Beyond Words.
6 Jan2010
Writing has come a long way since the first scratches of abstracted images on stone. It has influenced the way we think by giving us the ability to record our thoughts visually, which has in turn, contributed to the collective memory of society over the millennia.
For most people, writing is separate from the plastic arts. The form of text has nothing to do with the content of the words that are written. It is reasonable to assume that since the words have meaning in themselves, independent of the way they are written or presented, then the method in which they are put down in ink or print, and finally viewed, is of negligible importance. Only that the words are legible and that the conditions for writing and reading them in are sufficiently conducive.
However, this isn’t always the case. Writing is a visual means for the structuring and communication of information and sellers of luxury notebooks have managed to exploit this to the extreme. In some circles, notebook keeping has become an art in the recording and presentation of visual-textual information. Linear narratives are the norm, but ideas, like puzzles of all sorts, can be expressed through disparate patches of coherent thought, with embellished texts, emoticons, detailed diagrams and what not, later then on to be linked together to form the final picture or solution.
There are many situations in which a non-linear method of the presentation of an idea or thought is preferable to a linear one. A large collection of information on a particular subject, for example, might be best expressed on a two-fold page spread that shows collections of data from different aspects that are important to its understanding. Many contemporary news journals employ this to great effect, taking advantage of the reader’s ability to link disparate information together. However, this form of information presentation is also easily exploited, as no untruth needs to be said if the author wishes the audience to infer a biased opinion.
In the 1920s, the German Dadaists combined in collages, disparate texts and pictures to make politically charged art. The value in the text consisted of both the definition of the word itself, for example, LOVE, and its typographic style, and of course the pictures that accompanied it. Textual information cannot be consumed out of context, be it on the printed page, or in the current social and political climate. The words “World Trade Center” have different connotations pre and post 9/11.
In the days before writing machines were invented, penmanship was of great importance. Good penmanship signified good upbringing, civility and class. For a few decades, graphology was even an accepted subject at institutes of higher learning. However, like astrology, there has been no scientific proof to back it up, only opinion. And mere opinion alone only ever ranges from the merely entertaining to the potentially harmful.
But since the advent of machine type, good penmanship has fallen into the fold and is now only of importance to parents with very young children who still believe good handwriting is a sign of intelligence, discipline and adequate neuromotor control.
Since the early 1800’s, Typography has steadfastly usurped penmanship over the visual meaning of words such that the form of the text implies information beyond the text itself. And ever since designers realized the power of designed text to affect our environment and our social and political consciousness, they have exploited it to great effect.
An extreme example would be the poster announcing Obama giving his speech in Tiergarten in Berlin in 2008. Apparently some people thought the style of the poster (particularly the text) was a homage to German Fascism. Strange, considering that the style is in fact Bauhaus, and that the Nazis closed the Bauhaus school for its subversive curriculum.
Writing as an art has changed a great deal since Chaucerian tales of yore, Dante’s Inferno and Shakespearean sonnets. People still do write in regular prose, and most writing is done with font off the shelf that serves the writing and not the other way around. But it would be a pity if we didn’t try to express them in any other way. To make full use of the graphic quality of texts when it is possible, and to utilize the brain’s ability to comprehend words and pictures simultaneously for a quicker and or deeper understanding of things. After all, we started communicating face to face, and did so for the bulk of human evolution until 60,000 years ago when writing was invented. During that time, we communicated with words, sounds, gestures, and perhaps body paints and other decorations. Good writers can capture meanings that comprise all our senses in words, certainly. But much more or perhaps, different, types of meanings can be conveyed if words and sentences had value beyond their textual information.
Links:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/07/26/back-to-the-futura/
http://miller-mccune.com/culture_society/handwriting-is-history-1647
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Tim Walker
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I was looking at Aquascutum’s recent ad campaigns and came across Tim Walker. His photographs are quirky, between the epic diorama and the personal vignette. Very fucking cute.
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Hermes 2009 and Beds on Cars:
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Crucifiction AIX
14 Dec2009
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The Mad Hatter.
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I just wanted to get the lips and the eyes. And the big red flower. He just keeps staring, and staring back at me.
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