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.
An Historical Account of Typography’s Transition from Page to (Handheld) Screen
Within print’s historical context, movable type of any form, shape or weight could be assembled to express the meaning of the content. Whether the typographic composition amounted to an expression that was quiet and reserved, or lively and excited, the vocal intonation remained fixed and permanent, no matter how many impressions were subsequently made. Stanley Morison observed in First Principles of Typography: “Since printing is essentially a means of multiplying, it must be good for a common purpose. The wider that purpose, the stricter are the limitations imposed upon the printer”.
In the early twentieth century, the Futurists challenged these traditional conventions and perceived limitations, which had built-up around print mediated typography. Influenced, no doubt by early cinema and photography, writers and artists began using typographic elements of text to create powerful images. Apollinaire’s words rained down the page, while Marinetti’s virtually exploded on the page. Known as ‘free typography’, their word-images needed to be read, seen, heard, felt and experienced.
These artistic devices made little impact on print mediated typography until 1959, when Ivan Chermayeff and his design colleagues produced a small booklet called Watching Words Move, a compilation of typographic-design experiments involving word-text play. These child-like exercises depicted an uninhibited interplay between the language of words and the language of numbers, sometimes involving symbols, punctuation or abbreviations. Never before had the idea been so playfully expressed that type itself could speak, or that the placement of letters on the page could suggest motion and narrative. What is most striking however, about these exercises is the uncanny resemblance to ‘text-speak’ used on mobile phones today. Text-speak is a common form of shorthand language, otherwise referred to as slang, textese, SMS, and its associated variations such as geek-speak and leet-speak.
On the small-screen mobile, the modern day user essentially adopts a tone of voice, much like the ‘actor’ on a stage. The actor determines how to utter the words in a script – a given passage might be delivered by one actor in a shout, by another in a whisper. By acting or participating within a representation, the ‘user’ has immersed into what Brenda Laurel describes as a threshold space. This phenomenon is associated with daydreams and make-believe. It is an ‘in-between’ place where public and private worlds meet.
Indeed, it could be argued that mobile mediated communication is a time-sensitive, interactive and highly visual platform, where public and private worlds meet. With this in mind, Jessica Helfand calls for screen typography to be reconsidered as a new language with its own grammar, its own syntax, and its own rules. Underpinning the language of texts are factors such as orthography, typography and sociolinguistics. It can be contended that popular forms of mobile mediated communication have brought these factors within the reach of the ‘user’, and in light of overall developments within the sector, it may be an appropriate time to conceive of a user-centered typography. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl proposed this notion in the authoritative publication, Visible Languages.
In order to understand the significance of the overall transformation from mechanical to electronic processes, and its implications for typography, it might be useful to think about the following hypothetical situations. For example, think how difficult it would be to erase an engraving etched into a copper plate. Toxic chemicals would be applied and reapplied to achieve a satisfactory result, and even then the process could potentially ruin the plate, causing it to crack, and rendering it useless. Now, compare and contrast this situation to the relative ease of gently tapping on the backspace button to delete a paragraph, or hitting the undo command to switch-off a series of pixels rendered on-screen.
In an age of ‘heavy’ modernity, typography relates to Gutenberg’s technology of ‘movable type’, or to what Marshall McLuhan described as “the first uniformly repeatable commodity, the first assembly-line, and the first mass-production.” Subsequently, as Gutenberg typography filled the world, the human voice was closed down. Open dialogue was too fluid a substance, and therefore, incompatible with the fixed ‘point of view’ fostered by heavily mechanized print. In fact, the mass-produced book was symptomatic of a consumer-oriented culture, where people read silently and passively in the privacy of their own homes.
The current significance of Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘light’ modernity can be understood in terms of typography uprooting itself from the page and floating among digital screen devices. In Bauman’s ‘software’ world, we have progressed from movable type to moving type, escaping the print mediated constraints of time and space. Sven Birketts laments the decline of the book in The Gutenberg Elegies, writing, “A change is upon us – nothing could be clearer. The printed word is part of a vestigial order that we are moving away from.” Fear and uncertainty surround the electronic fragmentation of our textual world, and this transition is perceived as a problem, precisely because it is judged by the conventions and standards of print technology.
Poggenpohl remarks on how society is experiencing a cultural shift from the page to the screen. Essentially, we have been set adrift in uncharted territory, where the typographic conventions of the book cannot translate to the screen. Referring to this cultural shift, otherwise known as remediation, Marshall McLuhan observes how one media never totally eclipses another. Instead, a period of mimicry takes place, before the new media redefines itself and comes out from beneath the shadow cast by the older embedded media. In his book, Left to Right, David Crow writes about this cultural shift from words to pictures, and how it originated with the rapid development of screen-based media such as television, computer, web, mobile and digital camera. The latter half of the twentieth century saw the introduction of an increasingly portable range of digital technologies, and with this came an increasingly image-based use of language. This shift is well underway, and challenges typographers and designers to reassess their approach to language, and find new ways of talking to a generation that has a new way of reading.
Although this cultural shift has significant implications for the reconfiguration of typography, both typographers and designers seem divided on the issues. On the one hand, Michael Worthington believes that it is not enough to use digital technology merely as a surface, that beneath this veneer, there are possibilities to widen the expressive range of typography. In fact, if we analyse what makes typography contemporaneous to society, of all the factors such as fashion, sub-culture, arts and cultural theories, the most consistent factor in shaping the way typography looks in recent years is new technology.
On the other hand, renowned typographer, Matthew Carter resolutely rejects the differences in typefaces, attributed to technology. In order to ensure the very real human need for legibility, readability, and expression are met, Carter believes that technological considerations alone cannot drive the shapes of letters. Carter’s beliefs may sit comfortably with the established profession of typeface designers, but they indicate a note of detachment from the very real circumstances. In particular, digital media have afforded dynamic control over alphabetic writing to the ‘user’. The widespread implications will be dealt with later in the essay, where we will examine some innovative typefaces from both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These examples illustrate the extent to which the new functions of digital media ushered in new forms of type design.
© Susan Campbell, no republication without permission of the author.
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