By its very nature, the English alphabet is dependent on conventions. Type design that abandons convention lacks the ability to communicate effectively. These projects are motivated by my interest in the constraints of the alphabet, typographic communication, and legibility.
The following motion graphic deploys the words of the poem “Whereupon the Cardinal,” written by Dr. Peter Monacell. The original goal of the motion graphic is to evoke the cadence and sentiments felt by an audience when a poet reads their poem aloud. I manipulated the letters, words, and stanzas in order to suggest the underlying mood present in the poem’s storyline, while also emphasizing certain moments of interest.
Colonize borrows quotes from emails from my husband sent while he was traveling the world for a year and from the show “One Strange Rock,” in which eight astronauts provide unique perspectives about our planet.
Each manipulation in Letterform Folly moves the words further away from their meaning. To begin, I use the palindrome phrase “a nut for a jar of tuna” due to it’s characteristic folly. I then break apart, overlay, and slowly move the letterforms through space; the work is playful and experimental in the process of its creation. Paula Scher said, “words have meaning, type has spirit.” My goal in this project was to disconnect the meaning and distort the spirit.