READING RESPONSES
regarding the "type image message" reading:
which of these composition strategies have you used the most in the past?
how do you see these strategies applying to your current type work at kcai (are you already using them in some way), or how might you re-imagine your current experiments to try these out?
10 comments:
This reading helped me quite a bit in recognizing meaningful messages and narrative between image and type. Image and type are analyzed in many different types of relationships. I've learned that relationships behind meaning are more important to understand than just trying random ways to make something work; its more of a "why and how does it work' instead of 'this one just works.' The most interesting part of this reading for me were the four critical relationships:
Separation -when type and image operate independently.
Fusion - when the type and image blend to form a unity.
Fragmentation - when the type and image disturb or disrupt each other.
Inversion - a form of infusion, when the type and image trade places and the type takes on the pictorial properties or the image takes on typographic qualities.
At first, my experiments took on both separation and fragmentation where the type served no purpose other that clarity of comprehension that was an isolated entity. I started with just different letter forms and seeing if I could get multiple reads from a singular form. But after I read this section of Type, Image, Message, I realized that the image or multiple planes of my letter forms created a pictorial icon of multiple letters. Although this contained no sort of narrative, they still worked in harmony to the attempt of solving a problem.
Once I have used multiple contrasting words to create a singular message "Divide & Unite," this is when I realized that opposite messages can do just what my words said "unite" or fuse together to create a uniform idea. The flat 2D appearance of one word worked in harmony with its 3D nature within the Z-axis to create multiple reads within a spacial experience; they had a Fusion Relationship.
In a certain way, my letterforms are fragmented to a degree by splitting up the multiple words on different planes. But in the end, they work in unison towards its goal. My letter forms were not ignoring space but compromising with the environment they lived in or the context in which they were in to make their purpose function.
I would love to try my experiment in the 'Inversion' relationship where my type would be, not a secondary read but, a pictorial experience that lends itself more towards an image-making tests method instead of a typographic experiment of readability.
In most of my work from the past I feel that I have used "fusion" (when type and image blend to form a unity) and "separation" (when the type and image operate independently). I realize now that exploring the other two methods would work in my favor, especially as a student. I should push my expectations of what type can be and how it can become more than just letterforms. I can always be pulled back in if I go too far of course.
In my current type work I am using "fragmentation" (when type and image disturb each other). I am subtracting and adding parts of the letter forms in a phrase or a word to create typography that exists only in motion. The image appears in the stead of the removed letter form part, and is taken away when the letter form returns. I would like to use this idea of fragmentation to start layering phrases that contradict each other. I want to juxtapose the old vs. the new or the disgusting vs. the beautiful. I want to contrast connotations of one phrase to another, and I could also do this with type and the image behind it as well. How can the type say one thing, and the image say another?
The idea of fusion in context with my current type experiment is interesting to me. I realize that I could be working my type into the forms and characteristics of an image. I can start to match angles, misplace the text in a dimensional way. An image could contain a severe perspective, where I could start to play with the visibility of my text using depth of field. Some of the text could jump out at you in the foreground, while the other letterforms are more humble sitting in the background. This could also play into the importance and impact of certain words. What seems to be fading? What are we losing? I want to evoke these kinds of questions to the user.
When I think of separation, I start to think swiss design. Designing on a grid, lining up text into small columns on top of an image. I do think that there is a very appealing aesthetic to this though, and for some reason I find it really compelling. I like that there is no room for confusion, but clarity. However, in context of my current type project I am trying to push legibility and push meaning.
I have been working with helvetica (bad me, I know), which is one of the most legible fonts there is! I am starting to consider other fonts. I am also considering the idea of imagery interacting with my type. How can the layout and the meaning behind the words interact visually and mentally with the image.
I enjoyed this reading, and I remember going over this about a year ago in my typography II class. This was a great reminder, and a wake up call for me.
which of these composition strategies have you used the most in the past?
I have definitely used all of these in some capacity or another, but I would say that I use a lot of fragmentation in my work, and also fusion. My Gert Dumbar poster had some of these attributes, for sure.
how do you see these strategies applying to your current type work at kcai (are you already using them in some way), or how might you re-imagine your current experiments to try these out?
I would say I am working with most, if not all 4 critical relationships mentioned in this reading. Learning classifications for different graphic design approaches is really interesting. I plan on using as many as possible in my type experiments.
I'm going to be honest. For the most part, in the past I would mainly use separation. I would design two different elements (type and image) and place them together in one format. They would have relation to them, but no interaction with one another. I would use a little fusion in some projects with the type and image, but I would say the majority of the past work has been separation.
Now when I think of the work I have created here at KCAI and whether or not my experimentation with these strategies have occurred more, I would say yes, they have. I know with my LIFE magazine from Visual Language class I used fragmentation. The object within the image showed interaction within the space as they collided and added another element of depth. I think an example of fusion within my work here would be the show opener. The titles within the piece reflected and mimicked the movement of the stop motion. As for type experiments throughout this project, I would say I explored a little with inversions. I think the fact that I used objects to create the type in an image is a good example of that.
I definitely enjoyed this reading as it helped me reflect on my typographic choices and my lack of experimentation within other projects in the past. I should be exploring these options within each project and finding then selecting the one that best suits the project best.
which of these composition strategies have you used the most in the past?
In the past I have used separation and fusion. I have not always thought to fuse type and image, I have always though of legibility first, but the more I work on this type experiment, I am beginning to recognize type AS image. I never got into fragmentation, but I'm sure, in the right context, I will use it in the future.
how do you see these strategies applying to your current type work at kcai (are you already using them in some way), or how might you re-imagine your current experiments to try these out?
In this current type experiment I will try out the use of fragmentation. I'm already fragmenting the letterforms for the sculpture part, but maybe the way that the lights are used could help show the fragmentation of the words in the shadow.
This reading reminded me that there ARE more than one or two ways to combine type and image. Now that I was reminded of these, I will be more likely to think of every different way to merge type and image before I decide to keep them both separate.
Well within the first two paragraphs I came to the line "the image must be 'incomplete' so that there is something left for the type to do." Gotta say I completely disagree. Okay, now that THAT is out of my system....
The bit about Space and Point(s) of Entry was interesting to me because this type process I'm dealing with has made me start looking at the photographic qualities of the type I'm working at. I felt like I started making images rather than dealing with type and I felt like I balanced along the edge ever since I started working with the computer-illuminated type/text. (Also gotta love the lego reference).
"type is generally a high-contrast practice." That was an interesting thought to me. I feel like I ended up playing with the contrast in my images just by pulling the screen things are "projected" onto further away from the actual letterform. I guess that plays into legibility, but it's still something interesting to see really written out like that. Higher contrast = easier read generally speaking.
Fusion is something I guess I kind of talked a bit about above, viewing the type as an image or as something with more pictorial qualities, how the letterform shifts or twists from it's rigid context into something more... interesting.
Hyperrealism was also an interesting concept and I interpreted it to mean a more hands-on approach to portraying type. "Physically photographing" the type is exactly what I was doing, albeit through various fields/screens and over different lighting methods.
The idea of "creating fictional narratives between words and images" is something I might like to further explore. I think I was sort of doing that when I started projecting movies behind my text, but what if it were a design movie instead of REPO, but how does REPO speak to designalogue? Does designalogue represent death and destruction the way the movie does on a metaphorical level? Probably not but it's an interesting twist of though. :D
lance, thank you for being honest ;)
good thoughts, you all, and thanks for your contributions here. readings like these are given to open your eyes to new ways of making your work, and that seems to have worked based on your responses.
classification of things in graphic design is a tricky thing, because there are always things that immediately defy classification, and there are always gradients. they are useful in a general way to identify major areas of difference within a subject (like typeface classification or this type/image classification).
I think they way that I work is thinking about the image and then the type. I feel that I only really think of how to combine them until later in the process and that is also what I struggle with most. I think this book has opened my eyes to some more exploration with projects, and that I do not push it enough. I think I need to work opposite of the way I have been by going to the extreme and then coming back.
I start out with separation and try to end up with fusion, so that the elements are separate. I don't think I have really branched out beyond those two and this book opened me up to some new ideas.
Much of my design career has been page layout in magazines where the text really stands on its own. I guess there is some fusion there but only a little. It's usually tons and tons of reading type text. I've done a lot of poster advertising where the type interacts more with the image but I haven't been as successful with that, that's part of the reason I came back to school, to understand visual language, and become a master at it! Clients I've worked with in the past usually want a particular image for their advertising and it seldom fits with any kind of convincing advertising campaign. Of course, in trying to get someone to buy a 'strange new idea' you have to be articulate in visual language which I was perhaps not. Either that or they just couldn't 'get it.'
I enjoyed this reading because I've not ventured into fragmentation or inversion territory much. I'm interested in looking at how I might delve into these more with Type IV. Fragmentation seems like a very exciting post-modern idea and inversion seems like a good way to communicate with more punch, i.e. placing images more closely with text, maybe putting images inside the words?
which of these composition strategies have you used the most in the past?
I feel like in the past I have used separation, infusion, and fusion in my work. I guess I really didn't know these terms previously, but if I did know then I could have used the terms in explaining what I was trying to convey a bit better instead of stumbling for words, even though it sounds right in my mind to others it might not. My examples of infusion, I believe would be my Anderson poster since the typography is taking on new qualities.
how do you see these strategies applying to your current type work at kcai (are you already using them in some way), or how might you re-imagine your current experiments to try these out?
How I see the future, I can physically remember these terms, so I can use them when I'm presenting some work that shows clearly what they representing. I feel like I need to explore more of the fragmentation 'world' because it could be interesting how image and text function or relate. It would be interesting.
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