GI­GAN­TIC BOOK CITY and got a copy of Against Kandin­sky (2006) – a book that – un­known yet to me – would pre­dict a lot of wat was about to hap­pen with FLOMM!.
 

 
The lap­top was heavy so I left it at my friend’s place – my plan was to head back ear­ly Fri­day night, hang out and work on my presentation.

So Fri­day around 6, I hopped the Light Rail and head­ed south. 

She was plan­ning to pick me up at the sta­tion she dropped me off at, but as I was rid­ing the train I re­al­ized I did not re­mem­ber which sta­tion that was – 

– in about 10 miles of Light Rail sta­tions with names I hadn’t com­mit­ted to memory. 

And she was an­oth­er 20 miles south of all that.

My friend didn’t have a cell phone just yet (!!!!!!????) and her land­line had one cord­less phone hooked up to it and an an­swer­ing machine. 

I didn’t quite kno yet that her cord­less phone de­cid­ed to break this very evening and wouldn’t hold a charge AT ALL = she could not talk to me on the phone, or even call me back.

And speak­ing of charge: My iPhone 4 was run­ning re­al­ly slow. And when I went to call her, I saw it was down to a 13% charge. Maps, web­sites, all of that were be­yond my reach at this point. 

So all I was able to do is leave her a few voice­mails – one af­ter an­oth­er – telling her where I was HOP­ING that she’d some­how be able to pick them up and find me. 

I as­sumed she was sit­ting at some oth­er sta­tion wait­ing for me, hop­ing that she’d even­tu­al­ly go home and get her messages.

And call me back. With the hopes my phone had enough juice to take the call.
 

 
So I waited. 

But I called my wife, who was hav­ing her own melt­down at home, and … she said I sound­ed like I was go­ing to die. 

“Can’t talk long, I’m down to 7%. But if you don’t hear from me, I’ll be found dead at [name of sta­tion] some­where in the Port­land suburbs.”

With me I had my copy of Prove­nance: How a Con Man and a Forg­er Rewrote the His­to­ry of Mod­ern Art (2010) which I man­aged to fin­ish read­ing af­ter about 4 hours.

Some­where af­ter 1 a.m., my friend drove up and I re­mem­ber part of our con­ver­sa­tion was her say­ing some­thing like, 

“There’s a lot that went wrong here tonight, maybe we should just not talk about any of it.”
 

some­thing hap­pened saturday
Sat­ur­day I was on my own. And ex­haus­tion re­al­ly start­ed to kick in. 

The few things I re­mem­ber from Saturday: 

Walk­ing a mile or two to a tran­sit hub from her place, most­ly be­cause a guy wa­ter­ing his lawn told me oh, this bus line doesn’t run on the weekends.

That evening, I had a stu­dent, He­le­na, who was vol­un­teer­ing at Type­Con and she some­how gave me a ride to ei­ther my friend’s home or a strip club (!?). Not sure why I re­mem­ber a strip club.

“Fuck you Siri!”

And Siri kept putting us on the wrong free­way. And I kept shouting

“Fuck you Siri!”

“Fuck you Siri!”

“Fuck you Siri!”

over and over and over.
 

 

Lat­er Sat­ur­day night, I found the lap­top run­ning slow and me up all night fin­ish­ing up my slides. 

And the toi­let break­ing, spend­ing a very long time in a pan­ic look­ing for a plunger that wasn’t there. My wife re­mem­bers the toi­let dra­ma phone call. Be­cause my dra­mat­ic whin­ing at this point was not some­thing you ever forget. 

I woke up ear­ly Sun­day af­ter two whole hours of sleep, grabbed my garb and maybe I was ready to go?
 

flomm red all over
I had picked the ‘of­fi­cial’ FLOMM col­or back in 2009 be­fore I even had the name nailed down. 

I was re­al­ly get­ting into Paul Klee’s ap­proach to colour. And I found this won­der­ful orange/red bright salmon thing in a few of his paint­ings. And I de­cid­ed to use it on All Things FLOMM. 

I call it FLOMM RED.
 

 

In 2010, I saw the colour ap­pear on the cov­er of MoMA’s beau­ti­ful BAUHAUS Work­shops for Moder­ni­ty cat­a­log and it just POPS with every­thing around it.

And by 2013, it had be­come a god­damn trend. The colour ex­perts called it Koi Or­ange – and it was every­where.

I found I could buy every­thing from shirts to glass­ware to tow­els to nail pol­ish to kids’ con­struc­tion pa­per in the FLOMM colour. 

And yes, cause I was run­ning into it all over the place, I start­ed to take fotos:
 

 
It was avail­able in just about every­thing ex­cept spray paint, so a dark or­ange would have to suf­fice for my FLOMM Mil­i­tary at­tire (be­low).

Like, it’s a Con, there should be COS­PLAY, RIGHT?

And FLOMM colour tees were on sale at the down­town ‘City­TAR­GET’, so I bought mor than I could eas­i­ly car­ry, which is why there’s one stick­ing out­ta my butt here.
 

“Art is a battlefield.”
—Pablo Pi­cas­so
 

The mil­i­tary-like top was a trade with stu­dent Bran­non Ward­well – which ac­tu­al­ly meant a lot MOR to me than find­ing an old shirt in a store. Thing had a history.

Over time, I’ve added patch­es and badges, a Bauhaus em­blem (of course!) and a bunch of my dad’s mil­i­tary bars – in­clud­ing his Pur­ple Heart, au­tho­rized by an Army Chap­lain in North Africa dur­ing WWII – which I found I am ac­tu­al­ly al­lowed to wear.
 

 

And that week at Type­Con I spent time get­ting awe­some font de­sign­ers and let­ter­ing artists to write things on it. And a bunch of them have fonts in use in both the game and web­site, you can find them here.
 

 
the talk thing
I en­tered the con­ven­tion space like Cap­tain Willard look­ing for Colonel Kurtz. I sucked in as much cof­fee as I could find and ate my weight in ho­tel croissants.

Sub­tle­ty was not on my mind that morn­ing. Get­ting thru my talk and not dy­ing on stage was. There may have been around 300 peo­ple in the room, 500? It felt like A LOT MOR.
 

 

And I kno things are not go­ing to go well when you find your­self in­tro­duced with a back­hand­ed com­pli­ment, like, I’ve looked at all of this and I still don’t un­der­stand any of it …

I start­ed vo­cal­iz­ing even be­fore I was on stage. Au­topi­lot talk­ing, who knew even wat I was say­ing, I cer­tain­ly didn’t.

Be­yond that I just presented.
 

 

And I don’t re­mem­ber much about wat I pre­sent­ed, but there were slides and I wasn’t quite sure why some of the slides were there – be­cause I threw a lot of them in just a few hours earlier.
 

 
THERE WAS ap­plause when I said:

“Ty­pog­ra­phy in video games sucks.”

And I’m still not sure of the plur­al in that remark.

But maybe that de­c­la­ra­tion DID some­thing that year. Be­cause ty­pog­ra­phy in gam­ing did get bet­ter af­ter 2013.
 

 
I had a joke that slow­ly hit just the right mark about Piet Mon­dri­an not be­ing able to in­vent Pong be­cause he didn’t be­lieve in di­ag­o­nals.
 

 
I prob­a­bly thew in a few 

“Fuck you Siris”

for all I kno.

There were a few posts on Twit­ter about how crass I was on a Sun­day morn­ing. YES I FUCK­ING SWEAR. Plus a few pic­tures of the game char­ac­ters, a re­mark about fake v. real art move­ments and that was all I saw anywhere.

 

 
Some­how I pre­sent­ed the con­cept of a video game with an em­pha­sis on ty­pog­ra­phy where the type (hope­ful­ly) doesn’t suck, gave my overview of his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences, how ed­u­ca­tion was in there and the con­cept of MOD­ERN vs. TRA­DI­TION was the ba­sis of the game … annnnd

My big plan was to end with the trail­er. With all the dra­mat­ic sound and mu­sic and mo­tion let­ter­ing and all that.

But there was no trailer.

Be­cause my awe­some for­mer stu­dent who promised 

“You will def­i­nite­ly have it this week”

nev­er got back to me. 

Ever. Haven’t heard from him since.
 

net­work­ing
There was ac­tu­al­ly only one per­son who talked to me af­ter­wards – which to me in­di­cates It Didn’t Go Well. Or that my Marinet­ti-like ma­nia said, stay away I might do some­thing else even cra­zier.

Rob Saun­ders was giv­ing a talk lat­er that day (above) about ec­cen­tric de­sign­er W.A. Dwig­gins (MEG­GS’ Chap­ters 10 + 17) and he hand­ed me his card. 

He thanked me for my talk and said, “I col­lect the things that you were talk­ing about.”

I did not re­al­ize, Rob col­lects the things that I was talk­ing about.
 

 

The stuff the FLOMM art­work is based on. Like, the real stuff. DADA pub­li­ca­tions, Fu­tur­ist and Sur­re­al­ist man­i­festos, orig­i­nal ma­te­ri­als that the MOD­ERNS had cre­at­ed. Depero’s book, he has an original. 

Col­lect­ing Mod­ern Art ephemera with a ty­po­graph­ic em­pha­sis – the stuff which was most­ly ig­nored by the art world at the time it was made – was his prac­tice. Old type spec­i­mens, orig­i­nal art, zines, books – a whos who of who I’ve been discovery-ing.

Rob is a graph­ic de­sign­er based out of San Fran­cis­co (near­by!) who de­cid­ed to turn his per­son­al col­lec­tion into the awe­some Let­ter­form Archive, which to­day sits in his for­mer loft (tho mov­ing soon cause land­lord kin­da said, enough is enough).

And his col­lec­tion, re­search (or dis­cov­ery) is to­tal­ly pos­si­ble to stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als be­yond the his­to­ry books I’d been stockpiling.

Since, I’ve been able to see his Let­ter­form Archive grow into an awe­some west coast re­source. Mem­ber­ships are mor than worth it – the up­com­ing on­line archive will have hi-res im­ages of all kinds of rare things.
 

 
Ex­hi­bi­tions, lec­tures, work­shops, pub­li­ca­tions – meet­ing Rob and see­ing his ded­i­ca­tion re­al­ly made the trip to Port­land worth it, even tho I didn’t re­al­ize it at the time.
 

head­ing home
Some­how I made it to the airport. 

And al­most missed my flight cause I fell asleep while wait­ing for my row to be called – I re­mem­ber wak­ing up and hear­ing my name and peo­ple star­ing at me in my FLOMM uni­form – which I was still wearing.
 

 

Type­con was over. 

But Noam and I did man­age to put up a url for play­ing a BETA ver­sion of FLOMM! with the hopes that the game would be out in about a month.

But it would STILL be over a YEAR un­til the game was ac­tu­al­ly test­ed and avail­able to play.
 

con
tinue
read
ing —

                   forward to  PART 8   • • •

· · ·  back to  PART 6

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM!

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