Expressive Typography

A child repeatedly exposed to individual letters and characters of our language system learns the alphabet. The child learns to recognize the shape of a letter and associates it with sound and meaning. Letters become ingrained symbols of verbal and written language.

Shapes of letters are expressive far beyond their basic use as sound symbols – beyond verbal and written language – individual and groups of letters are used as expressive imagery – a visual language.

A design student spends extraordinary amount of time revisiting the individual letters of the alphabet in order to heighten sensitivity to their shapes and learn how to use letters as imagery. A successful and creative designer intimately knows every curve, angle, and stroke of letters.

Visual Workout: Creativity Workbook by Robin Landa & Rose Gonnella

p. 18, 20

Design defined: A dictionary definition uses the synonym “plan”: To design means to plan, to organize. Design is inherent in the full range of art disciplines.

Visual Organization:

Design is the opposite of chance. The artist or designer plans the arrangement of elements to form a visual pattern. Depending on the field, these elements will vary, but the result is a visual organization. Art is concerned with problem solving. Art seeks visual solution in the design process.

Design Basics: Multimedia Edition with CD-Rom by David A. Lauer & Stephen Pentak

p. 4

In Creative Design Exercise Two, you are asked to design expressive imagery based on letters and groups of letters.


For the first exercise design, differ the relationship of the letters to one another to express and communicate an effective message. Various techniques including height or width of type, rotation, baseline shift, cutting letters apart can be used.

Examples below illustrate ideas:





The second exercise is a preliminary to the third exercise. In this second exercise, you will design stacked type. Design one word using narrow inter-letter spacing. The word should begin and end with the same letter. Vertically flip the word over. Repeat. Flip the word as many times as you like. You want to form a dynamic positive and negative stack of shapes.



The third exercise is a figure ground reversal. Interesting and surprising shapes can appear when close attention to designing both the positive and negative shapes of letterforms. Logos, headlines, and text type are wonderful when negative (ground) shapes inextricably interact with the positive shapes (figures). Using one or more letters, create a figure/ground design. The letters may touch each other, be cropped off the page, overlap and/or touch the edges of the page.

Below is an description of positive and negative shapes to help you understand the figure/ground relationship.



examples:

Todd Camplin

Saks Fifth Avenue Identity:



More Examples: