Why does yorick fall off

But the waters were never meant to reverse death, and when the King lowered her corpse into the magic waters, they became corrupted. The resulting Black Mist that emerged from the pool caused a magical cataclysm that morphed the Blessed Isles into the Shadow Isles—a place where the dead find no resting place.

Yorick, a former monk on the Isles, is more-or-less a good guy, but he's being slowly corrupted by the mist, which clings to his back in the form of a cape comprised of thousands of agonized souls. Think about it. What image popped into your mind when you read the word "gravedigger?

And that's pretty much who Yorick was. He was the modern stereotype of a cemetery attendant a perfectly respectable job that, if we're being honest, few kids actually aspire to have when they grow up. But every culture, throughout time, has needed people to tend to the dead. And in some cultures, these custodians of the afterlife had to take great pride and go to extreme lengths to help lost souls get to the great beyond—or wherever it was they were supposed to go.

In ancient China, for example, travelling Buddhist monks would often bring along a Moon Tooth Spade: a double-sided weapon with a shovel-like scoop on one end and a crescent-shaped blade on the other.

The tool had multiple uses: If the monk happened upon a corpse on the road, he could properly bury it and deliver all the necessary Buddhist rites. And, if he encountered bandits or wild animals, he could bust out the crescent blade to beat the holy hell out of his attackers. It was here, in the story behind the Moon Tooth Spade, that we began to see our opportunity for Yorick.

What if he was more like that older style of gravedigger—one who cares for the dead with one hand, but isn't afraid to bring death with his other? Whenever someone is close to death, Yorick can decide to bring them back using a vial of holy water around his neck, or he can send them on their way to death.

With his new backstory, we'd turned the Gravedigger into the Shepherd of Lost Souls. But then came the tough part: translating that into the game. Despite longstanding issues with Yorick's design, we felt we had a pretty clear idea of exactly how his kit and visual thematics needed to change. He needed to remain a necromancer, so we knew he'd be summoning some sort of wraiths or ghouls.

The new story about the cape of souls on his back gave us the perfect explanation for his ability to bring forth Mist Walkers into the world—he just reaches into the mist and yanks out a handful of ghoulies. The Mist Walkers, once raised, aren't necessarily the soul of any particular dead person, because when Yorick adds a soul to the soupy miasma of his cape, it works sort of like pouring a cup of water into a swimming pool.

When Yorick performs Awakening in-game, he's actually just filling the corpses of his enemies with a cupful of the black mist, scooped fresh from the ghoul jacuzzi on his back.

The mist animates the body, creating a Mist Walker. The monk spade gave us a starting point for Yorick's visual update, but it wasn't hard to find other areas to improve. For one, Yorick's new role as the Shepherd of Lost Souls implies that he should probably be dressing in some sort of ceremonial garb, not just a gnarly pile of rags. When viewed from the back, the Shepherd's rocky costume also makes him look a bit like a tombstone shuffling around on the Rift. This was intentional, partly because it fits so well with his persistent, deliberate gameplay pattern.

When he sets his eyes on a goal, he gets tunnel vision—he wants to just push down a lane with his army. The slow-and-steady approach to his animations and design worked particularly well since we'd always wanted to capture the feeling that, as Yorick, you're moving an army. The biggest game design challenge when building Yorick, says Solcrushed, was figuring out how the ghoul raising process works.

At first, any minion who was given their Last Rites immediately turned into a Mist Walker. Yorick raised a walker, his enemy killed a walker, rinse, repeat. They possess phonetic character sets specifically used by the Romanist scientific community. But who knows, the free distribution of these files could open up a broader set of uses for the family! This is where I established my first real approach to typography through its applications in editorial design. This then led me to text layout and micro- and macrotypography.

After my studies I quickly embarked on a professional career. It was while working as a graphic designer, particularly my few years in publishing and visual identity, that my interest for typography and type design was confirmed. There I studied type design alongside talented teachers and professionals and I feel very lucky to have had this opportunity. I graduated in , presenting Cardone, a type family that I had designed to be used in editorial design.

Since then I have divided my time between collaborating with different companies, foundries and type designers and my own typographic practice, heavily influenced by graphic design. I am heavily influenced by the major trends in graphic design, but also by industrial design, art, architecture, pop culture and music. For a time I was for example fascinated by a certain modern and experimental aesthetic. Observing and rubbing shoulders with all of these disciplines continues to inspire and motivate my research.

During my studies, through practice and observation, my centers of interest became more precise. I am also fascinated by trying to understand the creative process and practices of type designers such as William Addison Dwiggins, Gerard Unger and Ladislas Mandel whose forms and approaches, whose mastery and enthusiastic practices I appreciate greatly.

I also really like the work of contemporary type designers such as Sandrine Nugue and Miguel Reyes, and admire their unexpected and refreshing formal audacity. For me typography is a discipline like art or fashion design that, guided by the use of new tools and new technologies, participates to a large extent in defining the soul of an epoch. Typography is animated by various considerations beauty, singularity, utility, legibility, contemporaneity, etc.

I think that this is a challenge and that it constitutes one of the principle motivations of a type designer. Designers try to detach themselves from their references while managing to respond to the different needs and contexts that they are faced with. I also think that typography allows for an infinite exploration of possibilities that allows one to envisage endlessly renewable forms. Over the last few years I have been looking to improve my creative process and to continue to learn.

For each project I particularly appreciate the first steps that consist of understanding the context, needs and constraints and then of freely exploring the possibilities. This also depends on whether I am working on a personal project or on a commission with a pre-established brief, as the time that has been allocated has a significant impact on the process. This may or may not allow me to envisage multiple possibilities before choosing a direction for the work.

When it comes to working on my personal projects these first steps are based on extensive research and a number of spontaneous and varied sketches. Once I have established the direction for the work I quickly move to digital drawing. However, with the Cardone typeface I learned the importance of regularly testing and printing my work. This is one of the steps that I enjoy most and one that allows me to precisely define what I am looking for in terms of the type color, the rhythm, the contrast, the essence.

It helps me to visualize the use that could be made of a typeface whose contours I am in the process of defining. I am nourished by both. Historical research along with the use of constantly evolving digital tools allow me to understand and respond to issues linked to the use of typography. Cardone, for example, belongs to a certain tradition because of its particular historical references. The main challenge was to appropriate them so as to then detach myself from them.

The search for a contemporary aesthetic combined with a desire to respond to the constraints of legibility of text typefaces, requires achieving a complex and highly instructive balance.

I really like the developments in technology that we have seen in recent years. I think that this has contributed to the fact that an increasing number of people are becoming interested in typography. Cardone emerged from an experience completely infused with French know-how as my training in type design began in France. When I discovered the TF foundry, having previously worked with the team behind the project, the choice seemed obvious to me.

I like to think that, as Emil Ruder wrote, typography has the duty to convey information in writing. This is probably overly succinct but I do actually think that typography is the cornerstone of communication, and that thanks to its links with other disciplines it definitely continues to make our world more bearable and more exciting.

After leaving school I focused on enriching my own creative process, trying to take advantage of, integrate and build upon each of my experiences. Nevertheless, on the few occasions where I had the opportunity to run a workshop, a lecture or a type crit, and for each collaboration that I am involved in, my main motivation is to convey my passion and my enthusiasm for endlessly exploring typography and its fundamental role in graphic design. I believe that constant exchange, interaction and curiosity nourish and stimulate.

I would of course really love to teach in Mexico, my native country, and that would be a wonderful challenge. At the moment I divide my time between collaborating with other type designers and foundries and a specific typeface project for the creative cycling project NVAYRK Nueva York in Spanish that I am part of and that I have been collaborating with since its creation in For as long as I can remember, the form of letters and their visual understanding has always been a cornerstone of my education and my practice.

We had to design documents and double page spreads for books and posters, reproducing all of the content, both iconographic and textual, by hand. For example, we had to stimulate the bulk and type color of the blocks of text with Tria felt tip pens that were lighter or darker depending on the subject.

Then in , it seemed logical to me to apply to the Atelier national de recherche typographique, which I joined in October of that year, in order to learn how to design typefaces, the idea being to embark on a deeper exploration of my infraordinary practice as a Graphic Designer.

The work of Matthew Carter interests me greatly on a number of levels, notably because he experienced all of the steps in the history of typography, and the different techniques of the design and production of typefaces, from lead to light and then digital, and this brings incredible depth to his work.

I am impressed by the precision of his design: his line is clear and precise, similar to the gesture of a sculptor. The work of Fred Smeijers also speaks to me for its sense of rereading history, that of Kris Sowersby for his way of conceptualizing a project, the work of Laurenz Brunner for its freedom and its experimentation, and finally the work of Australian Vincent Chan for the diversity of the forms that he designs.

I also have a lot of interest for domains quite far removed from typography, such as literature, occult sciences, psychology and astronomy, as much to nourish my practice as to gain some distance from it, so that my designs are not only a consideration of typefaces for typographers.

One of the analogies that I find most telling is that of designing chairs. The structure is rarely renewed, but there are always new needs: technical, aesthetic, conceptual However, I think that it is possible to engage in a broad exploration of diverse terrains through the conceptualization of type designs, which is what I am trying to do with the Immortel project.

Today I look at the work of type design similar to how American composer William Basinski approaches his Disintegration Loops: they are basically loops of music stored on magnetic tape that he wished to preserve by making digital recordings of them. Every time the tape passes the read head it is damaged and the sound altered, which gives each loop a different grain, a different texture to the one that came before.

Each loop is unique without being radically different to the others. My approach is totally empirical and my reasons for beginning a new typeface vary greatly. For example, one of the reasons behind the design of Immortel Infra came from a longstanding interest for the Galliard, Plantin and Lyon typefaces. Having worked with these typefaces on different projects, I realized that none of the three truly incarnated what I was looking for when using typefaces descended from those of the French Renaissance, forms that were present enough to be visible but sufficiently discreet to go unnoticed.

A knowledge of the history of type design is certainly the most important thing when one decides to engage in the design of typefaces, as it helps us to understand what we do, to position ourselves and affirm a direction; I took advantage of my time at the ANRT to deepen my knowledge of typography and history. My relationship with technology is slightly different. Though it is important to know how to handle the tools that one chooses, so as not to be held back by them, I have no interest in being the biggest nerd possible; I simply wish to understand what I am using and why I am using it as a function of my needs.

It is at the same time a classic exercise of revival, of exploring the architecture of a type family, and an approach to the formal incarnation of a very ancient theory light years away from type design. I have an ambivalent stance on the question. Nevertheless, as letters represent the smallest unit of communication, it is hard to underestimate their role in the development of societies.

I taught page layout to art students, so that they could use it for the graphic and editorial design of their dissertations, but also to provide them with a sufficient enough base to design the documents that artists need all throughout their careers: presentation documents for applying for projects, for residencies, etc.

I took a technical learning the basics of InDesign and Photoshop , historical the history of typography and conceptual what is the most pertinent form that can be used to deploy their dissertation in an editorial form?

I teach Glyphs typeface design software, its history and its implications. I also animate workshops in editorial design and type design in various schools. These experiences are extremely enriching as I find that I learn just as much as the people that I am teaching. I have never questioned or challenged the role of transmission of knowledge as it has always been present, and is an essential factor in the development of human beings and society.

By teaching it I make a humble contribution to its development. After five years of intense work and research on the Immortel project, I need to work on something lighter. I am currently working on around ten typefaces, and I allow myself to move forward, or not, depending on the historical and formal depth that they might provide but also depending on the interest shown by my fellow Graphic Designers. I designed a typeface for the first time in , during an exchange with the University of Laval in Quebec.

I am not totally convinced that there is, because I don't have only one approach. Effectively, my approach varies according to the projects, the commissions, or just because I saw something in a street one morning. I think that the best way to renew one's practice is not to restrict oneself to a type of form or indeed to search for the perfect form. I consider that a drawing or design done at a particular moment represents that moment, and if I work on it again a month later I'll end up taking it in a different direction.

This allows me to have an open mind with regard to my approach to typeface design. The author analyses the Sabon, a typeface that has remained one of my references for a very long time. The work of Roger Excoffon and the Olive foundry constantly comes to mind, I feel very close to his approach and his forms. But I also think that for me the most important influences come from encounters.

Such a choice seems impossible to me, a typeface in itself is not a big deal, it is the use that turns it into a finished object. Typography is a game with rules and conventions. There is no absolute form, only canons established over time and the importance of their uses. As a designer I always try to position myself with regard to these conventions and these canons, to upset them, to go beyond them and to develop them.

Afterwards I draw without references, without models because I prefer to trust what I have in mind, the forms that I have remembered. I only document my work once the project has been started. This allows me to analyse and understand what is intuitive and what is referring to something else. I think that it is important to know the major events in the history of typography to be able to understand certain forms and certain movements, but I am not a specialist or historian.

I am closer to the amateur, the observer. Nonetheless, I pay very close attention so that history and technology don't become a vector for creation as such. The technical challenge can be stimulating and attractive but it shouldn't overpower the design itself. In other words I attempt to be as accurate as possible with regard to commissions or particular uses.

The quality of the publications made by bureau can only be a sign of good things to come for TF. I am certain that my typefaces are in good hands. What's more, there is an important panel of creators that are embarking on this adventure, and so it is an honour for me to count myself among this gathering of French contemporary creators. In as much that music can't save the world but can make it less grim.

I had developed a passion for the mechanics of reading thanks to research done by Stanislas Dehaene. Discovering the developments and transformations of our system of reading and writing led me to design a first typeface for use in film subtitles.

At the time I was totally self taught. By a stroke of luck, Barbara Dennys was president of the panel who judged my degree.

Ganeau, a family of latins designed in various optical sizes, is the result of that month of learning. I have been working as a freelance graphic and type designer, two disciplines which are closely connected in my practice, since My strong interest for systems of writing took shape while I was working on Infini, a free to use typeface family which I designed for the Cnap in When responding to a graphic design commission, I do my best to design a typeface which is made to measure, whether it be for a visual identity, for signage or a logotype… Typeface design is a means which allows one to accurately respond to the needs of the commission.

I try to be as precise as possible and typefaces contribute to this. Each project is specific in nature and may require its own character. This is one of the main motivating factors in type design, how to juggle the existing with the new. Clearly we are not starting from scratch. Forms which influence matters of legibility exist, each medium and use come with their own set of restrictions.

To this can be added our stylistic references. I try not to look too much at my preferred typefaces out of a fear that I might try to redesign them, I keep my distance from them so as to avoid copying them. What I love more than anything else about typeface design is the question of nuances. Tiny modifications can totally transform a text and the possibilities are endless!

When beginning too design a typeface, I pay close attention to the commission while analyzing its context. Then I seek to formalize all of this through new forms — those most adapted to each project — rather than beginning with an existing typeface. The first steps are always drawn by hand and then quickly digitized. I like taking my time when doing research and testing, but sometimes a sense of urgency does give rise to interesting surprises.

A knowledge of the history of typography seems essential to me for both understanding the typefaces which surround us and for creating new ones. History is a source of inspiration and provides a base which allows me to create a framework.

It also allows me to play with appropriate references. I am currently questioning type classification by developing a typeface intended to be unclassifiable, which will at the very least represent the intersection of a number of references. Technology has developed greatly in recent decades. We are lucky because it allows us to be both efficient and productive. It is, first and foremost, a tool in the service of design. From my time as a student, I have followed and admired the designs produced by Bureau In their capacity as graphic designers they have a healthy awareness of the needs and desires of their fellow graphic designers.

By opening the TF type foundry, they are daring to propose a catalog which is quite unlike anything found in the more traditional models. Various different kinds of typefaces can find a home. Injurial for example, a display typeface composed solely of capitals. Typography is a tool for communication that can help people to gain a better understanding of the world. A sufficiently admirable vocation for its frail shoulders. I have been teaching, regularly or occasionally, in various different schools at different levels for around five years now.

I also run workshops for children and provide training for graphic designers. Thanks to these different activities I can share and transmit my passion for typography and type design, and also introduce people to the major issues in the field today. I am constantly concerned with questions of transmission and discovery.

I do my best not to approach things in a traditional way, and often I use play in my work. If one does not take pleasure in one is doing, one cannot learn. They have also asked me to design their visual identity. I grew up in a bilingual family in Rio, Brazil, and was very much influenced by my mother who was a linguist.

Later on I studied design and visual communication at university. It was there that I discovered typography as the graphic expression of language. It was while working with the layout of digital text that I was struck by a desire to acquire a deeper knowledge of typography and, more specifically, type design for the screen.

This interest led me to begin a typeface design project as part of the Typography and Language post graduate program in the Esad of Amiens that I concluded in with the beginnings of Thelo, a type family that explores the idea of optical sizes for the screen.

Since finishing the post graduate course I have continued my work in Service Design for businesses while simultaneously working on my personal projects around typography. I consider them to be two passionate and complementary approaches to design. I have noticed that I am often visually attracted to typefaces created by Dutch designers.

For example it was love at first sight when I discovered the work of Bram de Does, and I was lucky enough to be able to consult the original drawings for his Lexicon in the archives of the University of Amsterdam during a study trip.

I have also been heavily influenced by the work of Matthew Carter, and in particular by his approach to typeface design for screens and the way that he integrates the different constraints of the screen display into his drawings.

I had the opportunity to meet him when he participated in the Rencontres Internationales de Lure in and I really learned a lot from my contact with this very inspiring and accessible person. This is a question that I often ask myself.

I tend to answer that it is like any form of creation. What is the point of writing a new novel or a new song?

For me the possibilities for exploration in the artistic domain are truly infinite. We have all been marked by the legacy of the great designers who sought to push back the boundaries of letterforms. Beyond historical influences, the production constraints and contexts of use are constantly changing. The way that each type designer assimilates their influences and projects themselves into an original context leads to the emergence of new issues and new research. As with every other design project, before starting I need to appropriate the context and understand the issues involved.

I seek to develop formal responses that are anchored in the associated constraints. Then, little by little I refine my sketches through a process of iteration, which consists of working simultaneously on an individual point of view of the letterform and within the overall nature of the typeface. I particularly like this work of experimentation in which one must work on a level of detail while not losing sight of its impact within the type color, doing this until a balance, an equilibrium, a satisfying response is obtained.

They are both intimately linked. In my historical references I have often sought to understand the technical context of typeface design and this is a great source of inspiration to me. But though my Service Designer side feels comfortable with the exercise of responding to a particular need, I also have another more instinctive side that feeds off the formal and cultural aspects of the history of typography, not focusing too much on technique.

To be honest, this relationship can be somewhat conflictual: moving forward while holding on to what has been left behind, having a technical and historical framework while simultaneously trying to move beyond it. For me this is the essential mission of a designer, irrespective of the field in which they work. I like the idea of being represented by a French foundry, as I learned everything that I know about type design in France and from French teachers. I also identify with the fact that TF is a business that operates on a human scale and one that represents independent designers.

Ultimately the determining factor in my decision was the quality of the work of the range of designers that makes up the TF catalogue. I think that typography can be quite powerful in the manner in which it conditions the reader and thus plays a key role in the transmission of messages, in the learning process and in the various aspects of this close connection that written language has with humanity. However it is doubtlessly through articulation with other disciplines that typography can provide its greatest contribution to the world.

I have also begun to work with students who are writing their dissertations and also participate in teaching panels to whom the students present their work. In reality transmission is a two way street. For my part I find it highly stimulating to be in contact with them and to explore the subjects that drive them in their work.

I am currently working on a book of typographic illustrations that compare French and Portuguese expressions. For me this project is a way of creating a dialogue between my passions for typography, Graphic Design and languages.

France How did you get involved with typeface design? I then worked as a Typeface Designer for Monotype for a number of years before starting my own practice in I also embarked on historical research with a PhD at the University of Reading, which I completed in My influences are quite diverse. I like to draw on historical sources with a sweet spot for type specimens from French foundries from the end of the 19th century.

I am instinctively drawn to typefaces that tell a story, that create a unique vibration. They have the common trait of developing a singular typographic style, each one in a very different tone but always with great mastery.

Typeface designers often use the analogy of the chair, or the garment, to justify the fact of designing new typefaces: there are already many type families in existence, some more classical, some more fashionable; some tend to be functional and others are more ornamental, archetypal or unique… But like for any design object, it is always necessary to renew existing forms in order to respond to the needs and the spirit of a time.

Moving beyond this analogy, typefaces are fundamental tools for communication, and in that respect they have to respond to certain technical requirements and cultural needs, which are constantly evolving.

It is therefore up to the type designer to identify these evolutions, in order to propose meaningful typographical tools to users. Generally the process depends on the nature of the project.

My design process varies depending whether it is a third party commission or a self-initiated project. A lot of my personal work is inspired by historical forms, or find qn origin in handwriting. I generally have a need to appropriate these forms and to bring them to maturity through drawing by hand, although digitization does arrive very early on in my process.

Both approaches nourish each other in parallel. Having embarked on a PhD in type history with a subject that takes a very close interest in the development of 20th century typesetting technologies, these two topics are definitely at the heart of my preoccupations.

Understanding where letterforms, and the typographical tools that we manipulate, come from, is for me an essential element of my type design practice. This has allowed me to develop a critical point of view regarding the design processes that we put into place. Typography remains an essential tool for communication and the circulation of knowledge, and in this it seems that it has an important role to play in our societies.

It may not save the world, but it can certainly allow the world to communicate more easily. This seems to me to be a good start. Art schools provide an extremely rich and stimulating environment.

The students arrive with their personalities, their intuitions, their curiosity and their experiences, and it is extremely stimulating to work with them. I think that my idea of teaching becomes tangible more-so in the exchanges rather than in transmission as such, even though, of course, I do accompany the students, sometimes guiding them and sharing my experience and my skills with them, particularly in typeface design.

The ANRT is a particular case as we have been developing a number of research projects in typography in partnership with laboratories that operate in very different fields such as linguistics, computer sciences, egyptology… These projects have a prospective dimension and lead us to answering questions that we haven't necessarily been faced with before now, and to developing specific ways of working.

And the comic book provides that answer quite simply. Yorick survives because of his capuchin monkey Ampersand. Both the comic and the show go out of their way to have Yorick mention that before he purchased Ampersand, he was a therapy monkey. Before that though, he was a lab rat. Ampersand was a pawn in a antagonistic game between scientist Dr.

Allison Mann and her terrible father Dr. Both Mann and Matsumori were racing to become the first person to successfully clone a human being. When it looked like Mann was on the verge of beating her father, he responded in a very adult move and tried to sabotage her experiment. Matsumori discovered a chemical compound that would kill cloned animals. The compound injected into Ampersand had the opposite of its intended effect on non-cloned mammals, shielding them from whatever caused the death of all males.

Thus Ampersand was spared from the apocalyptic event, as was Yorick who lived in close contact with the monkey and all his gross bodily fluids.