Ewa Grabska, Iwona Grabska-Gradzińska & Teresa Frodyma
The Role of Typography in Visual Design
Introduction The intention of our study is to investigate the relationship between three key domains: craft, technology and design. The study itself is based on the concept of visual design and illustrated by examples of selected aspects of typography. The key domains, on the other hand, are driven by visual perception – from a creative perspective. However, in order to understand the interaction between the user and the designed object, we need to look into the process, which consists of numerous ‘acts of attention’ often referred to as visual queries. It leads to the concept of dynamic perception, which is the resultant of external graphic information and a constructive mental process (Ware, 2008). Such dynamic perception is often associated with the concept of favourable circumstances which influence perception of particular objects considerably. Needless to say – the way they are perceived depends on the perceptive abilities of the individual, his/her experience and other skills. An interesting example of the combination of the craft and design process is evolution of the font shape stemming from the craftsman’s creativity to the algorithms of the UTF encoding. The evolution relates to a variety of tools used to create text (from chisel to computer) and the need to consolidate a different set of signs (e.g. alphabets in different languages) into one, visually coherent whole. Coexistence of craft and design in the evolution of the font design is visible also in terminology – the term font, which is used nowadays, is seldom related to a metal typesetting, but it is mainly understood as a general lettering design, i.e. typeface. Although the font comes from the word fount, which referred to the foundry where metal fonts were cast, any conceivable association between letters and their functionality or legibility have been effaced over time (Austin & Doust, 2007). Designing patterns with literal motifs represented by interesting fonts is very popular nowadays. It is known that our reality has been represented by images across millennia. First images appeared on cave walls while nowadays we watch pictures mostly on computer screens. In the age of Internet, designers often use visual design as a cognitive tool to amplify their mental abilities. While searching for a relationship between craft, technology and design 118
