Gyongy Laky Sculpts the NY Times Magazine’s GREEN ISSUE

The greening of typography might be a new concept on the sustainable design frontier, but San Francisco-based artist Gyongy Laky already has a foothold with her eco-friendly process for creating environmentally compelling print layouts. Commissioned by the New York Times to sculpt custom-made fonts and graphics for the Sunday magazine’s (pre-Earth Day) GREEN ISSUE, the eco-fiber sculptor has done a brilliant job of clearly demonstrating that the medium is (indeed) the message when it comes to the careful melding of natural and man-made materials on the uncharted path to reducing our carbon footprint.

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Hungarian-born Gyongy Laky has for decades whittled and woven her message into many a surface and landscape. It is no surprise that the New York Times hunted down this revered fiber sculptor to create an eco-interactive text for the GREEN ISSUE‘s outline of ‘bolder steps to make your carbon footprint smaller.’ Laky craftily used a range of natural materials and methods to create the magazine’s various sections: ACT, EAT, INVENT, LEARN, LIVE, MOVE, and BUILD. These feature categories cover everything from urban farming to kite-sailing tankers to organic ready-to wear.

We love Laky’s text treatment as it really seems to declare once and for all that the best solutions might literally be right in our own backyards and communities, with materials and practices that simply need to be re-examined and better utilized. As the artist openly states, “Natural materials are very expressive…they also connect me to nature which is a deep love of mine.” According to her artist website, Laky considers herself to be an environmentalist, with her work often employing materials harvested from nature and/or agricultural sources with select recycled elements incorporated. “She is attracted to humble materials and simple, direct methods of hand construction…Laky has (also) been a strong advocate for the establishment of an environmental sustainability curriculum in design and art at UC Davis.”

For an in-depth look at sculptor Gyongy Laky’s compelling process, be sure to check out the video on the New York Times Magazine’s website.

+ NY Times Green Design Video of artist Gyongy Laky
+ THE GREEN ISSUE, Sunday April 20th, NY Times
+ Gyongy Laky’s artist website