Nearly-forgotten sketch books

Elemenopee

I'm sure many typographers and graphic designers often let their mind wander away from the ocularcentric nature of their craft and into the world of sound! Object gallery's upcoming exhibition, Stereotyped, may fulfil the gap between the seemingly distant fields of sound and typography. The show brings together musicians, sound designers, composers, typographers, illustrators and animators to look at the overlaps between these fields and challenge the conception of a 'designer' today.
When I was first asked to participate in this exhibition my mind was filled with sound/type concepts including phonetics, expression without words and the alphabet song(which I recently learned is sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!). The nature of communication design often changes if the content is intended to be spoken rather than read. For instance, El Lissitzky's design of Mayakovsky's For the Voice (1923) used pictorial treatment of the words and a thumb index, allowing the poet to quickly reference different verse while reading aloud.

There are many recent adventures in expressing song lyrics through illustrated type or fonts too. Slanted magazine recently released the publication TypoLyrics: The Sound of Fonts and there is the series of type exhibitions initiated by Timba Smits, Lyrics and Type: A different kind of Verse.

And has anyone entertained the thought of what one may sound like if they "spoke in italics" (swiftly or with a certain intonation?) or "spoke in Helvetica" (monotonous and familiar perhaps?). Well, this ridiculous concept was perfectly consolidated earlier this year with Typotheque's Phont Library: a system linking web fonts to voice data:

The development process included months of casting to find voice actors who could capture the true qualities of the fonts. “The biggest challenge was to find the right articulations for Roman and Italic fonts. This was simply new territory for the actors and type designers alike,”

While it's safe to assume this was a typo-prank (it was posted on April Fools Day and claims Barry White to be the voice of Klimax!), it's entertaining nonetheless and elaborates upon many-a-thought about translating the visual attributes and ineffable qualities of fonts into the intonation, tone and tempo of speech.

So with these examples in mind, it will be interesting to see what the Stereotyped collaborators come up with. The artists include: Ellen Lupton and Amanda Cole, Stephen Banham and David Chesworth, James Cecil and Tin&Ed, Nils Crompton and Brooke Trezise, Jay Ryves and Nathan McLay, Jared Underwood and myself.

The collaboration with Jared began in the studio recording the "sounds of letters" – not how they are pronounced, but rather how the strokes sound as they are created using different mark-making devices and materials (see images above).

The show opens Friday September 3rd from 5-8pm at Object Gallery (417 Bourke Street, Surry Hills) and continues until 26th September 2010. Some type cupcakes may even make an appearance at the opening! Be sure to also check out the Pop-Up Alphabet Co-Op also at Object on September 4th and 5th.

Go Font Urself* Five

After two successful shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, the fifth instalment of Go Font Urself* will open this Thursday 19th August in Sydney. The line-up includes We Buy Your Kids, Jeremyville, Friends of Type, Morning Breath and one of my personal favourites - Alejandro Paul. The show starts at 6pm at Lo-Fi Collective, 383 Bourke Street, Taylor Square (above Kinsellas).