TYPOGRAPHY AND SOUND concept + inspiration project + experiences informations + contact
versão portuguesa concept + inspiration
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As advances in technology introduce more complex creative challenges, screen-based typography must be reconsidered as new language with its own grammar, its own syntax, and its own rules. What we need are better models which go beyond language or typography to reinforce - rather than restrict - our understanding of what it is to design with electronic media.
Jessica Helfand, in ‘Screen - Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture’.


Starting from the formal and structural contents of futurism, suprematism, dadaism, constructivism and other artistic movements that in their principles and fundamentals contributed to the construction of a modern conscience regarding typography, the project attempts to evolve on these principles in a context oriented towards the contemporary dynamics, in an eminently tetradimensional perspective.

The project is developed in a set of experiences intended to approach questions related with the synchronization in real time of digital typographical illustrations that react to the produced or captured sound. The formal qualities of the characters, their proportions, dimension, appearance, etc., vary with time according to non random values, but coming from a sound input.

The intention of this work is essentially experimental and aims at giving back to typography the prosodic aspects of language.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





















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  Typography and Sound was a project developed in different fields, having as main purpose questioning the potential of digital typography, considering its inherent virtual state characteristics (dynamic, interactive, changeable and mutant, frenetic and kinetic) and sound characteristics (rhythm, volume, entoation, pitch, phonetic qualities in general).
In order to illustrate the mean of typography in the digital arena, I have developed a series of interactive exercises in which the relation typography/sound/interaction is the essential element, so as to find a computational model that allows to represent a system of typographical states.
The project looks at sound and the structures of digital typography establishing new emotional and perceptive links with the user, removing typography from its pragmatic sphere and joining physical elements and encouraging the characters to become pure concepts.
In this process, typography is not limited to the visual transcription of a sound. It gains, through the interface, a sensor-motor capability, becoming either ideographic or logographic. In short, it becomes a natural typography that is not subjected to the pure transcription of speech, but reconstructs itself as a cognitive and linguistic element of interpretation.
Typography, as an integral and material part of a communication system capable of offering another dimension to the voice, becomes by the mean-meaning relation, a process of storytelling and interaction that does not always follow a logical-syntactic way. Even though typography moves inside a code, which determines the way graphemes and morphemes are represented, it can change it, taking control and/or decoding it. This was the intention of my experiences in the relation between typography and sound.
The translation of visual forms in mathematical formulas and equations allows the introduction of dynamic qualities in typography – a temporal dimension. The system allowed to built a model where the proportions of the characters, as well as their form, can vary throughout time according not to random values, but coming from captation of a sound signal and its further analysis. Using a specific application, any sound input is recorded and analyzed in real-time through the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). Amplitude values of 16 frequencies and peak events on bass, mid, high and silence enable the creation of responsive typographic elements. The constructed pieces relie on different purposes of interaction that the personal computer environment allows.

 

All pieces presented here make use of the sound input from musical devices, microphone or midi devices:

1. The first experience deals with an essentially reactive piece that modifies color, as well as scale, the word 'a7ch!m' through the characteristics of the sound inputs.
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2. In the second experience, an eddy of words floats in circular movements. Sound imput allows to extend what is written in the keyboard.
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3. The third experience was inspired by the constructivists images. Here a 'typoman' dances to the flavor of music.
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4. A piece inspired by the advertising campaigns of Absolut.
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5. Experience with the letter 'g'. Here, the character changes when the mouse approaches it, generating a sound reaction modifying the chromatic density, as well as the rotation and duplication of the character.
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6. Application of an 3D engine that works through the mouse input, allowing the manipulation of its rotation and speed.
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7. Monogram that moves and changes color in according to the characteristics of sound input.
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8. Ispired by the experiences with letter 'M' of Wolfgang Weingart, this interactive piece allowed to explore the reactive and interactive capabilities of the PCs in the creation of automatisms where the sound commands choreographic flowing of the character in the screen. Its rotation, duplication, position and color depend on this input, as well as the actions that the user creates with the mouse.
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Project developed by Vítor Quelhas between 2003 and 2004 for partial fulfillment of the degree of Master in Multimedia Arts at FBAUP.

This project makes use of the Macromedia Flash technology, version 6, and uses a midi controller, from vlight, entitled vlight.ctrl, that allowed the reactive creation of typographical pieces and their real-time synchronization with Flash compositions.

For more information, please, contact:
Vítor Quelhas
info [at] dyntypo [dot] com

or visit the website www.dyntypo.com where you can find more informations about this project and other related projects.