Typography Portfolio

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TYPOGRAPHY

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T y p o g r a p h i c c o m m u n i c a -t i o n i s d i s t i n g u i s h e d from other forms of visual communica-tion by the presence of the letterform. Any individual 'letterform' is viewed as being !xed and permanent - as having a constant, indisputable identity. However, in temporal media,

typography is not subject to the restrictions of paint.

In typographic animation and motion graphics, typography can adopt 'additional expressive qualities, additional layers of signi!cance' [1], and additional dimensions that are impossible to recreate in print. On screen, a letterform can become "uid. It can evolve, fragment and change to the extent that its role as 'type' is in jeopardy. Since Saul Bass' !rst foray into !lm title design [2], temporal typography has been a familiar presence in the media.

We have become accus-tomed to kinetic type that scrolls, rotates, or dances.

In concrete poetry, both in print and animated on screen, letterforms have been used to construct scenes and objects. The notion that a letterform can be more than solely a visual representation of a phoneme is not a new one. However, it is only

recently that type has began to communicate meaning through adoption of additional identities. Kinetic typography has, until recently, generally adhered to the rule that type is a 'language of letterforms' [3]. In most examples of kinetic typography, type and image are separate. An image may appear inside type, or type may be overlaid onto a moving image, but the two remain distinguishable from one another. In concrete poetry, letterforms have been used to construct scenes and objects. Such examples may be labelled as both type and image simultaneously, but the two components remain distinctly identi!able.

In both concrete poetr y and onscreen k inetic typography, letter forms retain a constant role and identity.

In recent years, however, temporal media have begun to include forms that cannot be so easily de!ned as 'type'. Since 1983 Eduardo Kac has been producing holographic poetry, known as 'holopoems'[4]. As viewers move around these poems, they observe typograph-ic forms that appear to move and change over time. What distinguishes this typographic behaviour from that of standard kinetic typography is that the

the letters do not simply move, they evolve, therefore escaping the constancy of meaning a printed sign would have.

[5]. In holopoetry, the meaning and identity of each letter alters as each form changes. Kac de!nes his "uctuating letters as ‘"uid’ forms. Screen-based media have since presented audiences with numerous examples of '"uid' typography. In motion graphics, !lm title sequences and advertising, there is an increasing number of typographic artefacts which do not only display motion, but also signi!cant change in identity. On screen a letterform can metamorphose, fragment or exhibit other kinds of change that are far more complex than the simple changes in location or rotation that are observed in standard kinetic typography. Crucially, these '"uid' letterforms can change to the extent that they are no longer recognisable as letters. They remain on the screen over time, continuing to function as 'forms', but lose their 'letter' identity. They may even adopt another visual identity - perhaps that of an object or scene.

In 'Beer', a Flash animation by Komninos Zervos (!g.1)[6]each letter undergoes a process of metamorphosis. Occasionally, two letters merge, becoming a single form, and thereby

introducing a third letter. Other forms contort independently, !rst adopting the shape of one letter, then morphing into another, displaying di#erent letter-identi-ties over time. In the Moving Picture Company's recent collection of brand identities for the UK's Channel 4 [7] the !gure '4' is constructed of shapes and objects that are initially perceived as di#erent architectural or scenic objects. Bails of hay, pylons and even parts of an alien spaceship, align to adopt a new identity: that of the number '4'.

In these examples there is a separation of letter and form. A form may, in one instance, present a letter, but at other times adopts additional identities. In 'Bee'r, the forms "uctuate between legible letter and more abstract glyph. In the channel 4 idents, forms initially present separate object identities, then converge to become part of a greater whole, presenting a single, larger '4' form. In these and other examples of "uid typogra-phy [8], forms do not function purely as letters.

The meaning of the word ‘letterform’ is only partially or momentarily applicable,

as "uid forms are only "eetingly letters, and otherwise something else. A form may present a letter identity, and be perceived as a letterform, but that form changes, becoming an abstract glyph, an

object or a shape. This separation of letter and form undermines our understanding of the nature of the letterform, demanding that we rethink our understanding of key typographic principles. Fluidity also results in inconsisten-cies between the number of forms presented and the number of identities perceived.

In printed text, the number of letters and the number of forms present are inextricably linked, because each letter is a form, and vice versa. In "uid typography, however, an artefact may present an entire phrase or paragraph, not through the introduction of additional forms but through change within a single form. In Harm van Der Dorpel's 'Type Engin'e (!g.2) [9] each letter is constructed from 8 di#erent geometric shapes.

The shape-identities become lost in the letter-identity as they are rearranged over time, presenting a single letter within multiple forms. In Dan Waber's 'Argument' [10], two contradictory messages are presented within a single form, as a 'string' reforms to !rst present the word 'yes', then the word 'no'. Common understand-ing of the 'letterform' assumes that a letter must be a single form. However, these examples reveal that, in "uid typography, a letter may be constructed from a group of several forms (as in 'modular' typography[11]), or that a single form may represent several letters. The vocabulary we use to describe and de!ne typography may be adequate for static and even

kinetic type, however, with the dynamic capabilities of contem-porary, digital media, 'our static de!nitions of type appear increasingly imperilled' [12]. There is, at present, no substan-tial research into the properties and perception of "uid typographic artefacts. Current possible methods of analysis, which rely heavily on the pre-existing and limited terminology of !lm and static type, are inadequate to de!ne and analyse "uid type.

Familiar methods for the analysis of typogra-phy have failed to keep pace with the develop-ment of digital technol-ogies.

They do not allow for the additional dimensions that are seen in "uid type; type which is capable of performance and reactivity, and vitally, as I have described, type which separates letter from form (type which allows a single form to present multiple letters, and vice versa). Therefore, our understanding of the nature of the letterform, and how it may be analysed, must be modi!ed and updated.

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