Peter Balak
were the only designer on earth, because there
Experimental Typography: Whatever that is.
would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-
language. The most frequently used letter (e)
represents the highest density of population. The
French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds
styles, which is perceived as conventional. If
the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a
and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo
similar fashion, the scale would change, and
Another example of experiment as a process
conventionalism requires going against prevailing most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to more designers joined forces and worked in a the former convention would become anti-
conventional. The fate of such experimentation is
Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. of creation without anticipation of the fixed
result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of
a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and
Peter Balak Peter Bilak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam
Experimental Typography: Whatever that means. unconventional, defying easy categorization, or confounding expectations. As a verb, ‘to
experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be help-
ful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also
have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by
crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just
an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test
of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this
sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that The Good and Bad Typography Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
lays a foundation upon which others can build. It
requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus provng
that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famos scientific experiment
would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two
objects of different weights from the Pisa tower
to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In
this sense, a typographic experiment might be a
procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation,
however, seems to be valid only in a situation
where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in
a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens
however when the outcome is ambiguous,
non-objective, not based on pure reason? In
the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type
Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven
13
internationally-recognized designers to define
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the
circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who
Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise
stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the
same sound are made redundant. For example,
the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation
their understandings of the term experiment.
is chasing whom.
couldn’t have been more disparate. They are
experimental approach at all? The alphabet is
by the experiences of the designers. While
conventions. Type design that is not bound by
is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that:
the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely
ever has’. So how is it possible that there are
many designers. A recent example is the work of
commonly used?
student of type-design who investigates the
two notions of experimentation were dominant.
the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is
designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is
the letters for regular reading sizes are very
that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and
down in size results in simplification of the
of experiment lies in the formal novelty of
Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of
opinion, but in an era when information travels
corrections which are usual for fonts designed
to suggest that no completed project can
process, when he designed a typeface for setting
achieved unprecedented archival of information,
upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis
experimental only in the process of its creation.
(Perec has written the longest palindrome on
a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety
the beginning of the 20th century. The practical
‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’
the reading process is still guided by the
typography of his day — and his work was
Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the
today things are different. Designers are more
functions.
used is to bring together various working
aspects are limited, yet like the other presented
accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can
in The Typographic Experiment was formulated
rarely combined. For example, language is
works points to previously unexplored areas of
part.
educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation chiefly interested in spoken languages and in
that the essence of experimentation is in going
statement is of little value: immediately we would at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine
being guided by conventions. This is directly
really risking. Worthington, however, is referring
of its moving boundaries.
where an experiment is designed to add to the
outcome of the experiment in which the designers Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned
As expected, the published definitions
Does type design and typography allow an
marked by personal belief systems and biased
by its very nature dependent on and defined by
Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job
convention is like a private language: both lack
‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor
the constraints of the alphabet which inspire
such diverse understandings of a term that is so
Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate
in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the
which distinguish one word from another)
eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an
online application of a typeface designed to be
recognizable in three dimensions. In each view,
variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
Although this kind of experimental process
The first one was formulated by the American
something I haven’t tried before … something
close to conventional book typefaces, each step
several other designers suggest that the nature
letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt)
the result. There are many precedents for this
the alphabet, free of all the details and optical
faster than ever before and when we have
for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds
it becomes significantly more difficult to claim
Emile Javal, who published similar research at
years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to
contribution of both projects is limited, since
was sufficient for the definition of the new
physical limitations of the human eye, however,
an appropriate example of such an approach
constraints of legibility within which typography
seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s
may feed other experiments and be adapted to product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of
curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have
been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
Following this line, we can go further
be seriously considered experimental. It is
When completed it only becomes part of the
body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final
form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
methods which are recognized separately but studied systematically by linguists, who are
the problems of analyzing them as they operate
against the prevailing patterns, rather than
ask what is at stake and what typographers are
however, venture into the visible representation
opposed to the scientific usage of the word,
to the risk involved with not knowing the exact
and thus secondary to spoken language.
accumulation of knowledge; in design, where
are engaged.
with the appearance of type in print and other
tendency to go against the generally accepted
Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on
substantial knowledge of composition, color
can make valuable experiments, but a design
density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl,
can only exist against the background of other
that when typed they lock into each other. The
together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a
it would be impossible to experiment if one
the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
research in a wide variety of media.
results are measured subjectively, there is a
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created
base of knowledge. In science a single person
cartography, which takes into account the
experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism
the silhouette of each letter is identical, so
— conventional — solutions. In this sense,
filling of the letters however varies according to
alphabet which visually suggests the
Every letter in Quantange has as many different
theh portr
shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful
to foreign students of French or to actors and
presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the
Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading
the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/
ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be
read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s
An experimental technique which is frequently typefaces are very playful and their practical
means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a
Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests
Quantange is another font specific to the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading.
the model. The user can also generate those
commercial activities. Once assimilated, the
by Michael Worthington, a British designer and
of oral reading.
rotation, and generate multiple variations of
length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and
his project of size-specific typography. While
The second dominant notion of experiment
returning the reader to the medieval experience
French language. It is basically a phonetic
has no commercial application, its results
aware of the body of work and the discourse
Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud
the viewer can set any of the available variables:
limits of legibility while phsically reducing
Among the designers’ various interpretations,
of their pronunciation — po. Words set in
of language, because they consider it artificial
examples of experiments in typography, his
interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
As the profession develops and more people
the purpose of experimetation and become aware
reproduction technologies; they often have
theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack
knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought
French designer who pursues his typographic
14
14
13
Peter Balak
and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field of graphic design and typography,
experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy
categorization, or confounding expectations. As
a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict
disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility
for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say,
‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test
of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this
sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It
requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment
would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two
objects of different weights from the Pisa tower
to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In
this sense, a typographic experiment might be a
procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation,
however, seems to be valid only in a situation
where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in
a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens
however when the outcome is ambiguous,
non-objective, not based on pure reason? In
the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type
Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment. As expected, the published definitions
couldn’t have been more disparate. They are
marked by personal belief systems and biased
and thus secondary to spoken language.
designers are engaged.
with the appearance of type in print and other
the exact outcome of the experiment in which the Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created
Experimental Typography: Whatever that means. Very few terms have been used so habitually
referring to the risk involved with not knowing
Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the
density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so
Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that:
‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are
such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers’ various interpretations,
two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is
something I haven’t tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and
several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of
the result. There are many precedents for this
opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim
a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to
‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new
typography of his day — and his work was
an appropriate example of such an approach
today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse
accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part.
Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests
that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than
being guided by conventions. This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word,
where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a
tendency to go against the generally accepted
base of knowledge. In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design
experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of
other — conventional — solutions. In this
sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were the only designer on earth, because
there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as
conventional. If more designers joined forces
Peter Balak Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
and worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former convention would
reproduction technologies; they often have
substantial knowledge of composition, color
theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack
knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought
that when typed they lock into each other. The
together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a
the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
research in a wide variety of media.
filling of the letters however varies according to
by the experiences of the designers. While
Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned
language. The most frequently used letter (e)
French designer who pursues his typographic His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the
represents the highest density of population. The
French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds
the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a
and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo
most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to
Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. Another example of experiment as a process
of creation without anticipation of the fixed
become anti-conventional. The fate of such
result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of
with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race,
Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise
experimentation is a permanent confrontation
authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and
where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the
experimental approach at all? The alphabet is
planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an
conventions. Type design that is not bound by
recognizable in three dimensions. In each view,
the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely
length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and
many designers. A recent example is the work of
the model. The user can also generate those
which distinguish one word from another)
stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the
same sound are made redundant. For example,
the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation — po. Words set in
Does type design and typography allow an
eye to pick out and process three-dimensional
by its very nature dependent on and defined by
online application of a typeface designed to be
convention is like a private language: both lack
the viewer can set any of the available variables:
French language. It is basically a phonetic
the constraints of the alphabet which inspire
rotation, and generate multiple variations of
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading.
Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate
variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
limits of legibility while phsically reducing
has no commercial application, its results
his project of size-specific typography. While
commercial activities. Once assimilated, the
close to conventional book typefaces, each step
may have started his formal experiments out of
letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt)
been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike,
student of type-design who investigates the
Although this kind of experimental process
Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the
alphabet which visually suggests the
Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests
the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is
may feed other experiments and be adapted to
the letters for regular reading sizes are very
product is no longer experimental. David Carson
down in size results in simplification of the
curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have
Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of
Pepsi, or Sony.
corrections which are usual for fonts designed
to suggest that no completed project can
process, when he designed a typeface for setting
upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis
experimental only in the process of its creation.
(Perec has written the longest palindrome on
the beginning of the 20th century. The practical
body of work which it was meant to challenge.
the reading process is still guided by the
form it can be named, categorized and analyzed
Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the
classification and referencing.
functions.
used is to bring together various working
aspects are limited, yet like the other presented
in The Typographic Experiment was formulated
rarely combined. For example, language is
works points to previously unexplored areas of
educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation
chiefly interested in spoken languages and in
statement is of little value: immediately we
at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine
are really risking. Worthington, however, is
of language, because they consider it artificial
of its moving boundaries.
the alphabet, free of all the details and optical
Following this line, we can go further
for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds
be seriously considered experimental. It is
Emile Javal, who published similar research at
When completed it only becomes part of the
contribution of both projects is limited, since
As soon as the experiment achieves its final
physical limitations of the human eye, however,
according to any conventional system of
constraints of legibility within which typography
The Good and Bad Typography
Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
that Quantange would be particularly useful
to foreign students of French or to actors and
presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the
Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading
thehonor Portrait using type
the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/
ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be
read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s
An experimental technique which is frequently typefaces are very playful and their practical
The second dominant notion of experiment
methods which are recognized separately but
by Michael Worthington, a British designer and
studied systematically by linguists, who are
means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a
the problems of analyzing them as they operate
would ask what is at stake and what typographers
however, venture into the visible representation
examples of experiments in typography, his
interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
As the profession develops and more people
the purpose of experimetation and become aware
Experiment of Typography by yienkeat
13
Words: Peter Balak
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field of graphic design and typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization, or confounding expectations. As a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects of different weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: ‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used? Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result. There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part.
Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted A scientific approach to experimentation, however, base of knowledge. In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in a situation experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — where the outcome of the experiment can be conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would reliably measured. What happens however when be impossible to experiment if one were the only the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not designer on earth, because there would be no based on pure reason? In the recent book The standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in
requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former convention would become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom. Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate.Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions. The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette
of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
venture into the visible representation of language, because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing. An experimental technique which is frequently used is to bring together various working methods which are recognized separately but rarely combined. For example, language is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, however,
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading. Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s
14
typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field. As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimetation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
13
Words: Peter Balak
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field of graphic design and typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization, or confounding expectations. As a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects of different weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
designers to define their understandings of the term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: ‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used? Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result. There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were the only designer on earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former convention
would become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom. Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate.Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions. The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest
density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing. An experimental technique which is frequently used is to bring together various working methods which are recognized separately but rarely combined. For example, language is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, however, venture into the visible representation of language, because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French
designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media. His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading. Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field. As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimetation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
14
13
Words: Peter Balak
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
14
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field
As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have
Does type design and typography allow an
average book being reduced by about 30% percent
been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the
experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by
when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words
designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every conventions. Type design that is not bound by type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: convention is like a private language: both lack ‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely the
for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation
has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly
constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas
used?
Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two
of graphic design and typography, experiment notions of experimentation were dominant. The as a noun has been used to signify anything new, first one was formulated by the American designer unconventional, defying easy categorization, or David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t confounding expectations. As a verb,‘to experiment’ tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and is often synonymous with the design process itself, heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest
alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading
that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part.
Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment
— po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading. Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that
sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt)
Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take
the essence of experimentation is in going against
risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little
the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions.This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in
Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has
The Good and Bad Typography Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’.
challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface
which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl,
model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
valuable experiments, but a design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist
an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population
Although this kind of experimental process has
against the background of other — conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible A scientific approach to experimentation, however, to experiment if one were the only designer on seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical earth, because there would be no standard for knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires
in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
no commercial application, its results may feed
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language.The most frequently used letter
experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar
going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as (e) represents the highest density of population. conventional. If more designers joined forces and The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a
formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which
and the former convention would become anticonventional. The fate of such experimentation is
Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered
they represent. These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who
a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors,
experimental. It is experimental only in the process
of different weights from the Pisa tower to where results are measured subjectively, there is a demonstrate that both would land at the same time, tendency to go against the generally accepted base proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a of knowledge. In science a single person can make typographic experiment might be a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirtyseven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer
of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to
and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography,
An experimental technique which is frequently used his works points to previously unexplored areas is to bring together various working methods which of interest which enlarge our understanding of the are recognized separately but rarely combined. field. For example, language is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken As the profession develops and more people
designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the
would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects
written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left
languages and in the problems of analyzing them as practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, purpose of experimetation and become aware of its however, venture into the visible representation moving boundaries. of language, because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
13
Words: Peter Balak
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field of graphic design and typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization, or confounding expectations. As a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects of different weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
14
designers to define their understandings of the
of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette
language. Typogaphers on the other hand are
term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t
of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters
have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir
however varies according to the frequency of
concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color
use of the letter in the Dutch language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest
theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: ‘Experimental typography
density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens
These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide
representation of the Belgian landscape.
variety of media.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors,
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the
Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception,
compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent
does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used? Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result. There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were the only designer on earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former convention would become
Experiment of Typography by yienkeat
The Good and Bad Typography Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by
Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate.Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical
a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
thehonor Portrait using type
French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and
when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading. Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate
commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on
limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously
experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan
Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it
Tschichold.
only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation
and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
(Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to bring together various working methods which are recognized separately but
ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be
means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density
rarely combined. For example, language is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, however, venture into the visible representation of language, because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to spoken
process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec
read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field. As the profession develops and more people
13
Words: Peter Balak
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam. The Good and Bad Typography Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field of graphic design and typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization, or confounding expectations. As a verb, ‘to experiment’ is often synonymous with the design process itself, which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects of different weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experiment can be reliably measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized
Experiment of Typography by yienkeat
14
thehonor Portrait using type
designers to define their understandings of the
in time. Linguists rarely, however, venture into the
term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t
visible representation of language, because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers on the other hand are
have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir
concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: ‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result. There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly opposed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — conventional — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were the only designer on earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former convention would become
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and
anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom. Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate.Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density
of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project
of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette
of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project
thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest
use of the letter in the Dutch language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently
in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research
Another example of experiment as a process of
at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-
creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors,
of legibility within which typography functions.
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth,
of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of
builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist
Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints
a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to bring together various working methods which are recognized separately but rarely combined. For example, language is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly
and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of
interested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point
compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading. Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest
13
Words: Peter Balak
OPINION PETER BALAK
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have
Does type design and typography allow an
the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who
been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the
experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by
pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every conventions. Type design that is not bound by type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: convention is like a private language: both lack ‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely the
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds
has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly
constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas
used?
Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two
notions of experimentation were dominant. The as a noun has been used to signify anything new, first one was formulated by the American designer unconventional, defying easy categorization, or David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t confounding expectations. As a verb,‘to experiment’ tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and is often synonymous with the design process itself, heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest
alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading
that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when information travels faster than ever before and when we have achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the definition of the new typography of his day — and his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part.
Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
of graphic design and typography, experiment
which may not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result of the design process. The term experiment can also have the connotation of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking responsibility for the result. When students are asked what they intend by crating certain forms, they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they don’t have a better response. In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It requires all measurements to be made objectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, the essence of experimentation is in going against and that the phenomenon does not occur in the the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions.This is directly opposed to the scientific
what typographers are really risking. Worthington,
usage of the word, where an experiment is designed however, is referring to the risk involved with not to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in where results are measured subjectively, there is a which the designers are engaged.
of different weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both would land at the same time, tendency to go against the generally accepted base proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a of knowledge. In science a single person can make typographic experiment might be a procedure to valuable experiments, but a design experiment that determine whether humidity affects the transfer of is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist against the background of other — conventional ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter
— solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible
is identical, so that when typed they lock into each
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, to experiment if one were the only designer on seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical earth, because there would be no standard for knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires the outcome of the experiment can be reliably going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as
other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language.The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population.
measured. What happens however when the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirtyseven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the simplest representation of their pronunciation
sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt)
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and
absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects
14
conventional. If more designers joined forces and The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a
— po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood only when read aloud returning the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
The Good and Bad Typography Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
of its creation. When completed it only becomes
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading
part of the body of work which it was meant to
process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see
challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing. An experimental technique which is frequently used is to bring together various working methods which
http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah
are recognized separately but rarely combined. or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and For example, language is studied systematically their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken presented examples of experiments in typography, languages and in the problems of analyzing them as his works points to previously unexplored areas they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, of interest which enlarge our understanding of the however, venture into the visible representation of language, because they consider it artificial and
field.
activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial
thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers on the other hand are concerned with the appearance of type in print and other reproduction
As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimetation and become aware of its
and the former convention would become anticonventional. The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a
Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
technologies; they often have substantial knowledge moving boundaries. of composition, color theories, proportions, paper,
Another example of experiment as a process of
circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors,
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process
etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought together in
1. baorboe 2. the good and bad typography 3. portrait Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
13
Words: Peter Balak
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
OPINION PETER BALAK
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t Very few terms have been used so habitually and tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest of graphic design and typography, experiment that the nature of experiment lies in the formal as a noun has been used to signify anything new, novelty of the result.There are many precedents for unconventional, defying easy categorization, or this opinion, but in an era when information travels confounding expectations. As a verb,‘to experiment’ faster than ever before and when we have achieved is often synonymous with the design process itself, unprecedented archival of information, it becomes which may not exactly be helpful, considering that significantly more difficult to claim a complete all design is a result of the design process. The novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt term experiment can also have the connotation Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the responsibility for the result. When students are definition of the new typography of his day — and asked what they intend by crating certain forms, his work was an appropriate example of such an they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they approach today things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of work and the discourse don’t have a better response. accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that the essence of experimentation is in going against lays a foundation upon which others can build. It the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by requires all measurements to be made objectively conventions.This is directly opposed to the scientific under controlled conditions, which allows the usage of the word, where an experiment is designed procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, where results are measured subjectively, there is a and that the phenomenon does not occur in the tendency to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science a single person can make absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment valuable experiments, but a design experiment that would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist of different weights from the Pisa tower to against the background of other — conventional demonstrate that both would land at the same time, — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a to experiment if one were the only designer on typographic experiment might be a procedure to earth, because there would be no standard for determine whether humidity affects the transfer of the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. conventional. If more designers joined forces and A scientific approach to experimentation, however, worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical and the former convention would become antiknowledge is applicable, or in a situation where conventional. The fate of such experimentation is the outcome of the experiment can be reliably a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a measured. What happens however when the circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on chasing whom. pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic Does type design and typography allow an Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary experimental approach at all? The alphabet is Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirty- by its very nature dependent on and defined by seven internationally-recognized designers to define conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack their understandings of the term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely the been more disparate. They are marked by personal constraints of the alphabet which inspire many belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that: type-design who investigates the limits of legibility
14
while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions. thehonor Portrait using type
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself. 1. Experiment of Typography by yienkeat 2. The Good and Bad Typography 3. thehonor Portrait using type
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language.The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial
its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves
average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to An experimental technique which is frequently used the simplest representation of their pronunciation is to bring together various working methods which — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood are recognized separately but rarely combined. only when read aloud returning the reader to the For example, language is studied systematically medieval experience of oral reading. by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken Quantange is another font specific to the French languages and in the problems of analyzing them as language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace however, venture into the visible representation of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many of language, because they consider it artificial and different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers the letter c for example has two forms because it on the other hand are concerned with the can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that appearance of type in print and other reproduction Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign technologies; they often have substantial knowledge students of French or to actors and presenters of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which language not indicated by traditional scripts. This they represent. project builds on experiments of early avant-garde These contrasting interests are brought together in designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who and Jan Tschichold. pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds written the longest palindrome on record, a poem which distinguish one word from another) and of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth). the economic aspect of such a system, with an The typeface is a combination of lower and upper
OPINION PETER BALAK
Experimental Typography: Whatever that means
‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer Very few terms have been used so habitually and David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and of graphic design and typography, experiment heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest as a noun has been used to signify anything new, that the nature of experiment lies in the formal unconventional, defying easy categorization, or novelty of the result.There are many precedents for confounding expectations. As a verb,‘to experiment’ this opinion, but in an era when information travels is often synonymous with the design process itself, faster than ever before and when we have achieved which may not exactly be helpful, considering that unprecedented archival of information, it becomes all design is a result of the design process. The significantly more difficult to claim a complete term experiment can also have the connotation novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that responsibility for the result. When students are no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the asked what they intend by crating certain forms, definition of the new typography of his day — and they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are don’t have a better response. more aware of the body of work and the discourse In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It the essence of experimentation is in going against requires all measurements to be made objectively the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by under controlled conditions, which allows the conventions.This is directly opposed to the scientific procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving usage of the word, where an experiment is designed that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment of knowledge. In science a single person can make would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects valuable experiments, but a design experiment that of different weights from the Pisa tower to is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist demonstrate that both would land at the same time, against the background of other — conventional proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible typographic experiment might be a procedure to to experiment if one were the only designer on determine whether humidity affects the transfer of earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as A scientific approach to experimentation, however, conventional. If more designers joined forces and seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where and the former convention would become antithe outcome of the experiment can be reliably conventional. The fate of such experimentation is measured. What happens however when the a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic chasing whom. Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirtyseven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that:
Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas
Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions. The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language.The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has
14
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
Words: Peter Balak
1. Experiment of Typography by yienkeat 2. The Good and Bad Typography 3. thehonor Portrait using type
13
no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words An experimental technique which is frequently used for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to is to bring together various working methods which the simplest representation of their pronunciation are recognized separately but rarely combined. — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood For example, language is studied systematically only when read aloud returning the reader to the by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken medieval experience of oral reading. languages and in the problems of analyzing them as Quantange is another font specific to the French they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which however, venture into the visible representation visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of language, because they consider it artificial and of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: on the other hand are concerned with the the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field. As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimetation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
Words: Peter Balak
‘Experimental typography does not exist, nor ever has’. So how is it possible that there are such diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers’ various interpretations, two notions of experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulated by the American designer Very few terms have been used so habitually and David Carson: ‘Experimental is something I haven’t carelessly as the word ‘experiment’. In the field tried before … something that hasn’t been seen and of graphic design and typography, experiment heard’. Carson and several other designers suggest as a noun has been used to signify anything new, that the nature of experiment lies in the formal unconventional, defying easy categorization, or novelty of the result.There are many precedents for confounding expectations. As a verb,‘to experiment’ this opinion, but in an era when information travels is often synonymous with the design process itself, faster than ever before and when we have achieved which may not exactly be helpful, considering that unprecedented archival of information, it becomes all design is a result of the design process. The significantly more difficult to claim a complete term experiment can also have the connotation novelty of forms. While over ninety years ago Kurt of an implict disclaimer; it suggests not taking Schwitters proclaimed that to ‘do it in a way that responsibility for the result. When students are no one has done it before’ was sufficient for the asked what they intend by crating certain forms, definition of the new typography of his day — and they often say, ‘It’s just an experiment…’, when they his work was an appropriate example of such an approach today things are different. Designers are don’t have a better response. more aware of the body of work and the discourse In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty today can an idea; a set of actions performed to prove or seem like historical ignorance on a designer’s part. disprove a hypothesis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach to knowledge that Interestingly, Carson’s statement also suggests that lays a foundation upon which others can build. It the essence of experimentation is in going against requires all measurements to be made objectively the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by under controlled conditions, which allows the conventions.This is directly opposed to the scientific procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving usage of the word, where an experiment is designed that a phenomenon occurs after a certain action, to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design, and that the phenomenon does not occur in the where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to go against the generally accepted base absence of the action. An example of a famous scientific experiment of knowledge. In science a single person can make would be Galileo Galilei’s dropping of two objects valuable experiments, but a design experiment that of different weights from the Pisa tower to is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist demonstrate that both would land at the same time, against the background of other — conventional proving his hypothesis about gravity. In this sense, a — solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible typographic experiment might be a procedure to to experiment if one were the only designer on determine whether humidity affects the transfer of earth, because there would be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how. going against prevailing styles, which is perceived as A scientific approach to experimentation, however, conventional. If more designers joined forces and seems to be valid only in a situation where empirical worked in a similar fashion, the scale would change, knowledge is applicable, or in a situation where and the former convention would become antithe outcome of the experiment can be reliably conventional. The fate of such experimentation is measured. What happens however when the a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is pure reason? In the recent book The Typographic chasing whom. Experiment: Radical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal Triggs asked thirtyseven internationally-recognized designers to define their understandings of the term experiment. As expected, the published definitions couldn’t have been more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: ‘Every type job is experiment’, Melle Hammer insists that:
Does type design and typography allow an experimental approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work of Thomas
Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while phsically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchand’s project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
Modern, digital desktop publishing could be accredited as much to the innovators of operating systems like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as much as it can be accredited to the long standing history of the written word, printing, and Typography itself.
Experimental Typography: Whatever that means
14
Peter Balak writes for Émigré is married with two dogs and lives and works in Amsterdam.
1. Experiment of Typography by yienkeat 2. The Good and Bad Typography 3. thehonor Portrait using type
13
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British designer and educator based in the USA ‘True experimentation means to take risks.’ If taken literally, such a statement is of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged. Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch language.The most frequently used letter (e) represents the highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter (q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape. Another example of experiment as a process of creation without anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo Palma, describe ortho-type as ‘an exercise in perception, a stimulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-dimensional planes on a flat surface…’. Ortho-type is an online application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font. Although this kind of experimental process has
no commercial application, its results may feed other experiments and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilated, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson may have started his formal experiments out of curiosity, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony. Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
appearance of type in print and other reproduction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet often lack knowledge of the language which they represent. These contrasting interests are brought together in the work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sintétik reduces the letters of the French alphabet to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from another) and compresses it to xx characters. Di Sciullo stresses the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French words An experimental technique which is frequently used for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to is to bring together various working methods which the simplest representation of their pronunciation are recognized separately but rarely combined. — po. Words set in Sintétik can be understood For example, language is studied systematically only when read aloud returning the reader to the by linguists, who are chiefly interested in spoken medieval experience of oral reading. languages and in the problems of analyzing them as Quantange is another font specific to the French they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely, language. It is basically a phonetic alphabet which however, venture into the visible representation visually suggests the pronunciation, rhythm and pace of language, because they consider it artificial and of reading. Every letter in Quantange has as many thus secondary to spoken language. Typogaphers different shapes as there are ways of pronouncing it: on the other hand are concerned with the the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers, the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold. Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways, see http://graner.net/nicolas/salocin/ten.renarg//:ptth). The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullo’s typefaces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited, yet like the other presented examples of experiments in typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field. As the profession develops and more people practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of experimetation and become aware of its moving boundaries.