Reconfiguring the Voice of Typography - Chapter Two

How Has Mobile Mediated Communication Altered the Voice of Typography?

Paying Homage to an Older Medium and How to Break Free

Since the birth of the Gutenberg Bible in the mid-fifteenth century, our writing system has become so thoroughly aligned to the printed word, that the small screen, small keypad seems somehow ill-equipped to perform any sufficient exchange of information. And this will continue to remain the perceived case, until screen typography for the mobile ceases to mimic typographic conventions associated with print. Design engineers seem unaware of such conventions or the implications for the ‘user’, and the following design issues are a direct consequence of allowing a new media (mobile) to remediate an older media (book).
© Susan Campbell, no republication without permission of the author.

Reconfiguring the Voice of Typography - Chapter One

How Has Mobile Mediated Communication Altered the Voice of Typography?

Consider how the Letterpress reconfigured movable type to bring about the font Times New Roman in the eighteenth century. Consider also how the screen reconfigured bitmapped type to bring about fonts such as Émigré and Emperor in the 1990s. Then consider the important role mobile media have to play in the reconfiguration of typography today. In particular this essay will chart this latest reconfiguration in conjunction with cultural society’s reform of language, due in part to its fondness for immersive forms of communication.


An important aspect to this study is to decipher the unique ‘voice’ brought to typographic form through mobile mediated communication. Initially, perhaps it is best to understand the expressive voice of typography, in terms of Aristotle’s writings. In Logic, he explained, that “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience. Written words are the symbols of spoken words.” Much later on, in 1928, Jan Tschichold published The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers, stating that “A good letter is one that expresses itself, or rather ‘speaks’, with the utmost distinctiveness and clarity.”

Beyond conventional factors associated with typography (deliberate composition, format and context), the fundamental measure of a good typographic design is that “we hear the tone of voice before we understand what it is saying.” From the beginnings of art criticism in the sixteenth century, ‘tone’ was a word commonly applied to painting. But painting has since moved on, and so has typography. The extent to which mobile media has altered the voice of typography will inform this investigation.

© Susan Campbell, no republication without permission of the author.