Issue 00 — Contents
In this issue
- 04Interview with nobody
- 12How to make a poster about nothing
- 28The rules
- 40Seven inks
- 52Type specimen
- 64Cut it out
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OXXY
The Nothing Issue
- Exclusive: we interviewed nobody
- p.12 How to make a poster about nothing
- p.28 The rules (break them)
free sticker inside!!
We sat down with nobody.
Forty minutes, two coffees, one tape recorder that we forgot to switch on. Here is everything that was said.
- Q
So, who are you?
Nobody. Next question.
- Q
What do you make?
Noise, mostly. About nothing, specifically.
- Q
Why purple?
It was the loudest colour in the shop.
- Q
Any advice for young artists?
(long pause)
- Q
What’s next?
Nothing. We’re very excited about it.
How to make a poster about nothing
Gig ✕ Nowhere ✕ 00:00
Nothing
Live, tonight, probably
wow!!- 01
Set it straight.
Start with order. A twelve-column grid, one margin, nothing crooked. Mono labels for the boring facts: where, when, how much.
- 02
Make one thing loud.
One word, as big as the page allows. Squeeze it on the width axis until it fits like it was built for the space. Everything else stays small.
- 03
Vandalise it.
Now ruin it a little. A marker loop, a star, two words in the hand. Pink, cyan or violet, never all at once, never more than three words.
- 04
Paste it up.
Tape the corners, let it lean a few degrees, and walk away before you fix it. The wall does the rest.
Seven rules. Break them carefully.
-
01
UI speaks violet. Paint speaks in three.
The interface gets exactly one colour, for buttons, focus and “this is live”. Pink and cyan exist only as paint: scribbles, posters, spray.
-
02
Order first, then vandalism.
Every layout is set straight before anything is drawn on it. The scribble only works because the grid underneath is perfect.
-
03
Neon is a colour, not a blur.
No glow, ever. A neon line is a saturated stroke with a pale core, drawn crisp. If it needs a blur to look bright, it isn’t bright.
-
04
One loud thing per screen.
A wordmark, a poster, a title that fills the width. Never two. Loud next to loud is just noise (the bad kind).
-
05
The hand never writes sentences.
Rock Salt is for annotations of three words or fewer. The moment it explains something, it stops being a voice and starts being a font.
-
06
Sharp walls, round stickers.
Surfaces have square corners. Things you press are pills or circles. There is no in-between radius.
-
07
Width is the volume knob.
Anybody runs from 50 to 150 on the width axis. Squeeze for density, stretch for drama, and let motion travel along that axis instead of sliding things around.
Seven inks. That’s the whole shop.
Noise
Scroll moves the axes. Touch a slider to take over. Click the word to type your own.
Display & body — Anybody, variable
Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép, 0123456789
Labels & figures — Martian Mono
BPM 132 ✕ F MIN ✕ 47.4979° N
The vandal hand — Rock Salt
about nothing!!
Make noise about nothing
That was nothing. Thanks for reading.