Type 4 // Ideas

Type is such a normal thing we all encounter in our everyday life not as designers but as people. But as designers we understand type at a different level than most. We have gotten pretty good at traditional rule of typography. But rules can be broken and it’s our turn to break them. Experimental typography is nothing new typographers have been pushing the boundaries for ages they did thing that were experimental then that are now common in out time. In our time we have much more resource to experiment with; the ideas are endless.

            We all have those friends that think type is just choosing fonts and doesn’t understand the importance of things like kerning and leading. I’ve always wondered how I can get these people to understand that these things matter. I instantly thought of how we encounter type in the real worlds: roads signs, billboards, ads, store signs, and more. What if there was a way to find one of these and create an exaggerated a typographical error, an error that can really change the communication of the sign or billboard and see document what happens. I’ve realized that it may require a bit of vandalizing so I took some steps back on this idea to try to envision other ways to explore this concept.

One direction I had was maybe thru photo manipulation; find a place that has a crucial piece of type and bastardize the type with some photo manipulation and see how some normal non design folk react to the image. I’m not sure what kind of result I’ll get but it may be interesting.

Another direction for this concept maybe to create instructions for some moderately difficult tasks something that may need good and direct communication and release it to a few “average” subjects. The instructions will be covered in typographic errors (bad hierarchy, bad hyphenating, so on) and see how this effects the readers ability to complete the task. There will be a lot of info to record: Did the subject complete the task? Did they complete it correctly? How long did it take?

However I decide to peruse this concert I just want the statement to be that type matters! As designers we know that but I want the rest of the world to hear it.

Another idea I wanted to explore was food. Food is a big deal to people eating is a religious thing to many of us it’s a really intimate activity. For use designer typography can be quite intimate also especially when working with movable type. But movable type is something precise, clean, and uniform. Food isn’t always any of that; in fact food can be pretty sloppy sometimes. Playing with food as a kid is fun but as an adult it’s probably looked down upon and may feel uncomfortable to do. So what if I can do that with type. I had the idea of type on gum. The un-chewed gum may be fun but how will it be working with gum that’s been a bit chewed. The letterform get all warped, the parts are sticky, and difficult to even out. What kind of outcomes will there be? And how about exploring where they end up? I see old gum in the sidewalks all the time what if you encounter stepped on gum that is communicating something will you still ignore it? I have not really got into what else I can do with gum but I would like to explore this one more.

My final idea hasn’t been as thought out as the others but still worth looking into. I have a previous degree in sound engineering and I was really into Sound Synthesis. Sound Synthesis is basically the process of creating sounds thru the manipulation and layering of waveforms. These basic waveforms are made of basic shapes Sine (circle), square, triangle, and saw tooth (sort of a right triangle). Letterforms are made from a few basic shapes mixed together maybe creating synthesized waveforms that mimic the letterforms to make a sort of “sound font” (the term sound font already exist as files that are a sound or instrument that can be used by certain music software). It’s a simple idea but I think there’s a lot that can come from it.

            Last class you presented the question “Who the hell cares?” I’m not sure if any of my ideas will invoke care in anyone but I’m sure I can build that into whichever direction I choose.