mae decena fall 2012
The biological world has always possessed the ability to inspire great reverence and creativity as a force that joins the entirety of the planet together. No being on earth is unfamiliar with the concept of the natural world at least in some form, regardless of period and location. No individual entity can exist separately from the deeply engrained ecosystem that shapes and defines the life of our planet. The whole system must work together to continue the cycle of life, even in what seems to be a relatively brief period of existence for most.
The simultaneous significance and ephemerality of organisms, and of life in general, presents us with the unpredictable beauty of nature. The subtle complexity of patterns and forms in nature has been present as a source of comparison with the man-made world, considering the latter’s ability to fit into the systems that are so intrinsic to our evolution.
The invention of the letterpress by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400s created a new system of sharing information that was standardized, consistent and easy to distribute in large quantities. The former goldsmith created a system of moveable type, which was made up of lead-based alloy type pieces that were molded into various letters, numbers and punctuation marks.
The pieces could be arranged on a letterpress bed to create different kinds of publications in large quantities with very little time and material wasted. These molds guaranteed that a letterform printed from one of those pieces would look the same every time, allowing a consistency that out shadowed the previous forms of imprinting type such as woodblock printing and letter punching because of the ease and quickness of assembly between prints, not having to create a new mold for each design.
These standardizations have influenced how we look at type in the modern world, depending on the reliability of letterforms to exist within the parameters we have set for them. This presents the tension between organic biological forms of uncontrolled growth and the constant, static repetition of graphemes such as number or letterforms.
By creating a new typeface from the growth of plants, moss or fungi, I want to allow familiar Latin letterforms to act as shape modifiers for the organism, restricting or guiding it’s growth in certain dimensions. By documenting the organisms progress and evolution through their lifecycle as they adapt and respond to the environment, I can study the way that organisms are not ever entirely contained or standardized, through their individual life, they evolve in shape and form with time and elements.
Is there a way in which the freedom and spontaneity of organic, biological forms can be transposed onto the static, standardized ones that we use to communicate? Can the message be altered by the life of the letterforms themselves? In this modern world where type is now finally able to be created through computer interaction and generated instantly, can inspiration be taken from the intricacy and individuality of nature and apply it to the way that type is designed, created and read today?