APublicTypographyBook

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By Luke Englert

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Stuff: A Public Typography BookEmphasizing type found on objects (stuff), this book will

teach the proper way to navigate through a foreign space

and how objects can give a glimpse into understanding the

owner’s personality. Each of the three rooms we will explore

belong to graphic design majors.

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Everything starts with the flick of a switch.

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IntrovertedThoughtfulOrganizedRoom 1

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Stuff, everyone has stuff. But what can be said

about this stuff, or more importantly, what does it say

about us. There is a certain category of psychology

that has asked this question and it is personal psychol-

ogy. What is personal psychology? Personal psy-

chology, to put it simply, is the study of the complete

person and personality is defined as the things that

make up who or what kind of person you are.

Personality Psychology of Living Spaces

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“The “self-image” is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.”

Maxwell Maltz

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This can be the clothes

one wears, living spac-

es, ideals, possessions

(stuff), experiences,

and how one responds or

adjusts to their environ-

ment. But what this

book will do is take a closer look at these things that fill

our personal spaces. First by a close up view of simply

the type we get a feeling of what kind of visual ele-

ments are found within these objects, second we get

step back in order to see what these objects actually

are, and lastly, we step further back in order to see the

space in which these things (stuff) preside in.

This can be the clothes one wears, living spaces, ide-als, possessions (stuff), experi-ences, and how one responds or adjusts to their environment.

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By getting closer we can evaluate these objects as

separate parts of a puzzle that make up a person’s

personal space.

When entering an unfamiliar space, without even know-

ing it, we are observing and build theories upon

what we see. One would describe these steps as the

stages of science, being unsystematic observation

and building theories (observations are then orga-

nized into coherent explanations about a phenomenon).

Get a Closer Look at the Situation

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Three broad mechanisms—identity claims, feeling

regulators, and behavioral residue—seem to connect

people to the spaces that surround them.

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With this book we will exam-

ine rooms and what we will

begin to notice will be their

occupants’ psychological

footprints and glimpse into

the different ways personality

is expressed.

Behavioral residue refers to the physical traces left

behind in an environment from our everyday actions.

This can sometimes include the lack of an act that

leaves a residue, like soiled dishes left in the sink

because you are not bothered enough to wash them.

These signs of behavioral residue can often seem

random but in truth they have some order to them.

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Like the arrangement of notebooks on a printer indi-

cating that they were in use but not put away because

they may still be used again before the scanner/printer

is needed. So one could deduce the notebooks stay

there until they need to be moved in order to use the

scanner/printer.

Location, Location, Location...

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One of the many things to understand when examin-

ing a room is the importance of paying attention

to the location of the objects when considering

identity claims. Placement determines the psychologi-

cal function the clue serves. Identity claims can be

made on T-shirts, buttons, necklaces, nose rings, tat-

toos, e-mail signatures, posters, flags, bumper stickers,

and just about any other space big enough to accom-

modate a symbol of some sort.

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People can use

symbols to show

how they wish to be

regarded.

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“Talent alone cannot make a writer.

There must be a man behind the book; a

personality which, by birth and quality,

is pledged to the doctrines there set forth,

and which exists to see and state things

so, and not otherwise.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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RisktakerIndependentCompassionateRoom 2

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The thing to remember about identity claims is that

they are either directed toward others or directed at

the self, and both kinds have their own psychological

function (Snoop, 11, 13). People can use symbols to

show how they wish to be regarded. Since it is crucial

that a person’s audience understand the intended

Identity Claims

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message, other-directed identity claims rely on

objects that have shared meanings. Such as draw-

ing pencils with hung up drawings within a room

indicate that this person likes to draw or is an artist.

We create our environments...

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THE BIG FIVE TRAITS

Some very important key terms to familiarize oneself

with would be the Big Five traits known in personal

psychology and they are openness, conscientious-

ness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroti-

cism (or OCEAN for short).

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“I used to have a whole row of

these and whenever I was feeling

stressed I would pop one.”

Room’s Owner

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Life of the party?

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Was there a box of memories

in the previous room?

Why not?

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Much of the stuff we gather about us, and the envi-

ronments we create, are gathered not to send mes-

sages about our identities but to manage our emotions

and thoughts. This is know as “feeling regulators”

(Snoop, 21).

Feeling Regulators

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GoofyHonestContemporaryRoom 3

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The desk of a workspace or home can tell a lot about

how the owner identifies themself. This is because a

deskspace can often times have little room for any-

thing but the essentials for work and the objects the

desk’s owner identifies with. When sitting down at

the desk you can gauge whether a particular item is

meant to be a personal reminder or tell others what

kind of person they are.

The Desk

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“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to

himself, to become what he potentially

is. The most important product of his

effort is his own personality.”

Erich Fromm

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“When I’m angry my sharkmen

take it out on each other.”

Room’s Owner

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Nostalgia at its best?

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Anxious people high on the neuroticism scale tend to

use things such as self-affirmations and inspirational

messages or posters to regulate their tendency to worry

about things, which can lead to depression. The post-

ers are a visual form of self-medication. And some-

times they are simply used as inspiration because it

has to do with their proffession.

Regulators

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“I like bright colors and

mixing styles. I really just

like Andy Warhol.”

Room’s Owner

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How we define ourselves is influenced largely by the

degree of our context. Identity is deeply rooted in all

of us but it typically isn’t articulated explicitly. Rarely

is someone able to describe his or her identity on de-

mand. It must be drawn out.

One of the things to remember about each location

we explore is the owner’s context.

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This can be done through a series of questions and by

nonbiased or objective self-reflection. By knowing

the location of an object in a person’s room within con-

text to where they come from can gain further insight

into the inner workings behind the personality of a

personal space.

Inner Workings of Personality

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In the end...We all have stuff that defines who we are and what kind of personality we pos-

sess. Hopefully with this book you have gained a deeper understanding of how

to interpret the things we see within a personal space to correctly determine

the personality of the owner. Through the exploration of two rooms of graphic

design students, we gain a deeper understanding of the vast amount of differ-

ences that can arise from people who even share the same major within the

same school.

The Perfect Thing, by Steven Levy

Snoop: What your stuff says about you, by Sam Gosling

The Person, by Dan P. McAdams

Lucas Keefer, Personality Psychology Teacher

Credits

Special ThanksConnita Fiorella Sardon-Quiroz

Keene Niemack

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi Digital SLR

Din Condensed and Serifa

Technical Information

Designer as Author

Patrick Dooley

Fall 2011

The University of Kansas

Emphasizing type found on objects (stuff).