GIF commission by Cat Frazier, with text by Jesse Howard.
In 2016 I commissioned Cat Frazier, a graphic designer who runs the tumblr site AnimatedTextGIFs.com and the Instagram profile @itsanimatedtext, to create a GIF in Korinna Bold to mimic the font used by Japanese video game developer Capcom, makers of the Resident Evil video game series.
The GIF’s text is borrowed from an enamel on panel object by the artist and migrant worker Jesse Howard (1885 – 1983)..
Howard was born in 1885 in Missouri and worked primarily in text, creating signs on scrap metal and wood that he posted throughout his 40 acre property (here is a short NPR feature about his work from 2015). I’m interested in visualizing the intersections Frazier and Howard are both working in: vernacular community signage, authorship, and text as image.
This GIF was commissioned for the exhibition Resident Evil at The Kitchen in 2016.