A letter form is a graphic form of a letter of the alphabet, either as written or in a particular type font. It is the building block of text. During class it was interesting to learn about practitioners like Swiss typographers: Willi Kunz and Wolfgang Weingart. The two designers brought their post-modernist approaches to typographer that revolutionised the medium as they explored how the symbol which holds such significance to the audience as a tool for communication, can be broken down to a a simple shape; exploring and playing with the familiar shape to create interesting abstract outcomes. As seen above, Weingart’s “NR4” explored how letters can be fitted together like Tetris shapes to create interesting abstract forms where only the impression of the shape remains. Kunz’s “Advanced Typography” utilises contrasting tones and varying sizes of type to create an interesting architectural structure forms all from the letter T, reflecting the posters subject matter: typography. I have included experiments on Figma, reflecting both Weingart and Kunz’s style utilising letterforms with the aid of columns to create a sense of balance and alignment amongst the chaos of the abstract forms.
I have included some experiments I created on Figma with letter forms. I used varying techniques including enlarging and minimising characters; merging them together to create compound shapes and also using white and black to create interesting silhouettes. This exercise was fun as I was able to consider what shapes and edges fit together and how I could make them work in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I thought my most successful experiment is the use of S in the typefaces Futura, Times New Roman, Helvetica and Fugaz One which explored how the physical forms of different typeface characters worked together by utilising their differing features like tails and heavier or lighter weights. I liked the layout of this poster as the compound of the same characters is emphasised by large amount of negative space in the majority left hand side of the template.
Jan Tschichold & His Use of Asymmetry and Symmetry
In class, we experimented with taking one letter and magnifying it to explore the character purely as a shape; creating interesting abstracted squares which transform the symbol into pure, geometric shape. I used Figma to create a grid in which I was able to utilise the mask tool to organise the single letter E until it was unrecognisable and just the impression of the letter. This experiment was useful as I was able to explore how I can morph and maximise letters in my design in way in which the audience can still understand the impression of the word or character.
