Expressive Typography as a Visualisation of Ideas (original) (raw)

Beyond Typography: Experiments in Form

This article reports on an exploratory journey that examines the usage of visual arts as a learning tool in typography courses. Through the use of pangram and Singapore English, Singlish, the study explores interesting ways to explicate information, hoping to conceive and interpret typography in surprising and inventive ways. It also aims to reflect a range of thinking about conceptual and illustrative typography. Students participating in this research are third year BFA Visual Communication undergraduates. There are three parts to this study: firstly, students are told to create hybrid typeface through exploration of combination and elimination methods. Secondly, they are expected to create Singlish pangrams. Lastly, students formed into groups to design three-dimensional installations for their chosen pangram. The final designs were exhibited in the Singapore Design Festival to collect data. A questionnaire-survey was used and the result was measured by the experiences of the viewers. This study hopes to inspire students to do contemporary design with a touch of their eastern personality.

Typography in interactive spaces and the process of reading

New interactive communication approaches by using typography and graphics have become common in many places in recent years. The development of virtual tools reveals new expressions with regard to the typography and the use of space. New media and multimedia tools are vital parts of communication in the developed world and we can say that actual information technology based ways of communication have a significant effect on individuals for a variety of reasons. It is seen that different manners in the transfer of meaning can be created by using new media and multimedia tools which have an important role in our lives today. On the other hand, creating the meaning of the word can also be done by narrative simple methods. The use of digital trends related to typography can provide an intuitive, conceptual approach to the meaning of the word. Evolution of new media and multimedia tools has lead to different interactive solutions which are effective in art and design. The purpose of this study is to investigate existing experimental forms with regards to typography and evaluation of them in terms of readability and legibility. This article aims to finding out relations between the meaning and form approaches to the typographical creations in the design.

The rhetoric of type: an exploration of the experiential and iconic nature of letterforms

The ability to select and apply type sensitively is an art form that requires an astute knowledge of the communicative complexity of letterforms. However, as a designer and design educator, I have observed that many designers frequently select and apply typefaces inappropriately or arbitrarily because they are simply unaware of the complex meanings underlying letterforms, as well as the power of the communicative choices they make. Many designers with even a basic understanding of type still tend to prefer to use illustration, illustrative graphics, icons or photography as their primary media of communication. In the event that type is indeed used, designers tend to choose ‘clean’ typefaces because they appear to detract less from the communicative aspects of other rhetorical texts already at play in their design. In other instances, letterforms may be chosen to achieve an array of elaborately intricate design layouts that are often superficially strewn across decorative, trite and eye-candied designs. From these observations, I have therefore dedicated my study to delineating and discussing two default modes or methods used for selecting and applying type – type as experiential form and type as iconic form – in order to illustrate the powerful, yet intricate communicative facets of the letterform. The first mode relates to how designers select type based on a typeface’s experiential form. By this, I refer to the connotations that we derive from our physical and sensual perceptions of letterform shapes. I refer to George Laukoff’s experiential metaphor theory, as well as sound-image symbolism theory (synesthesia) in order to identify reminiscent and intuitive letterform perception. The second describes several ways in which designers invoke symbolic connotation by selecting iconic typefaces. Here, I investigate historical and cultural narratives woven into iconic typefaces and how these narratives may be signified, resignified and repurposed. As a means of understanding the interconnected nature of meaning embodied by the letterform, my final objective is to highlight letterform communication from a visual rhetorical perspective. By conducting an in-depth case study of the Fraktur typeface (as communicating at once experientially and symbolically), I stress several tensions that exist as a result of overlapping meaning and the interconnected nature of the two default modes of type selection. I thereby argue that designers need be aware of the communicative implications of their default modes or strategies to typeface selection. My point of departure is that a more holistic approach to selecting and applying typefaces could be followed and that rhetorical theory may provide an analytical framework for such an inclusive perspective. I maintain that if the communicative complexity of letterforms is viewed from a visual rhetorical perspective, where rhetorical intricacies of meaning embodied in the letterform are thoughtfully and holistically considered (where designers may question their default modes of type selection), designers can be more strategic in directing meaning through type.

Visual communication through typoart: a pragmatic approach

The use of typography to create an artwork is a quite extended phenomenon today, especially in the electronic media. We have called typoart the work produced by design or plastic artists who make use of typographic resources arranged in differently in varied shapes and colors. We attempt to focus on some samples of typoart to which we attribute messages the typoartist wishes to put across to her audience, and probably make them think over a range of meaningful assumptions. As argued here (Sperber and Claidière, 2007), cultural information can be relevant to identifying the causal relationships of items which can trigger effects for future behavior As both linguistic and iconic codes are far from being fixed, the best way of accessing to an interpretation is to invoke the pragmatic approach known as “relevant theory” (Sperber and Wilson, 1995). We then discuss some important issues as exemplified in a series of cartoons dealing with a number of commonplace issues which we can easily find in the worldwide web. We discuss the possible intentions and clues to relevant communication, where the amount of mental effort is offset by the cognitive effects on the audience. Calligraphic skills conform to a mental representation with common traits but also varying practices that can be studied as bearers of cultural information. Key words: typoart, relevant theory, visual thinking, pragmatic inference, aesthetic cartoons.

Textual Typologies Produced by Students by Transforming an Artistic Sign as Learning Indication

Creative Education, 2020

This study uses the transcoding process of visual perceptions of an image to written language in order to monitor the learning of physics concepts. Through this procedure, high school students were asked to write a piece of text that interprets an artistic work from possible connotative readings that associate it to the content taught. In addition to the scientific content domain by the learner, the discursive organization employed in the text is also examined. The discursive organization is based on descriptive, narrative and discursive typologies. In that sequence, they form an increasingly complex composing structure. The study starts from the assumption that the appropriation of the content taught tends to keep a correlation with the typological development used while constructing the text. Results indicate that dissertation organizations tend to indicate better understanding of the content when compared to narratives or descriptions. Thus, the study suggests considering text typology as a complementary tool to assess the learner's understanding of the taught content.

The emotional typography

Typography and typographic experiments in socially engaged posters as an example of the works of graphic artists, and students associated with the Laboratory of Social Propaganda , led by prof. Jacek Staniszewski. Laboratory of Social Propaganda is a studio dedicated to designing posters and communication which is engaged in hot topics of modern times. In the laboratory as well as around, designers create works on the socially important topics, often touching and sensitive. Freedom of expression, the accuracy of the visual message, even shocking – theses words characterize works designed in the studio. All those works have a lot of emotional power in order to increase the sensitivity of the viewer on the street. They try to catch his attention in the environment of overabundant stimulation. Typography used for posters is often their ultimate signature, kind of the finis coronat opus. Typography raises the emotions of the whole picture, it is often the dominant, but what is most important, it is a coherent whole.

What is typography? Or, on definitions of a field that won’t be squeezed into a rigid framework

dsignn, 2024

The article presents partial results of a research project. It aims to diagnose the state of typography didactics at Polish universities, determine how it can be taught to respond to contemporary challenges, and explore the current usage of the concept of typography and the principles of teaching developed by Krzysztof Lenk. As part of the research, we conducted in-depth interviews with 18 teachers from various types of high schools (fine arts academies, universities as well as practical schools), in this article we present an analysis of a selected thread of these interviews - the definition of typography. We singled out the most important, interesting or frequently repeated definitions of this design field in the respondents' statements, and attempted to answer the question of whether our interviewees refer to theoretical approaches established in the literature. We then analyzed whether, and if so, how this translates into their teaching activities, analyzing the content and form of the exercises they carry out as part of the subjects they teach, distinguishing, among other things, the four aspects to which they most often pay attention - the correct conduct of the design process, sensitivity to the form of the letter, the ability to build a structure of information and the use of the letter as a message.

Typography

1st International Conference on Design & Innovation UniMAS Kuching Sarawak Malaysia, 2012

Typography is one of the magical things that people use on a daily basis. Any approach can be used to create a typeface including hand rendering, computer code or program generation. Based on ‘Text and Image’ by Mark Wigan (2008), letterforms can be manipulated in many different ways depending on the mood or context to be conveyed. Besides that, different classes of typefaces (fonts) have different innate levels of readability and legibility when using typography manipulation. This paper aims to identify the most suitable ways to apply manipulation in print advertising. The objectives are to analyze the important of typography manipulation, to investigate the awareness of public about typography manipulation effectiveness and identify the elements that brings about visual impact.