Written Response

Position through contextualizing

Mengyuan Sun

In this brief I take typography as the main subject of experimentation. From a Mandarin/English user’s perspective, I come to realize the two’s inherent distinction in conscious processes while reading them. When reading, information is communicated through deciphering commonly symbols. And letters as component symbols, is read for both its content and form. Through iterating forms and researching, I come to notice that the form of letters also provides information, but in a way parallel to reading, much close to how we perceive an image. In my following exploration, I work to discuss the extent to the information I can connect to letterform. In an attempt to recreate the sensual and instinctive experience while reading Mandarin(as pictographic), I start making transcriptions of naturally appeared marks and engage it with typographic forms. The iterations exist as a set to discuss possible definitions of written language instead of forming one technical letterform.

Annotated Bibliography 

In the Reading list

1. Ingold, T., 2016. Drawing, writing and calligraphy . In Lines: A brief history. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 127–131. 

I chose this chapter exert as my snippet to begin with because I’m intrigued by the English language’s evolution from primal ideographic to Latin alphabet today. The process itself is a countless iterating trough time. The process of abstraction is in pace with industrial capitalism and division of artists and artisan. Type designer(or engravers at that time) was excluded from the art field since they are “composer of texts rather than maker of lines” (Munari, B., 2008, pp. 128). From a designers perspective I’m also interested in the art of writing as it was in manuscript  and Chinese calligraphy. In the course of this brief I would like to push the definition of writing and reflect on if the (latin)alphabets’ form alienates user from intuitive perception of nonverbal languages.

1. Sontag, S., 2009. On Style. In Against interpretation and other essays. Penguin, pp. 15–36.
   
   Sontag refuses the comparison of style with decorative curtains: “to speak about style is one way of speaking for the totality of a work of art.”(Sontag, S., 2009, pp.17) The argument give a critical context for manipulating the style of types. She discusses the information embedded in style, such as its relation to time and place and how our awareness of it could change how we perceive the work as a whole. Often times the creation of style is accessory and passive, in this brief I would want to explore the forms potential in alphabet(since individual letter doesn’t point to one meaning) Since the perception to a work is always tied back to our share experience to the real world, I want to try bring alphabetic forms from the conceptual knowledge/content they convey in words and sentences and into the knowledge given by experiences(ibid. p.21).
   
2. McLuhan, M., 2014.The Medium Is The Massage. Jeorme Agel, pp. 27–30.
   
   In this writing McLuhan shed light on the sound quality of phonetic alphabet lost in a writing to reading process, “Man was given an eye for an ear.”(McLuhan, M. 2014, pp. 44) Like Shlain, McLuhan is able to articulate a unique structure in writing the alphabet, that the composition of communication is always liner, “bead-like” and in a prescribed order. The medium of writing is an extension and the way we chose to embody thought. Letters the medium is the tool we use but they also defines what we can think and say. Even in this publication, McLuhan chose to introduce an amount of imageries accompanying his writing to help essaying. In breaking the form and legibility of letters, my exploration on communicating through writing(lettering) also aims to put focus on the medium we are accustomed to.

1. Flusser,V., 2011. Print. Does Writing Have A Future. University of Minnesota Press, pp. 47–53.
   
   Flusser mentioned the Geek Word typo generally means “trace”. Compare to undeciphered codes along side cave paintings, even other traces such as that left by the rain could long thought to be in code (Flusser,V. 2011, pp. 117). We can confined ourselves to the deciphering of text(ibid.) The methodology of identifying code and deciphering is key in written form of communication. Taking Flusser’s example of typoi (ibid., pp.76)as the track left on the beach by birds’ feet, to contextualize the traces I extracted is to classify“the birds that walked by ” and then I myself to recreate them. In this brief I tried following the process to identify “traces” in natural environment did a couple of experiments. I first start to analyze different traces I collected and their each distinct formal quality. Cracks on rigid material is shaped like web, radiating from a break point. Wave patterns on the sea has a curved arch shape. The texture on plank growth from the center around , etc.,  Base on these qualities I created a vocabulary of words, that requires comprehension to fill in the blank, in the effort to experiment the type as carrier of information that’s beyond syntax and sounds. Then I work to more closely assign the shapes to the letter forms that we are familiar with, and use the alternated typographic system as a tool of translating poetry.Through pushing the legibility of the letter, reading and deciphering are slowed down. In this way, the letter encourages the reader to not only hear the words in their mind, but also see the code that confines them.
   
   As the medium carrying the codes, print is integral to graphic communication design. It’s defined as a new way of writing and thinking, therefore communicating of information. Printing, arguably also defines writing(typing) as we know it today, in stead of how it was drawing of letters. Type setting is different from writing for its power of standardizing. “Something printed is valuable not as a distinctive object but as a type”(ibid., pp. 51) This awareness of print gives me inspiration to consider alphabetic communication from a contraposition. Thus I turn away from established type making process of drawing letter and digitizing them to found type.
   
   As I previously have read in In Lines: A brief history, type obtains a similar expressive quality as drawing when it comes to hand-lettering. Examples could be the aesthetic expressing in Chinese and Arabic lettering. The mastery of creating lettering is of the same value as the written poem or the drawing accompanied by it. Flusser mentioned as well Letters are ciphers of a code(ibid.,  pp. 117). In order to response to it, one must first decode it and then decipher it. But it’s not exactly the case in calligraphy works. One can appreciate and be intrigued by the beauty of lettering even its language unknown. I’m curious to explore in abstracting and complication of the Latin letter, could I land some where like wise, in print instead of written.
   

Outside the Reading List:

1. Shlain, L., 1998. Image/World. In The alphabet versus the goddess: The conflict between word and image. New York: Viking, pp. 4–7.
   

In this material by American surgeon and author Leonard Shlain, he raises a plausible hypothesis about the acquisition of alphabetic literacy suppresses concrete and intuitive conscious development. He explains that on conscious level, written words and images has entirely different perceptual strategy. We see images as gestalt, but read in linear sequence before the meaning emerges. The comprehension of literacy depends on the sentences syntax yet we see images simultaneously due to its close connection to the world appearances. (Shlain, L., 1998, p.4) Based on this theory I works to extract letter forms from natural world and experiments on the conscious reaction of different type of marks. In obscuring of the letter forms and rearranging their “sequential” orders, I want to engage the viewer intuitively in their reading/viewing.

1. Munari, B. & Creagh, P., 2008. Research Design. In Design as art. London: Penguin Books, pp. 156–188.
   

While woking on this brief, I refer to Munari from time to time as a source of information in understanding design and its expression. In the chapter Research Design of Munari’s book, he introduces observing nature to help understanding the world. Different from copying what we custom to see, it is more important to realize the evolution in forms in the observation.(Munari, B., 2008,  p.79-80) Following instructions expressed in this part of the writing of various ways in engaging natural material, I turned my direction to make iterations of transcription of “marks” I can find in daily life, working by trial and error.

1. Oliver, M,. 1992.Volume One. New and Selected Poems. Beacon Press, Various Poems. & Oliver, M., 1994. A Poetry Handbook. Harcourt Brace& Company, pp. 19–28.
   
   Mary Oliver is an established female American poet keen on depicting the natural world. In finding the syntax to the letter-like traces I collected, her works became a fit material. In editing the poem, I work to make the custom letter form correlate to the scene she portraits. The context of her poems are often pictorial, concrete, containing rich and vivid visual cues–forms, shapes, colors as in August “When the black berries hang swollen in the woods”(Oliver, M,. 1992, pp. 151) In order to understand more of her methodology in writing, I refer to her instructional writing A Poetry Handbook. In Devices of Sounds, she also explained in detail the “felt” quality differs the expression of different letters, even before they are put into syntax(e.g. the difference in pronouncing “stone”and ‘rock”). The “felt” quality is something I work with.
   
2. Heller, S.  &  Anderson, G. 2016. Print. Abstraction.  The Typography Idea Book. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, pp. 97–98.
   
   Typography is arguably the most important component of graphic design. In the development of the transcribed types from nature, I referred to this book in trying to situate my work between legibility. Do I want one form to be understand as one letter, or do I want them to keep a letter-like structure but unreadable was the main fork in the road. In Abstraction, presumption that typographic purity (reader should not be distracted by form) is challenged(Heller, S.  &  Anderson, G. 2016, pp. 96).  Unreadable, yet still legible typesetting promotes abstract form as a new typography. Typography comes forward as a way of expressive communication. In the example work of a “jazz typography” I also see that optical rhythm in such works, instead of literary syntax, leads the communication. Therefore giving the shape corresponding letter forms becomes an effective way of contextualizing. The unreadable leaps into realm of asemic writing later will be discussed in Design Practice 4: Vitro-Asemic).
   

Design Practices:

1. Katie Holten, 2019, Stone Alphabet, Available at: https://emergencemagazine.org/gallery/stone-alphabet/

The work interprets alphabet from a unique perspective. Connecting back to the In The alphabet versus the goddess reference, documentation of natural cracks and marks on stone can be considered as a different information carrying media. When we chose to “read” it, the marks are transformed into a new language of a sort. Holten describes the project as a guide to reading and writing New York City is one of the most interesting aspect for me. I compare it to Shlains’ point in Image/world, and find it more similar to the simultaneous and concrete character of the images instead of alphabetic literacy. For Mandarin users such as myself, this kind of reading experience is not unlike how we would see a word and read it at the same time. I would like to carry on work on how this transcription triggers awareness to the real world and balance writing and drawing.

1. That Smell, 2020, Lowland Display, Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/93379307/Lowlands-Display

This display font by That Smell took inspiration from the unique formation of low countries. Countries below sea level reveal a letter-like structure when water is concentrated. His practice of extrapolate organic forms from field outside of art and design gives this alphabet a look unlike any other. This work shows me a possibility of pushing the letterforms legibility and using the typography’s form has a story telling tool. Clear rational is also evident in this set of alphabet also through their marking of each letter’s relating geographic coordinate.It shows how some of the letters by themselves would be ambiguous but when they are put in context to each other they become holistic.

1. Edited by Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre. 2020. Women in Concrete Poetry(1959–1979). Primary Information. Available at: https://primaryinformation.org/product/women-in-concrete-poetry-1959-1979/
   
   This publication is a demonstration of expression out side of syntax “reactivate the atrophied tool of communication ”. The quality of concrete poetry employs composition to make visual poetry, that is observed/viewed instead of read. It takes a different practice of editing from recreating alphabets, but the composition and emphasis on visual is alike. The practice of concrete poetry is inspiring in its way of creating context with often troubled legibility. I propose that typography could be tool to activate a (phonetic)language’s visual and sonic properties, even breaking the “bead-like” sequence of lines(McLuhan, M. 2014, pp. 44) into a spatial syntax.
   
2. Thomas Krajna. 2016. Vitro Asemic. Otf font. Available at: https://github.com/Thomas-Krajna/VITRO-ASEMIC
   
   This project around a working .otf font by Thomas Krajna is a set of asemic type reflecting the morphology of bacteria. The term “asemic” refers to a language or communication beyond understanding but still hails to the referent. Its unspecified open semantic codes.This “unreadable” font hails to the post-human for a ritualized dialectic. In his Post-human (De)sign Among the Non-human Manifesto he mentioned proclamations including design beyond the function and using non-human as aid. His way of experimenting with type envisions cognitive process away from a human-centered apparatus. Under this lens, legibility and syntax’s role in design is reconsider. He use a process of digitizing forms of the Henderson’s typtoms to transcript consciousness communication happening beyond the human.
   
   This work consists of .otf font, a manifesto, its publication and video making. Those various medium including sampling and sound design enables understanding of the designers position from a holistic view. Manifesto is an example of taking graphic communication design into creative authorship. This project is special among asemic writing works through the releasing and circulation of the .otf font. Most asmeic writing works (referring to the  The New Post-literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing web collection) exist as unique pieces of works that’s fixed in improvising. The open source quality of the font meaning that a third party can download and use the font establishes those “letters” into type not only because it’s put into certain file format, but for its capacity to be manipulate. I find my self reading them in this publication as I would with the images assisting the text in McLuhan’s The Medium Is The Massage. And those aestheticized form between pictorial and verbal also remind me of certain quality in Rorschach inkblot. Type-like formality and setting structure would be a conscious choice in order to evoking reader’s cognitive projection. As a method of communication, I can see it be associated with insubstantial and ambiguous content such as a private though process and difficult emotions, even the potential of “a new mode of thought that can be anticipated but not yet perceived.”(Flusser,V., 2011, pp. 82) Contrasting to the abstract and reductionist thinking define by alphabetic literacy. The asemic, breaks down language into new method of expression. It is, as Michael Jacobson stated in an interview, an erosion of text.(Foster, J., 2013)
   
   Although the work is unspecified and open to interpretation, it is still important for the creative process to have “hails to the referent”. This echoes the point made in The Typography Idea Book, that abstraction in typography only succeeds when there is an anchor in the real world.(Heller, S.  &  Anderson, G. 2016, pp. 96) And evergreen motif of shared experience would be the natural world. In developing my project, transcription instead of free-handed lettering helps to keep the message unobstructed by my personal impulse. In the cognitive process of generating an archive of fond type, I would like to use graphic communication design as a medium to contemplate a new typography aside from syntax.