A Typographic Dilemma: Reconciling the old with the new using a new cross-disciplinary typographic framework (original) (raw)
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Relearning Typography: Introducing a Cross-Disciplinary Typographic Framework
2004
Current theory and vocabulary used to describe typographic practice and scholarship are based on a historically print-derived framework. As yet, no new paradigm has emerged to address the divergent path that screen-based typography is taking from its traditional print medium. Screen-based typography is becoming as common and widely used as its print counterpart. It is now timely to re-evaluate current typographic references and practices under these environments, which introduces a new visual language and form. This paper describes a study that utilises a combination of empirical methods and action research projects to form a new conceptual framework for the understanding and practice of screen-based typography. This study is part of a Doctoral programme in the School of Design at Northumbria University, UK. This paper focuses on the research carried out so far, the methodology used and the findings from two stages of the study. It will end by introducing a tentative cross-disciplinary typographic framework that has been developed to date. This study starts by investigating the relevance of the current framework and evaluates the need for developing an alternate framework through a questionnaire survey. This is followed up by a series of interviews with practitioners working across different disciplines in an effort to identify new media attributes most influential towards the development of screen-based typography. Results of the surveys have shown that understanding and identifying the future role of typography in screen-based media is key to the developmental strategy of this typographic framework. Typography continues to be one of designers’ main tools of communication, regardless of medium. The introduction of the digital medium has not lessened the importance of this role and has in fact increased the reliance on typography to communicate in a clear and straightforward manner. The influence of other disciplines in the development of new media content has also been strongly supported. Conclusions from this initial research points to the fact that the development of a framework must take into account several key factors. These include the impact of technology on the development and application of typography. The framework should also be responsive to the influences of other disciplines in the development of new media content. Influences from film, computer gaming, interactive digital art and hypertext disciplines must be appropriated into the building of a new knowledge base for screen-based typography. Identifying and understanding the influences brought about by other disciplines should be a major consideration in the development of the framework.
Seeing through Letterforms -Typography Past and Future
Perspectives on Visual Learning, Vol. 5 / Facing the Future, Facing the Screen, 2022
10th Visual Learning Conference, 2022 provided a space for the research community to exchange and push ideas in regards to the theme Facing the Future, Facing the Screen. I took this opportunity to participate in the virtual research group and share some notes on the expanding ‘parameters’ of the typographic discipline. In the light of an ontological turn, pictorial turn, archival turn, and many other “theoretical interventions” which have generated a lot of contemporary rethinking, I explore ideas on situating typography in the space of emerging new thoughts, a fluid space that is posing a lot of routes for the expansion of the typographic scholarship. In the paper, I initially lean on Braidotti’s view on ‘posthumanism’ as a navigational tool to explore and expand the field by “comparing notes” across disciplines. Building upon this notion of comparing notes, I consider Leonidas’s reflections on typography which highlight historical and cultural complexities of the field. Their two theoretical standpoints support the main purpose of this paper which is to explore intersecting points between typography and other disciplines. I provide a very brief, and potentially very experimental, proposition of intersectionality between postdigital condition, reimagining of the archives, and typography as a culture-defining element. This paper is featured in an online volume Perspectives on Visual Learning, Vol. 5. edited by Petra Aczél, András Benedek, and Kristóf Nyíri.
A Cross-Media Typographic Framework: Teaching Typographic Skills In a Convergent Media
designdictator.com
Typography has evolved from an environment that is mechanical, static and communication focused to one that is digital, dynamic and experienced focused. Yet we still use print derived terminology (such as x-height, counter, baseline, descender, ascender, kerning, leading, tracking, em, en, pica and points) to continually describe screen-based typography.It is no longer sufficient to continually adapt our print model for screen. Instead, it requires a complete review of how we approach, view and apply typographic knowledge. How do we reconnect existing theoretical knowledge of typography with changing design applications across media? Exploration of this question resulted in a PhD research programme undertaken from 2002 to 2006 at Northumbria University. This research resulted in the development of a pedagogic framework that offers a new approach, structure and content for the teaching, understanding and application of typography in cross-media communication environments. The purpose of this framework is to provide guidance to graphic and multimedia design educators in the planning and delivery of typographic knowledge across different media.This paper will concentrate on introducing and describing the framework’s development, structure and content.
Deconstruction, legibility and space: Four experimental typographic practices
Technoetic Arts a Journal of Speculative Research
In this article we wish to present the typographic experimentations of four designers, each of whom looks at typography and its implementations from different viewpoints; however with similar goals – namely to investigate how typographic systems can be implemented, their attributes as carriers of semantic meaning be redefined, and/or their functions be improved upon within the digital medium that presents challenges as well as opportunities that enable graphic designers to reach well beyond the traditional medium of typographic work; i.e., printed paper. The article will examine these four projects under the umbrella concept of Deconstruction, also extending into a consideration of Legibility; setting them forth as examples of the impact that the digital medium has brought to bear upon typographic practice in recent decades.
FaceForward International typographic conference, Dublin, Ireland, December 2015: Conference Report
The inaugural Face Forward typographic conference, which was held at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) in Ireland, forms part of 'ID2015; the Year of Irish Design' governmental initiative, which aims to bring global awareness to various branches of Irish design and by extension, typography. Face Forward is the first peer-reviewed conference of its kind, and offered a sizable forum for engaging with and presenting critical research into typographic production, representation and dissemination in use. With eleven tracks and more than seventy presenters, including notable designers, typographers, design critics and researchers such as Tobias Frere-Jones, Cathy Gale, and Denise Gonzales Crisp, the conference sought to bring to light connections between typographic craft, research, theory, history, criticism, and pedagogy.
This study presents a pedagogic framework that offers a new approach, structure and content for the teaching, understanding and application of typography in cross-media communication environments. Current theory and vocabulary used to describe typographic practice and scholarship are based on a historically print-derived framework. As yet, no new paradigm has emerged to address the divergent path that screen-based typography has taken from its traditional print medium. This study argues that the current model of typographic education is unable to provide design students with appropriate models, concepts and grammar to explore the potential of typography in screen-based media. Hence, a re-evaluation of the current framework is proposed in order to develop new approaches that will reduce misappropriation of typographic principles and aesthetic values in screen-based media. This study is composed of three research stages. Stage One (consisting of a literature and design application review) was used to develop an understanding of the current typographic application in screen-based media. Stage Two (consisting of a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews) was used to investigate the relevance of current typographic knowledge in relation to screen-based media. Additionally, this stage helped identify critical issues surrounding current and future typographic practice. Findings from Stages One and Two were used as a basis to develop a new framework. This framework was subsequently tested and refined in Stage Three through action research projects (with Graphic and New Media design students) and peer reviews (with design educators and professional practitioners). The final framework consists of six key attributes: an integrated model of knowledge, cross-media skills, cross-disciplinary influences, it is communication-focused, flexible and adaptable. It reflects a future model of a convergent media, not a continued separation of print and screen. This framework consists of two distinct areas of knowledge: Global Skills (Form, Content, Expression and Context) and Specialist Skills (Hyper-textuality, Interactivity, Temporality and Usability). It is concluded that the approach and knowledge-base used to teach typography must be modified to reflect the challenges posed by media convergence, where transferable global skills are emphasised across a range of media. Typography’s knowledge base has to be expanded to include specialist skills derived from technological and social changes in communication technologies. The principal contributions of the study are: the identification of transferable global typographic skills; the introduction of specialist design skills required for effective cross-media type application; presentation of an integrated model of typographic knowledge and practice; a curriculum guide aimed at helping design educators plan and deliver typography in graphic and multimedia programmes; strategies and approaches to help designers remediate their print-derived knowledge and lastly, as a subject reference guide for visual communication design students. The framework is not offered as an absolute representation of western-based typographic knowledge for cross-media application but instead should be considered as a signpost to help understand the current transition of knowledge between print and screen. Additionally, this framework has been developed and tested within a single educational environment. As a result, variations in teaching and learning styles were not taken into account. Audiences are urged to treat the framework as a ‘work-in-progress’ model that can be refined through additional field-testing in other educational environments. And finally, the application of the framework within a professional practice environment would require a comprehensive review of practice-based concerns and a further simplification of the framework.
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.
How New Technologies Are Changing Typography: The Breaking of the Tyranny of Arial
Since the dominance of Microsoft Word and until the introduction of the @font--face CSS style, typography has been a reduction of layout to one typeface per layout, usually Arial. Increasingly the manufacturing of type has moved from the foundry to the software company. Foundries have remained the provenance of the designer, not the general public. However, that is changing with the introduction of new Font APIs (Application Programming Interface). Websites and layouts have rediscovered display fonts, serif fonts and specialty fonts once again. Will this spawn a new generation of ransom note typography, or is something else on the typographic horizon? Will there be a return to time--honored rule of three fonts for a layout that developed as the de facto rule of font restraint in traditional book publishing? Using the serif font for ease of readability saw a marked decline in the years of Web 1.0. Is that dominance over with Web2.0 use of CMSs (Content Management Systems) like Word Press? What is the impact of On--Demand Printing on typography where so much publishing is generated through Word, instead of Adobe InDesign or Quark Xpress? As the deployment of content becomes more global, what fonts support a wide variety of language glyphs? This paper will attempt to look at these issues and focus on the influence of websites and Web 2.0 themes. In addition, examples of these current usages and the impact of globalization in web and printing distribution and font usage will be examined with specific examples included to support the conclusions of this examination of the expanding use of font APIs and their impact on typographic usage.