Mark De Winne
Mark De Winne is passionate about typography, education and type design, and like any Singaporean — food.
Heavily influenced by American design legend Herb Lubalin, Mark’s flair for hand-lettering and natural creative instincts led him on a design path throughout his Graphic Design and Visual Communication education at Temasek Polytechnic and Singapore’s prestigious LASALLE College of the Arts. Determined to pursue his passion for type design, Mark completed a post-graduate certificate in Type Design from New York’s prestigious Cooper Union in 2012, before completing a Masters of Design in Type & Media at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague in 2014.
As part of his final project at KABK, he completed Morris, a homage to “fat faces” and decorative ornamented type from the Victorian era, which consists of 4 connected styles (Roman, Medium, Bold, Heavy) and 2 striking stencil styles (Black, Black Italic). He was also approached by Typofonderie’s Jean-François Porchez to design the 2014 type specimen for Anisette, and with whom he is currently working with to release Morris commercially.
During 2011-2014, Mark was the Creative Director of Relay Room – a Singapore-based, typography-led design studio he co-founded with his wife Sarah, which saw them designing branding systems for various ventures that have since received commercial acclaim. These include cosmetics e-commerce retailer Luxola.com, Singapore’s newest radio station KISS92FM and dessert queen Janice Wong’s eponymous retail brand.
Currently Design Manager at Ong & Ong’s Experience Design Studio (OXD), Mark oversees the branding and graphic design output of the studio’s diverse range of commercial clients. Mark believes that typography and type design are key to enhancing a brand’s message, creating the fine balance between aesthetic appeal, formality, and legibility. Mark’s ability to apply type design within the fields of graphic design and branding has allowed him to carry his unique expressiveness across branding, environmental graphics and publication design through custom typographic solutions.
As a thought-leader in the Singaporean creative scene on typography and type design, Mark is also a firm believer in education, giving talks regularly at various learning festivals, design forums and industry meetups. In 2013, his company Relay Room brought Crafting Type to Asia for the first time. Together with Eben Sorkin and Octavio Pardo, Mark was one of the 3 facilitators in the sold-out 3-day workshop for 42 participants. Relay Room is now transitioning to an educational model to raise the standard of typography and type design education in Singapore, and is looking to launch its first series of workshops and programmes in 2016.
BITS MMXV International Workshop
Mark De Winne
Presented by Typographic Association Bangkok (TAB)
October 30, 2015.
10.00 am. - 12.00 pm.
Auditorium B, TCDC
Available slots : 10 person
“Display TypeCooker”
TypeCooker is a tool devised by Erik van Blokland for generating type drawing exercises. A random list of parameters for drawing type are generated which can be used to practice drawing type, or to inspire new ideas for original typefaces. In his time at TypeMedia, Mark tweaked the tool and modified some of the original parameters to help him generate more options for his display typeface, Morris.
Starting with a drawing game as an icebreaker, join Mark on a whirlwind exploration of oddball terminals, styles, and forms in this interactive and very hands-on workshop.
By the end of the workshop, participants will get an understanding of what it takes for a series of letters to work together within the context of type design — while having an alphabet’s worth of fun too.
Provided equipments by Cadson Demak
1. A3 Drawing paper: 100 sheets
2. Black felt tip Markers (thin and thick tips): 10 of each kind
3. Liquid Paper/white out: 10 pcs
BITS MMXV International Conference
Mark De Winne
Presented by Typographic Association Bangkok (TAB)
November 1, 2015.
Afternoon session
5th fl Auditorium, bacc.
“Singapore on Display”
As Singapore moves relentlessly towards “progress”, its typographical heritage is being eroded as old buildings and businesses are constantly demolished to make way for new ones. Mark De Winne shares about Singapore’s post-war typographic heritage — as well as their cultural and historical significance — by presenting his findings on display type found on a deep and diverse range of signage across shopfronts in Singapore.
His findings include vernacular engineered letters that are stiff yet charming, the occasional scripts that shine with personality, and multi-lingual typography that reflects the culturally diverse social fabric that is uniquely Singapore.
Desiring to pay homage to Singapore’s typographical identities but also looking into the future, Mark also shares his process of designing a display typeface inspired by his collection and analysis of more than 100 samples.