Radical play in typography by ucaben

RADICAL PLAY IN TYPOGRAPHY DAVID ASHWORTH

First published in 2021 by Laurence King publishing © David Ashworth 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United Kingdom Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the author. National Library of Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: 777 Printed in United Kingdom Text design by Ben Cawdery Cover design and Editing by Ben Cawdery Disclaimer: The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

CONTENTS Cover

Page 1

Imprint Page

Page 2

Table of Contents

Page 3

Readability and Legibility

Pages 4 – 5

Breaking the Grid

Pages 6 – 7

Deconstructing the Letter

Pages 8 – 9

Type Anarchy and DIY Design

Pages 10 – 11

Visual Poetry

Pages 12 – 13

The Liberated Page

Pages 14 – 15

Futurism to Fuse

Pages 16 – 17

Text: Palindrome

Pages 18 – 19

Text: Onomatopoeia

Pages 20 – 21

Bibliography

Page 22

Credits

Page 23

Back Cover

Page 24

Deconstructing letterforms I began to deconstruct letterforms and applied for and received a grant. My premise was that by removing letterforms from their context and recrafting them we could make them more visible. Transforming them from delivering content to content itself. However, the grant total was very small and, in the end, the project felt kind of stupid. I am not sure that other than type designers, regular people and even designers really care, but they may if presented with an abstract shape printed beautifully as a poster or experienced as a large sculpture. Needless to say, I never finalized the grant but kept on exploring – working towards an alphabet, printing these as art prints and using 3D printers to bring them to life. Without explaining what these are viewers are responding to their formal qualities and composition and then gradually understand the source material - letters. I am aware of Ed Fella’s fantastic mash-up of hand drawn fonts born from mechanicals and commercial art hand lettering. His work has a wild energy and is beautiful but can seem random and intuitive. There is no arguing that this work is not random or intuitive but has a different goal — not to make meaning, but to increase or initiate awareness of normally invisible characters — to render letters as form only, not to make legible figures. I didn’t use Fella’s work as inspiration for this project, but reviewing it now points to a new direction or usefulness. To continue to deconstruct common elements of graphic communication, but keep it a more rigid assignment, and incorporate into my client work by either developing a complete font or using the forms is some meaningful graphic way.

NO TEXT JUST IMAGE

Futurism to Fuse Merz to Emigré and Beyond is an historical survey of avant-garde cultural and political magazines and newspapers all the way from the early twentieth century to the present day. The book features a unique selection of international publications from Europe and the USA including Merz (1920s), View (1940s), East Village Other (1960s), Punk (1970s), Raw (1980s) and Emigré (1990s). The design of these magazines, often raucous and undisciplined, was as ground breaking as the ideas they disseminated. Many were linked to controversial artistic, literary and political movements, such as Dada, Surrealism, Modernism, the New Left and Deconstruction. They contain the work of many leading experimental artists and designers of their time - from Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky in the 1920s and 30s, to Art Spiegelman and Rudy Vander Lans in the 1980s and 90s.

Merz to Emigré and Beyond is a historical survey of avant-garde cultural political magazines and newspapers all the way from the early twentieth century to the present day. The book features a unique selection of international publications from Europe and the USA including Merz (1920s), View (1940s), East Village Other (1960s), Punk (1970s), Raw (1980s) and Emigré (1990s). The design of these magazines, often raucous and undisciplined, was as ground breaking as the ideas they disseminated. Many were linked to controversial artistic, literary and political movements, such as Dada, Surrealism, Modernism, the New Left and Deconstruction. They contain the work of many leading experimental artists and designers of their time from Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky in the 1920s and 30s, to Art Spiegelman and Rudy Vander Lans in the 1980s and 90s.

Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "meow" (or "miaow"), "roar" and "chirp". Onomatopoeia can differ between languages: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system;hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as "tick tock" in English, "tic tac" in Spanish and Italian (shown in the picture), "dī dā" in Mandarin, "katchin katchin" in Japanese, or "tik-tik" in Hindi. Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means 'the imitation of a sound', the compound word onomatopoeia (ὀνοματοποιία) in the Greek language means 'making or creating names'. For words that imitate sounds, the term ὴχομιμητικό (ēchomimētico) or echomimetic) is used. The word ὴχομιμητικό (ēchomimētico) derives Onomatopoeia is'echo' the process creating a word that phonetically from "ὴχώ", meaning or 'sound',of and "μιμητικό", imitates'mimetic' or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself meaning or 'imitating'.

is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "meow" (or "miaow"), "roar" and "chirp". Onomatopoeia can differ between languages: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system; hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as "tick tock" in English, "tic tac" in Spanish and Italian (shown in the picture), "dī dā" in Mandarin, "katchin katchin" in Japanese, or "tik-tik" in Hindi. Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means 'the imitation of a sound', the compound word onomatopoeia (ὀ νοματοποιία) in the Greek language means 'making or creating names'. For words that imitate sounds, the term ὴχομιμητικό (ēchomimētico) or echomimetic) is used. The word ὴχομιμητικό (ēchomimētico) derives from "ὴχώ", meaning 'echo' or 'sound', and "μιμητικό", meaning 'mimetic' or 'imitating'.

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or sequence of words that reads the same backward as forward. Punctuation and spaces between the words or lettering is allowed. Our palindrome examples below will provide some interesting insight into this wordplay. For instance, do you know just how far back palindromes date? The longest single-word palindrome in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the onomatopoeic 'tattarrattat', coined by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) for a knock on the door. Fun fact: the longest palindrome in use today is the Finnish word "saippuakivikauppias" which means soapstone vendor. Character by Character The most common of English palindromes are those that are read character by character, for instance, "level," "rotor," and "racecar". Character by character means that each character of the word matches and the word can be spelled the same forwards or backward. "Madam I'm Adam" is a famous character by character palindrome. Palindrome examples also exist in phrases or sentences where punctuation, capitals, and spacing are ignored. For instance "Sit on a potato pan, Otis". One of perhaps the most famous palindromes that exist in this form is "Able was I, ere I saw Elba." Word Palindromes Some palindromes use whole words rather than letters, for example, "First ladies rule the State and state the rule: ladies first." There, instead of each character matching, the whole sentence can be read backward and forwards. The individual letters don't match, but the whole words do. Kayak, Level, Mom, Racecar, Radar, Rotor, Sagas, Solos, Tenet Multiple Word Palindromes Red rum, sir, is murder Don’t nod. I did, did I?

Bibliography Klanten, R. et al. (2011) Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage. (s.l.): Gestalten. Poynor, R (2013) No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism, London:Laurence King Publishing. Carson, D. (1992) Raygun magazine Heller, S. (2018) Free hand: New typography sketchbooks.

Credits I want to thank my friends for helping me out with this book, giving helpful criticism and boosting my ego about it. So a thank you to Madleleine, Toni, Sara, Georgie and some others. The feedback I got from them helped me improve this book. Also a thank you to my tutors .