Typography (F.Pessoa) (Proposta 2)
“Paz made a shrewd remark on the heteronyms: In each are particles of negation or unreality.
Reis believes in form.
Campos in sensation Pessoa in symbols.
Caeiro doesn’t believe in anything. He exists.”
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa]
Ricardo Reis
Ricardo Reis – the hetoranym that is like a modern pagan that sees life from a distance.
“Reis sums up his philosophy of life in his own words, admonishing: ‘See life from a distance. Never question it. There’s nothing it can tell you.’ Like Caeiro, whom he admires, Reis defers from questioning life. He is a modern pagan who urges one to seize the day and accept fate with tranquility. ‘Wise is the one who does not seek’, he says; and continues: ‘the seeker will find in all things the abyss, and doubt in himself.’ In this sense Reis shares essential affinities with Caeiro.
Believing in the Greek gods, yet living in a Christian Europe, Reis feels that his spiritual life is limited, and true happiness cannot be attained. This, added to his belief in Fate as a driving force for all that exists, as such disregarding freedom, leads to his epicureanist philosophy, which entails the avoidance of pain, defending that man should seek tranquility and calm above all else, avoiding emotional extremes”. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa]
Alvaro Campos
Alvaro Campos – the hetoranym that has existential questions, like for example – who am I? What I am?
“Álvaro de Campos manifests, in a way, as an hyperbolic version of Pessoa himself. Of the three heteronyms he is the one who feels most strongly, his motto being ‘to feel everything in every way.’ ‘The best way to travel,’ he wrote, ‘is to feel.’ As such, his poetry is the most emotionally intense and varied, constantly juggling two fundamental impulses: on the one hand a feverish desire to be and feel everything and everyone, declaring that ‘in every corner of my soul stands an altar to a different god ‘(alluding to Walt Whitman‘s desire to ‘contain multitudes’), on the other, a wish for a state of isolation and a sense of nothingness.
As a result, his mood and principles varied between violent, dynamic exultation, as he fervently wishes to experience the entirety of the universe in himself, in all manners possible (a particularly distinctive trait in this state being his futuristic leanings, including the expression of great enthusiasm as to the meaning of city life and its components) and a state of nostalgic melancholy, where life is viewed as, essentially, empty.
One of the poet’s constant preoccupations, as part of his dichotomous character, is that of identity: he does not know who he is, or rather, fails at achieving an ideal identity. Wanting to be everything, and inevitably failing, he despairs. Unlike Caeiro, who asks nothing of life, he asks too much. In his poetic meditation ‘Tobacco Shop’ he asks:
- How should I know what I’ll be, I who don’t know what I am?
- Be what I think? But I think of being so many things!” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa]
Alberto Cairo
Alberto Cairo – the hetoranym that sees things just the way they are. Nothing more and nothing less.
“What this means, and what makes Caeiro such an original poet is the way he apprehends existence. He does not question anything whatsoever; he calmly accepts the world as it is. The recurrent themes to be found in nearly all of Caeiro’s poems are wide-eyed child-like wonder at the infinite variety of nature, as noted by a critic. He is free of metaphysical entanglements. Central to his world-view is the idea that in the world around us, all is surface: things are precisely what they seem, there is no hidden meaning anywhere.
He manages thus to free himself from the anxieties that batter his peers; for Caeiro, things simply exist and we have no right to credit them with more than that. Our unhappiness, he tells us, springs from our unwillingness to limit our horizons. As such, Caeiro attains happiness by not questioning, and by thus avoiding doubts and uncertainties. He apprehends reality solely through his eyes, through his senses. What he teaches us is that if we want to be happy we ought to do the same.
Caeiro represents a primal vision of reality, of things. He is the pagan incarnate. Indeed Caeiro was not simply a pagan but paganism itself”. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa]
Typographics
Typographics is a short lesson about typography illustrated in the visual language of info-graphics. The objective was to use type as the main aesthetic and design element to create awareness about the evolution and main characteristics of typography. Both the music and voice over used in the piece make reference to 1950’s TV and Radio advertising. Typographics targets designers and non-designers who have an interest in typography and want to learn more about it.
Concept, Direction, Illustration, Animation by: Ryan Uhrich [ ryanu.tv ] & Marcos Ceravolo [ bocamotion.tv ]
Sound Design by Ryan Uhrich
Quotes from Ellen Lupton and Jeffrey Keedy.
Produced at Vancouver Film School (2007)
Evolution of Typography
2000 years of reading and writing the Roman alphabet have shaped
the standards of legibility and continue to sculpt it today.
What was regarded as a clear and beautiful writing style for a 12th-century Gothic manuscript is to today’s readers as difficult to decipher as a tortuous graffiti script.
19th-century typographers considered sans serif typefaces crude and hard to read, yet these faces are ubiquitous and widely accepted in the 21st-century. Familiarity and usage define what readers consider legible.
The tastes and history that inform legibility are part of the context in which letter live and work. Often hidden but always present, context comprises the what, where, when, who and how of lettering and type. At its most basic, context relates to the ultimate use of any letter: What message will the letterforms communicate? Where and when will they appear? How will they be reproduced? Who will view them? But context also represents the broader cultural and social environment in which letters function. Nothining is more important to an artist or designer than context, because it provides the structure from which to learn and work.
Centuries of baggage have colored different styles of letters with a wide array of associations, as contextual relationships are continually forged and forgotten. When creating and using letterforms, designers harness, reinforce, and invent these social and cultural associations. Long before the development of movable trype, the stately capital lettering styles of the Romans stood for power, learning, and sophistication. As early as the ninth century, scholars, artists, and pooliticians associated these qualities with Imperial Rome and sought to invoke them by adopting Roman lettering styles. Even today, graphic designers employ typefaces suchas Trajan, based on Roman capitals, to convey an air of classicalsophistication.
Similarly, the crude stencil lettering painted on industrial and military equipment now apperas on T-shirts, advertisiments, and posters where the designer wishes to present a rough and rugged image. Even the most isolated or academically constrained letterforms inevitably evoke cultural and historical associations.
Letter’s connotations and contextual relationships shift over time. Unexpected usage of a style of type or lettering can create an entirely new set of associations – psychedelic artists of the 1960’s co-opted nineteenth- century ornamental type styles as a symbol of the counterculture. More routinely, the connotations of fonts change through hundreds of small blows over the years. Type styles like Bodoni, which were considered revolutionary and difficult to read when first introduced, are today used to imply elegance and traditionalism. Likewise, the degraded lettering of the underground punk culture in the 1970’s and 1980’s is now associated with the corporate marketing of soft drinks, sneakers and skateboards.
While these contextual relationships often suggest a specific style or approach to a letting problem, the unlimited possibilities of lettering and type accommodate numerous individual interpretations. Even subtle changes to the appearance of letters can alter the content’s voice. Designers sometimes add new perspectives or layers of meaning by introducing an unexpected approach or contrast. Lettering a birth announcement as if it were a horror movie poster might not seem entirely appropriate, but, depending on how seriously the new parents take themselves, it may express the simultaneous joy and terror of birth and child rearing. The voice of the designer or letterer, whether loud or soft, can add as much to a text as its content or author. The designer’s ability to interpret context and address legibility underlies the creative success and the ultimate soul of lettering and type.
Individual artists and designers inject creativity into the process of making letters through their concept, approach, and personal style. Sometimes the individuality takes a very visible form: an artist’s emblematic handwritting or lettering technique acts as a unifying visual voice to words and letterforms. More frequently, particular idea or discovery informs creative type and lettering: a type designer stumbles upon an especially well-matched system of shapes for a new typeface, or a letterer adds a subtle-yet-decisive embellishment to a word.
Despite the countless numbers of letterforms that have been written, designed, and printed, the possibilities of the roman alphabet have yet to be exhausted. The skills, motives and knowledge of letterers and type designers continue to influence that way that text is understood and perceived, placing the creation of letters within both visual and intellectual spheres. The designer’s ability to balance and control legibility, context and creativity is the power to shape and written word.
[Bruce Willen, Nolen Strals, “Lettering and Type: Creating letters and designing typefaces”, p. 1-5 ]
Examples of typography
In typography the essential things are: originality, the idea, the message and sense of practicality. It depends on the material, because sometimes only one of these elements is needed – most common is originality that would catch the viewers eye, but sometimes it needs to be practical, simple and easy understandable. And who knows when which elements are necessary? The Gods of Typography of course!!!
You also shouldn’t forget that nowadays typography is also an ART, so even the wildest and most challenging ideas could work if not form all companies, then at least some of them -> 100%!!!
Another example of typography is calligraphy which is still holding on in the world of marketing and attention, but nobody knows for sure – for how long…
Why typography is important?
Letters are the throbing heart of visual communication. For all the talk of the death of print and the dominance of the image, written words remain the engine of information exchange.
Text is everywhere.
It is a medium and a message.
It is a noun and a verb.
As design becomes more widespread and open-source practice, typography has emerged as a powerful creative tool for writers, artists, makers, ilustrators, and activistss as well as for graphic designers. Mastering the art of arranging letters in space and time is essential knowledge for anyone who crafts communications for page or screen.
While typography uses standardized letterforms, the older arts of lettering and handwriting consist of unique forms made with a variety of tools. Today, the applications and potential lettering and type are broader than ever before, as designers create handmade letterforms, experimental alphabets, and sixteenthcentury typeface revivals with equal confidence.
Typedesign is a hugely complex and specialized discipline. To do it well demands deep immersion in the technical, legal and economic standarts of the type business as well as formidable drawing skills and a firm grasp of history.
Letters and the words that they are homes for language and ideas. Like buildings, letterforms reflect the climate and the cultural environment for which they are designed while adopting the personality of their content and designers. Although letters are inherently functional, their appearance can evoke a surprisingly wide range of emotions and associations – everything from formality and professionalism to playfulness, sophistication, crudeness, and beyond. Designers and letterers balance such contextual associations with the alphabet’s functional nature, melding the concerns of legibility and context with their own creative voices.
As in all applied arts, functionality lies at the heart of lettering and typography. Legibility is what makes letterforms recognizable and gives an alphabet letter the ability and power to speak through its shape. Just as the distinction between a building and a large outdoor sculpture is occasionally blurred, a written or printed character can be only so far removed from its legible form before it becomes merely a confluence of lines in space. Legible letters look like themselves and will not be mistaken for other letters or shapes – an A that no longer looks like and A ceases to function.
Letters or words whose visual form confuses or overwhelms the viewer disrupt communication and diminish their own functionality. Such disruptions are generally undesirable, but the acceptable level of legibility varies according to context. Some letterers and designers pursue an idea or visual style rather than straightforward utility. In these cases, the appearance of the letters themselves can take on as much importance as the text they contain or even more. When used appropriately, less legible letterforms ask the reader to spend time with their shapes and to become a more active participant in the reading process. Unusual, illustrative, or otherwise hard-to-read letters often convey a highly specific visual or intellectual tone and are meant to be looked at rather than through.
Unlike contemporary art’s voracious quest for new forms, the impetus to create unconventional or groundbreaking letters in generally less urgent to type designers and letterers, whose subject matter is based on thousands of years of historical precedent. As a letterform becomes more radical or unorthodox, it begins to lose its legibility and usefulness, requiring designers to balance the new with the familiar. This has not prevented letterers, artists, and designers from creating an endless variety of novel and experimental alphabets. New forms and experiments slowly widen the spectrum of legibility, shifting and expanding the vocabulary of letters.
[Bruce Willen, Nolen Strals “Lettering & Type]
... worth a thousand words and more... 