Transformation
Change has dominated and, moreover, has defined the 20th century. This is the fastest century ever, with the shortest time periods between the major inventions. People cannot keep up with the pace of change; it transforms the way we see and live in the world.
Graphic design is a business with a high rate of change. Twenty years ago, no one would have thought that computers could be used for graphics. The transformation of analogue systems to digital ones is as important as the series of inventions called the industrial revolution. We change the technology and technology changes us. The great visionary Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1967: “The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action and every institution formerly taken for granted. Everything is changing—you, your family, your neighborhood, your education, your job, your government, your relation to ‘the others’. And they’re changing dramatically.”7
The general idea behind all change is to improve life. While it is arguable whether or not some changes did actually improve the quality of our life, all the changes were meant to do so. Even a systematic deconstruction of language was meant to improve life. John Cage’s deconstruction was a reaction to grammar and syntax as a military organization of language. Recent use of idiosyncratic typefaces in magazines is also about trying to give graphics a more personal, humanistic character. It is not about disintegrating language or making it harder to read. Expressive fonts attempt to capture the spontaneity of language. Emotions in speech are often ignored in writing, and it is the expressive graphics that can bring back the uniqueness of language.
The coming of the first computers caused a temporary step backwards in the history of typography. We had been used to beautifully printed books—then cold pixelated design began to take over the humanistic traditions. We had to temporarily lower our standards in order to advance. Now, when we can technically print better than ever, graphic designers paradoxically prefer the imperfections and subjectivity of the human hand to the perfectionism of a computer. The idiosyncratic use of typography was used to bridge form and meaning. These tendencies, however, have become a fashion, and the pioneers of expressive typography became trapped by public. The former Ray Gun art director David Carson and hundreds of his plagiarizers cannot satisfy the demand for buying “new typography”.
Twenty years ago, typographers did not design many typefaces. Manufacturing a font was laborious and time-consuming. There were only a few professionals designing typefaces. Today, we no longer have those technical obstacles to creating a font. Thanks to low-priced computers and user-friendly software, almost anyone can create a typeface. This has resulted in a very wobbly quality of type design. Some of new typefaces are considered illegible.
Illegibility is a topic in graphic design which has been discussed many times. The word “illegible” has changed its meaning to “not communicative enough”. In judging legibility, people talk about what they don’t see rather than talking about what they do see. Illegible type may sometimes convey more meaning than a text set in the most readable typeface. Thanks to designers like David Carson legibility has acquired a new meaning, offering us new visual experience. “Legibility presents information as facts rather than as experience,” says Phil Baines, a London-based typographer. David Byrne, the multitalented artist, writes in a book on David Carson: “David’s work communicates. But on a level beyond words. On a level that bypasses the logical, rational centers of the brain and goes straight to the part that understands without thinking.” Contemporary graphic design is about creating emotions, and elevating them beyond the rational part of design. As the modernist art critic Marshall Lee has said: “The evocation of mood becomes a primary concern of the designer. It is not enough for the designer to be ‘unobtrusive’.” The appropriate use of typography projects ideas towards the audience.
Visual communication uses emotions. Hence, it is quite unlikely that an advertisement for a new car will say “a device for transporting men and goods”—it will much more likely touch our emotions, experiences, and lifestyle. The meaning of emotions is deeper than that of facts.
To convey an idea from an oral thought to its graphic representation, the idea needs to go through a complex process of thought transformation. The idea must be materialized and changed to physical marks, i.e., letters. This may eliminate some features of spoken language. Speech has parallel subcarriers of information: anyone who has a pet knows that how you say something is more important than what you say. Similarly, a graphic designer looks for the right way of “saying” things. Tone of voice is very important. We receive it even if we don’t quite understand.
Psychologists have proven that in a common conversation only 20 % of the information we receive comes from the spoken words. We derive crucial information from the tone of speaker’s voice, his gestures, facial expressions, and the particular situation (or context) he is in. For example, from an interview in a newspaper, a reader may get as little as 20 % of the information which was available to the writer. The writer may try to enrich the writing by providing a brief description of the place or perhaps supply some photographs. Yet it still may not be sufficiently expressive. How do we transmit an interview which is full of emotions?
The answer to this question could be a more efficient use of typography. By combining text, images, and graphic elements, a graphic designer can introduce readers to a new visual experience. The same information can be looked at by the viewer from many perspectives. The viewer, then, chooses the way that is most acceptable to him. Visuals are not used in order to double the meaning, but rather are interconnected to the text. New typographic treatment can prepare the reader for what he can expect, or the contrary, surprise him by the unexpected. Unexpected solutions tend to have a much more effective impact, because they perturb or excite the public. For the author, it is much more risky to perform beyond the boundaries of what is expected. Actions beyond limits are creative, and creative ideas shape society.
Designing experimental fonts is not an attempt to defamiliarize the experience of reading. It is an attempt to get the reader closer to the writer. Using a large library of typefaces may help in finding the “right” font for a particular design situation. Speech is more colorful than black-and-white text. A typeface may convey colors: passion, sarcasm, exasperation, subservience, exhaustion, etc. A conversation carries a vast amount of information beyond the words themselves. Speech is inherently emotive and expressive. Just as we perceive sounds as words (and not as separate fragments of sounds), we recognize the printed words and not individual letters. A familiar word becomes a logo at which we look instead of reading it. One must read and view the piece of graphic design.
Even a slight change in the voice of a speaker may signify a big difference in the meaning. The typeface could be used as the tone of voice in text. The emotions in communication have been treated as difficulties rather than features. They do, however, create a richer and more precise communication. Projects embedded with strong communicative graphics usually carry their own specific identity and tone of voice. Perceptions of such projects refer to the subjective experience of an individual. Graphic elements will add to the reader’s experience.
Expressive typographic arrangement is no revolutionary breakthrough in history. Because of the abstract nature of the Latin alphabet, there have been many attempts to illustrate the language. Guillaume Appolinaire’s calligrams are a good example of using the expressive values of writing to enhance a text. The main difference in the work of the futurists or the dadaists is differentiation of role. It is not the author of the text who affects the way of reading it, it is a designer—a person from a different background. If the author of the text and author of the its visual representation is not the same person, the task of analyzing the intent and visualizing becomes extraordinarily complex.
Ideally, form matches content. More often, however, one dominates the other. It is not clear which one is more important in the process of reading. Human beings tend to judge experience as a sensory whole; we do not separate experiences into discrete parts. Therefore, we cannot separate images from text; they only exist bound together. Images, then, have the same value in terms of meanings as the written information. Visuals and text complement each other. I don’t want to read the text of the book I want to read the book; I anticipate the complex experience of perceiving.
Spoken language (speech) is continually evolving; there are new words invented daily to describe new inventions. Some languages are more flexible than others. The English language, which dominates the world, has infiltrated most of the world’s vocabularies. Some countries, however, desperately resist. The Vatican, for example, is trying very hard to keep up with new technical terms. A recent encyclical declared a “videocassette” to be “sonorarum visualiumque taeniarum cistellulae”. New words are invented to simplify communication and call things by their names.
Not only are new words invented, but also new dialects. Dialects have the power to facilitate local communication. By merging and mixing existing language, we create more culture-specific languages. Dialects tend to be created when the borders of a language are not policed by academies and when they are not homogenized by mass media. The onset of radio and television began a shift away from dialects to a standardized language. In recent years, however, dialects have returned. These are no longer the dialects of regions, but the dialects of sub-cultures. Computer freaks, kids of suburbs, professors, designers, policemen and gangsters, they all have they own specialized languages.
Subcultural dialects are specific to particular geographical and professional territories. Similarly, we have thousands of new specialized fonts for accents and dialects in all kinds of situations. It is difficult to use old devices to express new fresh ideas communicated in slang. Speech relies on an alphabet; when it changes, the design of the alphabet (letterforms) must change as well. If languages rapidly evolve, then writing systems and fonts tend to evolve as well. It is surprising how slowly the alphabet evolves compared to the spoken language. Speech and letterforms have been changing rapidly, but the alphabet has not changed. It was Ferdinand de Saussure who observed this difference in the pace of evolution. As a solution to this problem Saussure suggested abandoning the alphabet as the first step toward truth. Communication begins to fail when the alphabet and a language do not evolve together.
It is true that the alphabet does not adequately represent the spoken language. However, it is quite unlikely that we will find a way to avoid the arbitrariness of meanings.