The Typographic Medium by Brideau Kate;

Author:Brideau, Kate; [Brideau, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: typography; fonts; communication; visual media; form; function; design; technology; reading; attention; transparency; graphic design; visual culture; media theory
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2021-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Source: author.

7

Why Am I a Triangle?

Our sensibility—that is our visual perception and our aesthetic sense—is superior to geometric construction, and it is to this sensibility that we must appeal.

—Emil Ruder1

Typographic characters are functional shapes; they are formed by performing a function, and they indicate their functions through their forms. However, there is incredible flexibility not only in those forms, as we’ve seen, but also in the medium’s functions. In a typeface like New Alphabet, we see a designer who never intended for his typeface to be used to set text—its function was to be a thought experiment, a possible solution to a particular design problem, and perhaps an invitation to others to respond.2 In Hypnopaedia, Licko intended to illustrate a point about the nature of typographic shapes as shapes. These patterns were meant not to contain and communicate someone else’s argument but to be an argument themselves. In 2003, Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum designed Twin, a typeface for the city of Minneapolis that was intended not only to provide the city with a graphic identity but also to communicate weather information. The typeface has multiple variations for most of its characters and is linked to weather data. When the weather is cold the typeface appears harsher and more formal (with slab serifs); as the weather warms, the characters become rounder and more playful (and sans serif).3 While van Blokland and van Rossum’s face adds a layer of information to its design, FE-Schrift (1980) was intended to safeguard information. Designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer in Germany, FE-Schrift was intended to undermine the forging of German license plates—a common practice of the radical Baader-Meinhof Gang in the 1970s. It is a typeface widely criticized for its design peculiarities, but it is designed specifically to prevent similar characters being transformed into one another. The O is shaped like an egg, preventing it from becoming a Q with its straight edges, and uneven base. The bowl on the P is rounded and a small serif extends to the upper left of the stem, preventing it from being turned into the R, which has a clean stem and a squared bowl (see figure 7.1).

One of the most challenging typefaces—both formally and function-ally—is Jonathan Barnbrook’s Rattera (2012). Designed for Fuse magazine, it is said to have been inspired by the notes of an outsider artist and schizophrenic, Alfred Rattera.4 According to Barnbrook, Rattera conceived of a new “philosophical alphabet” that would gradually be released to the public. Once learned, this alphabet would provide a new way of communicating, thinking about, and therefore of organizing the world. The over 18,000 (proposed) characters were meant to simultaneously create a new worldview, while also illuminating the problems Rattera saw afflicting his contemporary (late 1990s) society.5 Rattera’s new philosophical alphabet is largely ridiculous, basing characters on static coming through televisions, for instance, or on the trajectory of a space shuttle mapped out by the slope of Michael Jackson’s nose (see figure 7.2).6 However, the idea is enticing—a typeface

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