Versöhnung mit Mrs. Eaves

Auf der gest­rigen TYPO-Pressekonferenz hatte ich endlich Gelegenheit, einen publi­zis­ti­schen Streich auszubügeln:
»Now I have to tell a kind of inti­mate story – to intro­duce Mrs Eaves. In July 2008 I’ve seen a 2 min movie on YouTube titled »Write here Write now«. More than 150.000 visi­tors had seen it and the links to that clip went all around the world. In that movie you can see a young girl in under­wear writing very nice letters all over her body. She must have invested hours of work to make that movie with the stop-motion technique.

At that time a hype was going through the adver­ti­sing industry. This hype was called Viral Marketing. Today we know, that this idea was a big swindle. Ad agen­cies tried to get budgets with the alle­ga­tion, that the so called »viral marke­ting« is controll­able marke­ting tool for low budgets. Butt the oppo­site was the case: viral effects are not controll­able and if you try it, that costs a hell of money.

OK. Back to »Write here Write now«. I tried to find out, who did that video and why. The artist called herself Mrs Eaves, obviously an alias … type experts know that Mrs Eaves is either a type­face from Zuzana Licko and/or the maiden name of John Baskervilles wive Sara Eaves. I didn’t find much about the meaning of that movie. And ther­e­fore my first idea was: Maybe its another expe­ri­ment of a viral campaign …directed by a ball pen company or a swim wear label, who knows …

I decided to discuss the amazing movie with my Fontblog readers. So I wrote down what I found out … and what I couldn’t found out I untactfuly assumed … let’s say in a yellow press manner. Sorry for that, Mrs Eaves, I have journalist’s blood in my veins. All that ended up with a short article that carried the catch line: Amateurish desi­gner had sex with letters.

To make a long story short. That post got 53 comm­ents – also some critical ones – and the disco­very, the realiza­tion … that Mrs Eaves is a young austra­lian typo­graphy enthu­siast, by far not amateu­rish … but natural in the way she cele­brates her Love of Type … that’s the name of Gemma O’Briens Weblog.

The logical conse­quence for my rude intro­duc­tion vie Fontblog was to invite her to TYPO 2009. For one simple reason: To find out more about her way of playing with type. Welcome, Gemma.«