Who are you and where do you come from?
I’m Joachim Vu, a designer from Paris, France.
Share your twitter account with us and tell us what you are twittering about:
I mostly use my twitter account @joachimvu to share pictures of things I’m working on. I show a lot of sketches, works in progress or stuff I do for practice, and see it as visual diary of my current process and inspirations.
Tell us about your creative side:
My first experience in drawing letters was when I started doing graffiti. It has not much in common with either calligraphy, lettering or type, but it made me realize that letters and words are shapes, with all the implied creative possibilities. I haven’t painted a wall for a while now, but kept my interest in letters of all kinds.
What inspires you?
Pretty much everything can be an inspiration. Sometimes it’s something very specific, like a historical period, a certain style, a piece of work from another designer, and other times it can be a song, a place, a picture, a random object… Anything I see or hear can serve as inspiration for a design.
Time travel: Where would you go to?
As I love to work with my hands, I wonder how it was to live in those days where penmanship, sign painting etc. were flourishing professions. But I equally want to go in the future and see how the written/printed/displayed word and the way it’s used will evolve.
Name your favorite present book:
Most of the books I read are design/lettering/type etc. related. I’ve learned a lot from so many great books, but my favorite ones are those I can open at any page, anytime, for an instant shot of awesomeness. I’m like a kid who only look at pictures, which in my case, are letters. I’m going to pick The Universal Penman by Georges Bickam, the reference book for anyone interested in formal scripts and beautiful ornamentation.
Which tweeter would you recommend for @createandrotate and why?
There are so many interesting and talented type designers, lettering artists and calligraphers out there that it seems rather random to me to pick just one, so I’m going to choose @louisck who probably doesn’t care at all about letters but he makes me laugh and he doesn’t tweet much so it’d be great to read stuff from him for a week.
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