Anthropocene Lexicon of experimental typography
1 | Anthropocene
2 | Anthropocene
Anatomical Typography
4
Distortion typography
6
Accessable Typography
8
Emotional Typography
10
Ambigram
12
Illusion Type
14
Feminism, Gender Equality, Non-Binary
16
Punk
18
Typography illustration
20
Cut-out Typography
22
Food Typography
24
Type as a Consequence
26
Typography Landscape
28
Generative Typography
30
404 Not Found
32
Glitch Typography
34
Body Typography
36
Anamorphic Typography
38
3-Dimensional Typography
40
Emoji
42
3 | Anthropocene
4 | Anthropocene
Anatomical Typography
Anatomy typography has a strong visual effect. Designers regard this typeface as the human proportions and conduct anthropological research on them. Andreas Scheiger’s “Graphic Laboratory” was inspired by the book “The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering.” “Alphabetical Anatomy” is an excellent example which designed by Andreas Scheiger. In this project, the designer simulated the effect of fonts that had been immersed in formalin. These fonts have a kind of infantile feel. They seem to have not fully developed. He saw the font as living and tried to trace the family tree of the font. He believes that "Of all the achievements of the human mind, the birth of the alphabet is the most momentous.” In this project, he believes that the development of fonts is an essential part of the process and should not be neglected. Therefore, he tried to trace the development of fonts through in-depth research on fonts. He traces the origins of the development of typefaces, dissecting multiple letters. He thinks the letters are similar to mammalian structures, with muscles and calcium carbonate skeletons under the skin.
http://www.pondly. com/2013/02/alphabeticalanatomy-sculptures-by-andreasscheiger/
“GARAMOND CORPUS” is a typographic study created by Björn Johansson. He inspires by Geoffroy Tory’s book Champ Fleury from 1529 and believes that there are many different kinds of typography, such as sans serif and sans serif. Furthermore, each font also has different glyphs such as uppercase, lowercase, italic, bold and so on. He seems letters as organic and alive things and states that these letters are similar to humans, who have many differences. As a result, he used human bones as the design element to create the typeface, showing the letters through the bones of different parts.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/58907475/GaramondCorpvs
“FLOAT health” created by Nuno Neto. It is similar to the previous design method, but this project is endowed with practical value. The public can quickly understand the field to be conveyed by this advertisement. At the same time, this strong visual effect can attract many people's eyes and achieve good communication effects.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/3891497/FLOAThealthad-agency-communicationstrategy
5 | Anthropocene
6 | Anthropocene
Distortion typography
Distortion Typography is a fast and easy design method that can buzz the content into an energetic, motivational and rhythmic flow. “While the digital often comes close to crushing its analog precedents, that process can do something curious to its putative victims: underscore their virtues, elevate their status and transform the formerly workaday into something rarefied, special, even luxurious.� Rob Walker said in a recent article in the New York Times. The creation is often ascribed to pre-digital technologies such as scanners, photocopiers, letterpresses as the unique aesthetic.
http://www.typographher.com/ blog/2016/1/1/scanmaniaexperimental-typographic-posterseries-by-ruben-montero
Montero scans the typographic poster with the text he made while slightly moving the poster when the scanner is in progress. He repeated the process with the same poster while changing speeds, movements, angles. He then cleaned up the background and made some minor adjustments in the editing software.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/6303755/MikserFestival-2012
Mikser is the most significant regional festival of creativity in Belgrade – Savamala. The identity was designed to reflect the movement and transformation of Mikser in terms of location and program. There are over 100 different visuals using the same method with Montero that generating the identity to match the dynamics of the festival.
http://www.rylsee.com/
Cyril Vouilloz created a strategy to bring letters to a different degree and dimension. He has been bringing typography to the 3D with illusions which was made out of plywood and acrylic paint.
7 | Anthropocene
8 | Anthropocene
Accessable Typography
The vast range of human sensorial capabilities require expanded forms of access. A 'one style, fits all' approach only excludes those abilities that are considered to deviate from pre-prescribed 'norms'. In recent times there have emerged new ways of thinking about seeing, hearing, speaking, reading etc. that seek to address that issues that exclude people based on ability and push towards common forms of access for all. For instance, The Center for Universal Design situated at North Carolina State University have been working for a number of years on developing and promoting a series of Universal Design principles. These principles aim to avoid discrimination in favour of systems and features that cater for as wide a range of abilities as possible that are shared, not separated. Examples include the provision of architectural details such as the provision of ramps instead of steps, wide doorways and alcoves, levers instead of door knobs and more. Their guidance for visual design includes the use of sharp and clearly defined contrast between texts and elements to cater for a range of visual acuity and the provision for audio and other non-visual elements when a person's visual acuity might be too low for high contrast prove helpful. In terms of typography there have been a number of projects in recent times that seek to address issues around low acuity and contrast, but also less wellknown issues such as those associated with dyslexia and memory.
Mencap is a U.K. based charity for people with learning difficulties. In 2008, they hired a corporate design agency to help with their rebranding. As part of this project Fontsmith, a U.K. type foundry, was invited to collaborate on a new typeface that sought to create a benchmark for legibility, based on interviews with a diverse group of people who experienced various learning difficulties via Mencap. The resulting typeface, named 'FS Me', provided utmost clarity in its ability to communicate whilst seeking to respect its intended audience by not appearing too simplistic or childlike. Dyslexie started as a student project by graphic designer Christian Boer, a dyslexic, who was so frustrated with the typefaces he encountered whilst studying that he turned this frustration into a research project. What he noticed was that fellow dyslexics had less trouble distinguishing 3D than 2D letterforms. This formed the basis for his Dyslexie font. Since the release of the typeface an organisation has been founded in it's name to continue research into dyslexia, and provide resources that address issues around this. 3-Dimensional type has recently been adopted as a standard in signage and wayfinding to address access for people with low visual acuity, leading to questions around the relevance of Braille as both an aid, but also as a cultural signifier. The issue is multi-faceted. Providing text in common languages that is raised, so it it is readable by touch addresses discrimination along the lines of aforementioned Universal Design principles but it also neglects the legitimacy of Braille as a commonly-held system of language particular to a group fo society. Time will tell whether or not one type of typography will ultimately outweighs the other, although the privision for both seems like a commonly accepted form as well (see City of Melbourne street pole signage, or Public Transport Victoria's information boards as examples of this).
https://www.dyslexiefont.com/ https://www.fontsmith.com/casestudies/mencap https://www.propublica.org/ article/how-typography-can-saveyour-life https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2016-07-04/sydneylaunches-largest-tactile-networkfor-blind-pedestrians/7566852
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10 | Anthropocene
Emotional Typography
Emotions affect the way of decisions making, problems solving and information categorizing. When we design for the feeling, we trigger emotional responses intentionally in our audiences, promoting them to recognize a certain personality. People can sense the personality in things and relationships based on the character and figure. Designers use typography to convey personality through defining the tone of voice to fit in with the context. G'NOSH, a British company advertises its healthy food and fresh products on their site. Since their value proposition is quality and tradition, they were trying to create an atmosphere of a fresh and authentic variety of products from experts’ hands. The feeling you get from the website is not so different from looking at the blackboard in a bar. A big handwritten heading is shown on this site, providing the message of the brand.
http://gnosh.devstars.net/ http://www.letsdothis-now.org/ http://www.jacquico.com/
The following website is the donation channel of Lets Do This Now for cancer research; however, their tone of voice is playful and humorous. The reason is that they found people in a positive mood will be easier to make a donation; the design is in consideration of efficiency and communication. The fonts and colors on the website are all different, and it gives movement to empower the sense of humor.
The color palette of the Production Kitchen website is based on pastel colors. They used different kinds of handwriting, sans serif and serif fonts and images as the design elements. The vast selection of different typefaces gives the site a warm feeling which links to their homemade cupcakes.
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12 | Anthropocene
Ambigram
Ambigram is the name given to a visual trick whereby a piece of typography that can be read from multiple orientations, i.e. upside-down or back-to-front. They often repeat the same word but can also read as different words depending on the orientation of the reader.
The name was bestowed upon this form of typography by an American professor of cognitive science, Douglas R. Hofstadter who wrote: "Ambigrams are discoveries, not creations". Hofstadter wrote extensively about the phenomenon in 1987 in a publication titled "Ambigrammi" (full title, translated reads as "Amigrams: an ideal microcosm for the study of creativity"). Although Hofstadter is often credited this inventing the term, he did not invent the form and examples appear throughout the history of the written word. For graphic designers the ambigram can appear as a gimmick, or seldom used typographic element, but for enthusiasts of the form (or ambigramists as Wikipedia refers to them) there is a type of cultish fever that accompanies the collection and/ or creation of ambigrams that lives outside of the hermetic seal of the graphic designer's realm and that gives form to the types of scientific concepts that appear with a sheen of mystery and imagination embedded within them.
https://www.flipscript.com/ ambigram-generator.aspx https://www2.stetson. edu/~efriedma/ambigram/ rotation.html https://www.theguardian.com/ science/alexs-adventures-innumberland/2013/apr/10/ mathematics
An early example of the ambigram, as an illustrated element within book design, appears as far back as 1893. In Peter Newell's children book 'Topsys & Turveys' the story ends with an ambigram of the words 'The End' and text inviting readers to turn the book around to read the words again, this time appearing to spell out the word 'puzzle' instead.2.3.
https://puzzlewocky.com/wordgames/ambigrams/
The 'New Man' logo is one of the most well-known examples of an ambigram designed as part of a corporate identity. It was designed for a French clothing company in 1969 by industrial designer Raymond Loewy. His interest in designing 'machines' informed the rigid, geometric nature of the logotype which has the added benefit of being able to rotate 180° to read in exactly the same manner.
https://goodlogo.com/extended. info/new-man-logo-2389
In recent times, tattooists have found inspiration in the arcane properties of the ambigram, provoking a rash of sites offering to create ambigram designs in similar styles such as fontmeme which uses a blackletter style font which is easily reflected horizontally to produce a very simplistic interpretation of an ambigram and flipscript which produced more sophisticated and complex results, ready to take to the tattooist.
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Illusion Type
Seeing is believing. One of the most common phrases we hear. Seeing something with your own eyes is the ultimate confirmation of an occurrence for us. But what if what you see is not everything? Is seeing something the same as actually looking it for what it really is or what it can be? At one point or another, we all have looked at something upside down or from a different perspective and thought how it looked like something else. We have also looked at something in the dark or in light and seen it in a completely different way. Even something in motion can result in a completely different experience. The thaumatrope for example, of the bird on one side and the cage on the other. Even something as simple as looking at a reflection. There are so many ways to actually experience or experiment with the versatility of our vision.
https://www.doylepartners.com/ nytimes-grit
This experimental typography project by Doyle Partners was implemented in two schools in New York City. It was an installation of character traits originally produced for the article “What is the Secret to Success is Failure?� in the New York Times magazine. The work was done by a team and was made by sticking duct tape across the basketball court. While it may seem like a decorative element or just modern art from many perspectives, it also can be a perfect form word with a simple typeface.
http://www.fred-eerdekens.be/ work/detail/men-ga-een-zachtergang
Light and shadow. Most of our Initial experience with experimenting with light and shadow was by making shapes using our bodies or hands, with a strong light source. The shape of a dog's head or a bird. For this project, Fred Eerdekens uses light and shadow to form a typeface. The objects used to create this were glass and steel panels and book covers. Without the lights, this experiment may seem like a random arrangement of material but gives us a completely different experience, just with the flip of a switch.
https://segd.org/content/urbantales-shadow-typography
Light and shadow. Most of our Initial experience with experimenting with light and shadow was by making shapes using our bodies or hands, with a strong light source. The shape of a dog's head or a bird. For this project, Fred Eerdekens uses light and shadow to form a typeface. The objects used to create this were glass and steel panels and book covers. Without the lights, this experiment may seem like a random arrangement of material but gives us a completely different experience, just with the flip of a switch.
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16 | Anthropocene
Feminism, Gender Equality, Non-Binary
Can typography be gendered? Of course, it is common to describe typefaces as either masculine or feminine depending on their anatomy but beyond their explicit features, how can typefaces can be used to represent feminism, gender equality and non-binary groups? How can type design be used to represent the vast number of people who do not identify with a binary definition of gender? Beyond this, can the world of type design be more aware and inclusive of marginalised groups? How can type design cooperate within intersectional feminism? And why is it that type design is still such a heavily cis-male dominated sphere? These are just a hand full of questions that come to mind when thinking about the practice of typography and how it can be more inclusive.
https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/thewomen-readdressing-the-genderimbalance-in-typography/
In an attempt to shed some light on some of these big questions, an internet query into the subject unearths a wealth of designers exploring these questions. In 1994, designers Siân Cook and Teal Triggs noticed an overwhelming imbalance between men and women working in type design. In response to this, they set up WD+RU (The Women’s Design & Research Unit), an initiative aimed at supporting women designers through promoting their work and shining light on the inequality in the type design world. An early project to come out of the initiative was the experimental typeface Pussy Galore, which is now in the Collection of the National Modern Art Museum in Paris. Named after Honor Blackman’s unrelenting character in the James Bond film Goldfinger, the typeface addresses gender stereotypes using dingbats of feminine archetypes including pouting lips, Eve’s snake and a horned “she devil”. Different juxtapositions of the typeface invite the user to consider the lexicon of female stereotypes and acknowledge the imbalance within the gender status quo.
http://halloffemmes. com/2016/03/httptypequalitycom/
Beyond these efforts in the 1990s, the work did not stop there to address the issues of gender imbalance in type design. In 2015, designer Kimberly Ihre launched Typequality, an online platform where users can share and discover typefaces designed by women. Functioning as both a database and a digital meeting place, designers can connect on the platform, showcase their work and support each other in a sphere that continues to be dominated by men. Meanwhile, Brussels-based designer Loraine Furter launched Badass Libre Fonts by Womxn to promote the work of woman-identifying type designers. Women working in this trade were unaccepted, invisible and undervalued… and this was until about 1980, which is so recent. In Briar Levit’s wonderful documentary Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production, one of the interviewees mentions an expression used in the ’50s and ’60s: you could use a “girl” to do typesetting, which in the trade’s jargon meant a non-unionised, inexpensive worker.
http://www.yesequal.us/
The representations we are used to seeing and producing as graphic designers—that we consider natural—are informed by this history and the broader society we live in, which is patriarchal, sexist, racist, classist, ableist… Intersectional feminism, which considers these intersecting fields, is useful in addressing these issues.”
http://sakaria.se/works/queertype/
The strengths provided through intersectional thinking can also be used to explore and give voice to gender-queer folk who claim identities outside the gender binary and cisnormativity. Swedish Designers Minna Sakaria and Carolina Dahl address the gendered use of type in projects such as Queertype, which challenges typographic stereotypes by switching their application. That is, words commonly associated with femininity were written in ‘masculine’ typefaces and vice versa. Sakaria explains, “I designed two gender stereotypical typefaces—Sans and Avec—and made them queer by applying them inverted.” 17 | Anthropocene
18 | Anthropocene
Punk
Popularised in England, Punk arguably started in America inspired by Rock n Roll music. One of the first Punk bands in America was the New York Dolls, managed by Malcolm McClaren. McClaren was of English background and after he left the New York Dolls, started the Sex Pistols in England. As well as managing the Sex Pistols he ran the store "Sex" with his partner Vivienne Westwood. As a pair Malcolm and Vivienne created a lot of the imagery and aesthetic we often relate to punk. The Punk graphic style was often characterised by a hand made aesthetic making use of things like collage, hand-drawn type, ransome note style lettering and stenciles to name few.
http://www.designstreet.com. au/punk-rock-changed-designhistory/
The Sex Pistols only album "Forget the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was designed by artists Jamie Reid. Reid also co-wrote the lyrics to the song "Anarchy in the UK". Jamie Reid's work consists of collage and often used lettering cut from newspapers paired with other graphic elements, this can be seen in the "God Save the Queen" image.
Malcolm Garret is another English graphic designer who worked with the Punk band the Buzzcocks, as well as other non-punk bands like Duran Duran. The collage style can be seen in his works like the Orgasm Addict Poster.
https://hypebeast.com/2019/3/ mad-museum-punk-graphicsretrospective-peter-savillemalcolm-garrett
Barney Bubbles is yet another British designer who worked with various bands in the 1970's and 80's. His style also used collage, which can be seen in the record sleeve for Damned, Damned, Damned by the Stiffs.
https://www.counter-print.co.uk/ blogs/news/barney-bubblesexhibition
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Typography illustration
Typography illustration is a technique that was using lettering reform and make it to the illustration. It could be a single word, a phrase, related terms and so on. For example, use a phrase of a car to create the car illustration. It can be done by pens and papers, and you can choose a figure or object that you would like to illustrate, draw the outline of your illustration object, then put in your hand lettering into the illustration. You can choose only input your lettering inside and adjust the text, or reforming the text and make it looks like the object that you illustrated.
https://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/
Chris Spooner is an artist who holds his blog, ‘Spooner Graphics’, in which he aims to use his blog as a platform to share his design tips, tutorials and resources. He has done a few numbers of handlettering typography illustrations tutorials. For instance, he published ‘How to create typography illustrations the easy way’ tutorial in 2014. He taught how to use Illustrator to manipulate the text into a silhouette shape.
https://twoleft.co/
Adam Trageser is a creative director, product designer, photographer and the founder of Two Left Co., which is a boutique design studio. He is Philadelphia based. One of his projects was designing the Philadelphia shirt for You&Who apparel, and he has used the text ‘Philadelphia Motor Works’ to illustrate the man who is driving with the hood vents.
https://www.linziehunter.co.uk/
Linzie is from Scotland, and she is a Peckham based artist in London. Her amazing hand lettering, illustrations and great application of colours have appeared on lots of print and digital publications. Apple, Nike, Hallmark, BBC and so on are all her clients. One of her projects is typographic maps, in which to use the text to illustrate different place.
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Cut-out Typography
Cut-out typography is a craft-like 3D effect typography. Letterforms will be cut-out on the same piece of material such as paper, wood, etc to create a 3D shadow effect, to reveal illustrations underneath or to be placed on any background and still be legible.
Ariane Spanier is a designer based in Berlin. She designed covers for FUKT Magazine 2009 issue and Washington Post Magazine December 2012 issue using similar cut-out style. Remaining cut-out paper strips are curled towards the edges of her letters not only to create a 3D shadow effect but also to reveal the publications’ main theme and topics underneath. For FUKT Magazine, it’s the annual selection of contemporary drawings and for Washington Post Magazine, it shows headline stories about the Washington area within this issue.
https://www.arianespanier.com/ washington-post-magazine-2/ https://coverjunkie.com/covercategories/typographic-covers/ fukt-germany-9/ https://coverjunkie.com/covercategories/typographic-covers/ washington-post-mag-us-49/
Toshiyasu Nanbu as an art director based in Japan. His Forest of Typographic design, which won the Japan Typography Yearbook "Best Work Award�, used laser cutting paper technique. According to Nanbu, the message by typeface is intertwined. Due to all very delicate details at the edge of each page, a real challenge is set up to test a person’s sensibility when they picked the book up. Global environment is the hidden message of this design as the cut-outs will be destroyed and damaged if readers use violence against them.
http://www.tasteinc.net/ graphicdesign19.html
Louis Rigaud is a freelance in multimedia creation and illustration. He designed the Le Tout Petit Festival poster in 2013 using cut-out elements on one sheet of paper. The main focus of this festival is for children and their companions to live and share their artistic experiences. Colour, paper and scissors are familiar to kids as their fine art first encounter, Louis created the entire colourful town with cut-out shapes and letters to give this poster a fun and lively vibe as if children would be living it in when they came to Le Tout Petit Festival. The letters were not fully cut out but cleverly kept just enough to achieve the 3D and shadow effect.
http://ludocube.fr/portfolio/ graphic
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Food Typography
The most direct definition for food typography is a collaboration between lettering and food. Using food as your main ingredient, a wide range of skills will need to work together in order to complete this recipe. These skills are not only limited to sculpturing, flat lay design, carving, drawing but also photography, food preparation, food handling or even some basic chemistry knowledge.
https://www.russellshawdesign. com/aiga-atlanta-2017-postershow-promotional-artwork
Russell Shaw is an art director, designer and illustrator. The project was to create a promotional artwork for AIGA Atlanta’s second annual Poster Show. This poster was created fully by hand out of paper and found objects. Inspired by the 2017 showcase which focussed on film- and movieinspired poster designs, the iconic movie snack: popcorn was chosen to create the main title. Russell used paper and straws to form the threedimensional letter structure before gluing popcorn on top. Almost the entire poster was constructed by hand compositionally assembled then being photographed.
https://marmaladebleue.com/ stickytrap
Danielle Evans, an art director and a dimensional lettering artist used the correlation between sugar, fashion and lettering construction to create a few accessory pieces for her fashion photoshoot with fashion photographer Nick Fancher. One of these accessories was the syrup coated wire necklace. She started with prototyping twisted, coated wires the word “queen”. Each wire was submerged into hyper-saturated syrup for four hours then hung until they were dried. The best wire was picked for her photoshoot. Danielle also made a candy ring out of taffy baked onto modelling clay with the word “ass”, a marshmallow rope charm bracelet, a lollipop necklace, etc.
https://www.kanyegg.com/
One of Danielle’s longest series of food typography is Kanegg. “Kanyegg was hatched while exploring Kanye West as a pop culture phenomenon: G.O.O.D. egg or bad yolk?” (Evans, 2018). This is a series of experimental typography using eggs in many different ways such as eggshells, fried eggs, dyed eggs, meringue, omelette and carved emu eggs. The most stand out experiment was carving letters on emu eggs. Letters were hand-drawn onto the dark teal egg surface. After the letters were carved with a Dremel attachment, two additional shell layers, light teal and white would be revealed. The carving process can take up two weeks. 25 | Anthropocene
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Type as a Consequence
Type is created as the consequence of something that has not been premeditated, but that through experimentation finds it’s way into a letterform. The technique used to generate the letterform is not what matters, but the outcome is.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/41128367/Typographyset-4
The Russian designer Ruslan Khasanov works driven by the motto «Beauty is everywhere». He creates typography through different experimentation processes, that show synergy between art, science and design. He uses elements like paint and water and techniques like animation to produce unexpected results that end creating letterforms. His work is a clear example of how to create type as a consequence of an experimentation process that has the movement of different elements as a starting point.
The English designer Lisa Nemetz worked on a letterform project based on creating experimental letterforms with the use of paper and ink. Each letter is formed by dropping ink on a paper and then folding it to generate the letterform. The fundamental element of this project is the thoughtful use of the paper and how the ink spreads within these folds. This is an example of how using very simple materials type as a consequence can be made.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/3306736/SimetraExperimental-Typeface
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Typography Landscape
Typography is traditionally a rather flat pursuit: letters on a page, as beautifully designed as they may be, are still just two-dimensional images. But a growing number of artists and designers are bringing typography off of the paper and into the real world. These incredible works of physical typography span fine art, furniture design, public ar. bringing the intangible nature of languages into a touchable three-dimensional world.
Sitting in Vancouver (from October 2009 to Summer 2011) is a strange and wonderful man: The We sculpture from artist Jaume Plensa. Designed for the Vancouver Biennale open-air art exhibition, the sculpture is made up of characters from several different alphabets that come together in the shape of a seated human. Visitors can walk inside the sculpture and surround themselves with letters, creating a one-of-a-kind art experience (and fantastic photo opportunity).
https://www.vancouverbiennale. com/artists/jaume-plensa/
https://vollaerszwart.com/ evergreen
Typographic garden commissioned by the Thij College in Oldenzaal. Nine objects covered in artificial grass are used as outdoor furniture for the school. It serves as an engaging space for secondary school children. The usually flat material of artificial turf achieves three-dimensionality through the oversized letters that spread across a 20-meter circle. The Nine huge letters from both the seating area itself and the name of the project, offering a range of playful lounging options where youngsters can relax and socialize.
http://www.andrewbyrom.com
Andrew Byrom has created a typographic sculpture in a farmer’s field from local materials. finding inspiration from both the natural landscape and man-made materials, byrom’s installation sees old corrugated metal sheets spell out the word ‘true’. rust stained patina and flaky textured panels form larger-than-life letterforms in the landscape, channeling the community and culture of the countryside. 29 | Anthropocene
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Generative Typography
Man vs Machine. This is a debate that goes across various topics. While some may believe machines or computers will never be able to exceed the potential of the human mind, many instances prove otherwise. While the machines ability to create an effective typeface from scratch may still take several years, the potential of machines creating experimental typography is evident today.
https://www.ranzhengdesign.com/ look-hear
LOOK/HEAR typography project was designed to build a relation between Typeface and Sound. To achieve this Zheng built a complete visual system based on sound data. Although there was a base typeface used, the experimental aspect is introduced when the different sounds manifest to alter the appearance of the actual letter. The sounds were recorded from scenes from everyday life. A park, a street, a cafĂŠ, a subway and an office.
Generative Typography project consists of a series of experiment that fuse typography and code. More specifically, the DIN typeface and the code platform Processing. While DIN itself is a clean simplified font, once fused with the infinite variations of size, weight and spacing and combining them with randomization and repetition, the results are also infinite and different every single time.
https://iamzewang.com/ Generative-Typography
Typographic Music experiment was the work of Dina Silanteva, which was initially a research project on generative systems and multi-layered typefaces. This later led to an identity system for a music festival. It was developed even further as an iterative process of investigation in generative typography.
http://www.ddina.com/index. php?/2011/typographic-music/2/
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404 Not Found
The HTTP 404, 404 Not Found, and 404 error message is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) standard response code, in computer network communications, to indicate that the client was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested. Broken links are strewn throughout the internet, digital dead ends created by lost archives, website revamps, or just sloppy typing. Some website simply has standard “page not found!” text on their 404 error pages or built-in redirects to their pages. But other institutions are more playful with bad URLs, using art from their collections or that they’ve exhibited to visualize the mistake.
For example, the New Museum’s 404 page features a Maurizio Cattelan horse whose head is lost in a wall. (Cattelan is a bit of a 404 favorite, with his dead Pinocchio in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum appearing on that institution’s page.)
https://www.newmuseum.org/ exhibitions/404
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/ page-not-found.html
Still others take the opportunity to provide some on-brand humor, like London’s Natural History Museum, whose 404 page shows a stegosaurus skeleton above the text, “That page may have evolved or become extinct,” and Houston’s National Museum of Funeral History, which states, “You have made a grave mistake!” over an image of a coffin.
https://airandspace.si.edu/404
In some counties, authoritarian government will regulate the freedom of journalism and communication of the people and bend some overseas’ websites. In such countries like China, 404 Not Found page art such as “the page was eaten” became a weapon that people used to fight for their freedom.
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Glitch Typography
Glitch art is a fault in a system including human, nature and electronics industries. Glitches appear in visual art such as the film A Colour Box (1935) by Len Lye, the video sculpture TV Magnet (1965) by Nam June Paik and more contemporary work such as Panasonic TH-42PWD8UK Plasma Screen Burn (2007) by Cory Arcangel. It is not similar to “bug,” “glitch” is not a serious error and it seems more mysterious and unknowable.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/23287385/Cosmic-Crush
Glitch art is a random and unexpected effect achieved by destroying electronic data or physically operating electronic devices. This data error eventually evolved into a major trend for desirable effects in graphic design. This font can represent the word "modern," it is a Bohemian reflection. It uses different kinds of technical errors to achieve aesthetic purposes. The glitch can be performed via data manipulation, misalignment, hardware failure, misregistration, and distortion. This type of font is often used to express false or psychedelic feelings.
https://www.behance.net/ gallery/49268301/-36-days-ofglitched-type
Using electronic software to create the effect of the glitch typography can also achieve many different outcomes. The Italy designer, Giarri’s work, is another example of digital glitch typography. He works by using software such as radial blur, noisy filters, copying layers and recoloring. His work has more details in the signal letter. Furthermore, #36DaysOfGlitch is a project using digital software to create glitch typography. The electronic mode is as random as the previous one. The automated way can produce many more possibilities than the physical form, in other words, it can create more unique effects.
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Body Typography
Typographic body is a typographic experimentation from the projection of characters in the female body. The letters were the result of the interplay between their own anatomy and the anatomy of the body.
In 1529, engraver Geoffroy Tory — printer of The Book of Hours (1525) — published Champfleury. (“Champfleury” translates from French to something like “field of flowers”.) Tory subtitled his work, “The Art and Science of the Proportion of the Attic or Ancient Roman Letters, According to the Human Body and Face”. The painter and designer Geoffroy Tory believed that the proportions of the alphabet should reflect the ideal human form. He wrote, “the cross- stroke covers the man’s organ of generation, to signify that Modesty and Chastity are required, before all else, in those who seek acquaintance with well-shaped letters.”
https://medium.com/s/aboutface/eyes-to-c-arms-to-ea034793cbf49
Through the art of photography Greek artist Anastasia Mastrakouli creates unique typography by incorporating the bare human figure. These naked silhouettes form gestures to create each letter of the alphabet as they interact and press against the pane of wet glass. The identities of the figures are obscured by the surrounding water and panel adding symmetry to the overall appearance of the letters. Mastrakouli’s work exposes the connection between typography, art, and the human figure in a new and unique way.
http://hifructose. com/2013/03/29/the-nakedalphabet-by-artist-anastasiamastrakouli/
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Anamorphic Typography
Anamorphic illusions, or Anamorphosis - or whatever you prefer to call the effect when you have to view a space from a specific vantage point to properly see an image that otherwise appears distorted - dates back to the Renaissance, but has found a lot of popularity lately.
https://medium.com/@tqvinn/thesecret-to-anamorphic-illusions853e3674209a
Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices or both to view a recognizable image. Some of the media it is used in are painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film special effects. The word "anamorphosis" is derived from the Greek prefix ana‑, meaning "back" or "again", and the word morphe, meaning "shape" or "form".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Anamorphosis
An optical anamorphism is the visualization of a mathematical operation called an affine transformation. The process of extreme anamorphosis has been used by artists to disguise caricatures, erotic and scatological scenes, and other furtive images from a casual viewer, while revealing an undistorted image to the knowledgeable spectator.
https://www.boredpanda. com/anamorphic-typographyby-joseph-egan/?utm_ source=google&utm_ medium=organic&utm_ campaign=organic
London-based graphic designer Joseph Egan together with his colleagues from Chelsea College of Art & Design created this eye-deceiving anamorphic typography installation as part of the assessment for his Foundation Degree course. “We initially chose the phrase “It’s more than just print” to challenge the conventional idea that graphic design can only be realised in 2 dimensions (a poster, business card or magazine etc). The phrase is also a comment on the technique as when viewed from the right viewpoint, the design looks as though it is flat on a 2D plain.
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3-Dimensional Typography
Objects in the world have three dimensions: height, width, and depth. Since graphic art is twodimensional, it is easy to represent height and width. Now people might think to see 3D in graphic art, but it is not 3D, it is just a visual illusion. With the rapid development of technology and the popularity of more and more VR and realistic styles, it is not surprising that 3D typography has become a design trend. As with typography, 3D fonts are different. These fonts may be large and bold or have more scripting or bubbling designs. The use of 3D types may or may not include colors, which vary significantly in dramatic effect and variety. The recognition style of 3D typography is that the font has depth. People should feel that they can reach out and touch the letters, feel the difference in their shapes, curves or hard edges, and feel that they are real. The work of 3D typography is a bold response, as much of it is now done on screens, attracting people to the emerging "make things" approach. With the development of digital design software ecosystem and the increasing price of 3D printer hardware, 3D printing has become affordable and available for everyone. For 3D printing, designers should take the time to explore the readability of multidimensional types. Some fonts are easy to read, while others are not. Bold sans serif fonts are the safest choice from a readability standpoint. When people take the time to study a series of font groups, 3D typography brings them new visual and artistic experiences.
http://www.chrislabrooy.com/ work-2#/test-layout2/ https://www.howdesign.com/ design-creativity/3d-letteringround/
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Emoji
Emoticons are typographic illustrations, usually made of punctuation characters, intended as shorthand for certain authorial intent that might not otherwise be apparent in a short digital communication. Since 1982, they’ve been part of the internet (when that word was still capitalized). Latterly they’ve been displaced by emoji, which are single pictorial characters that accomplish the same thing. Indeed, emoji are basically ligatures for emoticons.
https://practicaltypography.com/ emoticons-and-emoji.html
We all know emojis, those little characters, and symbols that every millennial uses... They’ve made their way from casual use on forums and text messages to full blown mainstream on our iPhones. Emojis have reached wide spread use, there’s no hiding it. You can even become fluent in the world’s hottest digital language.
https://medium.com/@Jefnwk/3books-written-entirely-inemojis-can-you-read-them-
Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese “character”. The resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The first emoji was created in 1998 in Japan by Shigetaka Kurita. He was part of the team working on NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode mobile Internet platform. Kurita took inspiration from weather forecasts that used symbols to show weather, Chinese characters and street signs, and from manga that used stock symbols to express emotions, such as light bulbs signifying inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Emoji
The emoji keyboard as we know it today first made its appearance on the iPhone with the release of iOS 2.2 in 2008. From there it spread to the United States and skyrocketed in popularity around 2010. A big moment in Emoji history was 2015 when Oxford Dictionaries named an emoji (Face With Tears of Joy) it’s word of the year. With this type of recognition, it was only a matter of time before entire books were published in the digital language we all love.
Research has shown that emoji are often misunderstood. In some cases, this misunderstanding is related to how the actual emoji design is interpreted by the viewer; in other cases, the emoji that was sent is not shown in the same way on the receiving side. The first issue relates to the cultural or contextual interpretation of the emoji. When the author picks an emoji, they think about it in a certain way, but the same character may not trigger the same thoughts in the mind of the receiver. (See also Models of communication.) For example, people in China have developed a system for using emoji subversively, so that a smiley face could be sent to convey a despising, mocking, and even obnoxious attitude, as the orbicularis oculi (the muscle near that upper eye corner) on the face of the emoji does not move, and the orbicularis oris (the one near the mouth) tightens, which is believed to be a sign of suppressing a smile. The second problem relates to technology and branding. When an author of a message picks an emoji from a list, it is normally encoded in a nongraphical manner during the transmission, and if the author and the reader do not use the same software or operating system for their devices, the reader's device may visualize the same emoji in a different way. Small changes to a character's look may completely alter its perceived meaning with the receiver.
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Copyright Š 2019 by Nicholas Shu All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Edition: April 2019 Printed in the Australia
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46 | Anthropocene