The Drucker Reading (Visual and Literary Materiality in Modern Art)

I must confess that I found this reading challenging. It was difficult to get through because of the style of writing. However, I did manage to grasp some of the basic concepts the author was trying to discuss.

Some points that were of interest to me:

The first section that caught my attention was Mallarmé's, A Throw of the Dice, and how he positioned his poem on the page to representative to its meaning. An example of this is how he speaks of an abyss and arranges the text where it is descending portraying the falling into the aforementioned abyss. As I understand it, the reason Mallarmé started experimenting with text in this way was because he was tired of the block texts he kept seeing in newspapers, books, etc.

The Italian and Russian Futurists believed in 'absolute truth' of the text. From what I understand, what this meant was that each text, or even each character of a typeface was its own work of art. It didn't need to represent anything, but rather it was self-contained artwork, thus it needed no reference (like modernism doesn't reference the past).

The Dadaists were interested in separating the representation of the word from the signification of the word. They were trying make one re-think the representation of the word, its meaning and its effect. One pf the reasons for this was political where, they were trying to un-systemize the system through the un-education of language.

Finally, what was interesting is that this particular text dealt with the materiality of text, but only in the physical world. It didn't really discuss anything of the digital medium (I can only guess that it was written before it became a topic of discussion). It is hard to discuss the materiality of something that only exists on a computer screen, and cannot really be manipulated physically. I suppose one could argue that you can manipulate the screen or harddrive, but I'm not syre it is the same effect as directly working with the text.

Picture animation

So this is an animation of the picture/text exercise we did in class. The quality of the pictures isn't too great, but I kept them small for quicker access time. The originals will posted somewhere else (I haven't decided where yet).

-Q

I spent quite some time editing the html, trying ot get the proper fonts to work in this god-foresaken webpage. I finally gave up and just created a seperate link to another webpage containing the original fonts needed.

I hate blogger.

I have no experience in dealing with typography. I realize it is an important tool when dealing with design, but I have not had the opportunity to take a course on this subject matter.

Upon going over the readings for this week, I realize I know less about typography than I thought. I started out with the readings thinking I knew nothing and went on to discover I know less than nothing, a somewhat discouraging start. I now feel severely under-equipped for this course.

I suppose I'll just have to work twice as hard.

Firstly, upon preparing to write this response, I was going over which font I wanted to use. I was not partial to any this blogger has to offer, but I did notice some points:

Courier is so difficult to read, and seems very time-consuming. The letterspacing is too much.

Times gives the impression of being too regal, which is not the effect I wish to convey. The letterspacing (or tracking) seems too constrained and the kerning is quite odd in certain points (e.g. the space before 'c' when it is the first letter in a word). Also, I keep seeing this font everywhere, so it has begun to annoy me.

I finally decided on Georgia because it seemed like the font that was the most balanced compared to the choices this blogger offered.

(ps. I realize I shouldn't have used the bold and italic features for these effects, but rather fonts specifically designed with those attributes; however, this blogger is limited in fonts).

I did learn a great deal from the readings provided, especially with terminologies and how different fonts are constructed. The visual presentations on typeworkshop.com were of particular help. I feel I still have a long way to go, and in a short amount of time, before I am ready to experiment with text.

Sidebar: In commemoration of the 30 year anniversary of Star Trek, I wanted to showcase several fonts the series and movies have inspired.