All posts by Kumi Sakai Hori (Sakai)
Position through iterating – Week 02
Regarding my iteration experiment on the first week, I straightforwardly customised the typed letter ‘sad’ and ‘joy’ to make them more emotional by using the functions of Illustrator. For example, I applied distortion, twist or blur to express the metaphor of sadness with tears, disappointment, or lethargic feelings. However, it was not clear to observe whether these designs could contribute to showing them more emotion since the words already told their emotions.
Consequently, I continued my experiments to randomly put these effects on each letter from A to Z and numbers. Then I made general sentences to investigate whether the design truly could show sadness emotion. As a result, these sentences have some emotions. However, it shows not only just sad feelings but also other feelings like anger or confusion. This situation happens especially the meaning of words is positive and/or neutral.
In addition, human emotions are also complex, and it seems to be connected to their personality. Therefore, I would like to explore the relations between existing typefaces, which still have their personalities, and human emotions as further projects. At the same time, I also put a single effect on all letters to make typefaces coherent and see the possibility of expressing one emotion more boldly.
Reference:
- Branding for industrial designer, Tej Chauhan by Mark Stuckert
- ‘Pentagram redesigns Virgin Money as a ‘playful, joyful’ brand’ / Creative Boom
- Experimental Alphabet Type Research by Afrika
- Slanted Magazine #40—Experimental Type
- Group Font sees 37 very different creatives contribute a letter / It’s nice that
- 2019 Communication Design Judge’s Choice: Typeface that Varies with Emotion / tdc
- emotional gamut / akshita chandra
- The Psychology of Fonts (Fonts That Evoke Emotion) / envato tuts+
- Emotion and language – When and how comes emotion into words? / Mario Braun
Position through iterating – Week 01
Thinking about my position regarding the visualisation of emotions, I am curious about complex feelings and/or sensations, such as synesthesia, as a personal topic. In daily life, people express their emotions through verbal, facial, vocal, and/or bodily expressions, for example. However, only verbal and visual are commonly used in digital/cyber communication, the main form of communication nowadays. I would like to focus on an aspect of this, conveying emotions through textual communication, and particularly the connection between typefaces and emotions.
Regarding the first research step, I read about the meaning of emotions. Some examples of their definitions are evaluative, positive or negative experience, mental states, such as mood or temperament, and a cognitive process. Mental states can be categorised by words like happy, sad, or angry, and people can understand what emotions they have intuitively. However, wouldn’t emotions be more complex, abstract and unique? Even if there are many words that can express the details of our feelings, using only verbal communication and some emoji is not enough. For example, from my point of view, the sadness of today and yesterday is not the same.
So I created 50 design patterns of sad with distortion, twist and blur effects and another 50 patterns of joy with colour, motif, 3d and calligraphy, using Illustrator as my first iteration.
Method of Contextualising
Method of Iterating
In this iterrating project, I tried to make a high fidelity copy of the typeface ‘BM Ikon’, created by a Turkish designer, Murathan Biliktu. The concept of the typeface is Anatolia’s vast landscapes and cultures, so it expresses abnormal and sophisticated stories through its design. For instance, BM Ikon adopted serif as its fundamental construction. But it also used a sans-serif approach to specific letters like T, C and K. In addition, he added characteristic curves to the letters like H, L and V to make the font look human-centred and graphical.
Murathan Biliktu’s new font explores the experience of migrant workers in Germany – It’s Nice That https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/murathan-biliktu-graphic-design-100222
Bibliography
- ADHOCISM by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver (1972) pp. 39–53
- Murathan Biliktu’s new font explores the experience of migrant workers in Germany – It’s Nice That https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/murathan-biliktu-graphic-design-100222
Method of Iterating – Written Response
DRAFT 01
In this iterrating project, I tried to make a high fidelity copy of the typeface ‘BM Ikon’, created by a Turkish designer, Murathan Biliktu. The concept of the typeface is Anatolia’s vast landscapes and cultures, so it expresses abnormal and sophisticated stories through its design. For instance, BM Ikon adopted serif as its fundamental construction. But it also used a sans-serif approach to specific letters like T, C and K. In addition, he added characteristic curves to the letters like H, L and V to make the font look human-centred and graphical.
When copying, I have noticed the huge difference between recent trends in typeface design used by global companies such as Google, Burberry, YSL and BM Ikon. These typical contemporary typefaces are mainly sans-serif and give high priority in terms of legibility since the company use their logos on many types of media, not only on physical products but also screens of mobile phones and computers. From my point of view, the consequence of this typeface trend is the optimal solution brought about by many trials and errors in capitalism.
Considering the polarised features of typeface design trends and BM Ikon, I would like to explore the possibility of communication through a typeface with further experiments.
DRAFT 02
I read Adhocism (1972, p39-53) by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver for continuing further experiments. The essence of adhocism helped to understand designing new typefaces with past subsystems; “nothing can be created out of nothing”. In this book, ‘ad hoc’ was defined as “for this particular meaning”. Through this book, I analysed the different features of typefaces between recent trends in typeface design used by global companies and BM Ikon.
Firstly, recent trends in sans-serif typeface designs are the consequences of the movement in which people have engaged in accelerating innovations after the Industrial Revolution. Societies have focused on efficiency and the succession of technological advances more than respect for traditions and human sensibilities. I assume that typefaces were not an exception to this movement because typefaces became designed mainly in a digital way around this time. On top of that, the book also explained that after repeating the evolutions as a creative stage, the design became stabilised in its most economical and efficient forms. Take a bicycle frame, for example. Its frame design has been mostly the same for eighty years. Therefore, the fact that many global companies have adopted similar typefaces might be the consequence of typefaces’ stability in the digital age.
On the other hand, the design of BM Ikon is the result of ‘ad hoc’ and critical evolution, which breaks down current typefaces’ features positively and negatively and rethinks from the start. In the book, the author stated that if the object reaches the stability stage, it does not mean each detail is also stabilised. For instance, even if the design of the bicycle is stabilised, a bicycle seat may be able to be fixed in a more economical balance. This moment means that the bicycle seat is simultaneously a part of a bicycle and an autonomous whole so that it can be transported from one context to another. When I put this example into typeface design, the evolutionary stage would differ depending on whether the typeface design is recognised as a sentence or a word or each letter itself. In this case, recent trends in sans-serif typeface designs focus on the balance, harmony and readability of words and sentences more than each letter’s beauty, and it seems to be in a stabilised stage. On the other hand, BM Ikon was dissected apart with Anatolian culture as the essence of the mutation of the typeface design to express each letter. Therefore, we can see the beauty and uniqueness of this typeface even if we see just one character.
To summarise everything, I compared the feature of typeface design between recent trends in typeface design used by global companies and BM Ikon from the point of adhocism. Then I came up with the idea that recent trends of sans-serif typefaces focus on high readability so that people can always get the same impression in any words and sentences to keep their branding image. However, BM Ikon was transported into the evolution and expressed the independent legibility of each letter.
DRAFT 03
I read Adhocism (1972, p39-53) by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver, then compared the feature of typeface design between recent trends in typeface design used by global companies and BM Ikon from the point of adhocism. After that, I came up with the idea that recent trends of sans-serif typefaces focus on high readability so that people can always get the same impression in any words and sentences to keep their branding image. However, BM Ikon was transported into the evolution and expressed the independent legibility of each letter.
I have conducted four experiments with BM Ikon to know that my interpretation of Draft 2 was mainly correct. 1) Refining the details of the typeface to explore changes in impression. 2) Mash up with other fonts to create a new font. 3) Combining two letters to determine the beauty potential of the typeface’s letters. 4) Using one letter to draw a completely different object. Therefore, I confirmed that BM Ikon is beautiful enough, even being used as a single letter, and it can keep its beauty even when the details are altered. In conclusion, this typeface is suitable for in case of logo and sign designs, using a single or a few letters to express the whole atmosphere of the brand.
Based on this interpretation, I further thought about the potential of expressing the same branding tone and manners in different languages in the digital age. In multilingual typeface design, how will the design progress to the stability stage in the future? To deepen this question, I visualised the translation from English to Japanese as a sample experiment since I could understand both languages. Coincidentally, Hiragana, one of the Japanese character types, is designed around curves, so I noticed that the BM Ikon font has a high affinity with Japanese.
In conclusion, it is possible to be translated into another language with keeping the concept of typeface design by analyzing the characteristics of each language carefully. However, it needs further thought and evolution to do this experiment in a large number of languages.
Bibliography
- ADHOCISM by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver (1972) pp. 39–53
- Murathan Biliktu’s new font explores the experience of migrant workers in Germany – It’s Nice That https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/murathan-biliktu-graphic-design-100222
Method of Translating – Written Response
Why
We Should Really Be Concerned About
“Critical “for everyone?
To discuss this question, we have to start with the essential meaning of the word critical. First, let me present the three elements that Ramia Mazé proposes. These three elements overlap and influence each other in critical design practice.
●Critical Attitude
Designers must repeatedly ask themselves questions about their perspectives and social issues during the production process and have a critical attitude to incorporate new interpretations and social positions into the design practice.
●Concerning Debate
Critical practice requires the challenge of updating traditional values and formats. It requires thoughtful discussion based on critical approaches and discipline within the community.
●Pressing issues on Society
We must maintain sight of the purpose of critical design, which is to address social issues. We don’t practise critical design to talk among designers; we do it to raise questions about social and political issues.
What can be read from these is that the role of designers is transitioning from Author to Researcher. The reason for this is not only that the function of design has matured as a discipline and that its legitimacy has been sought as a research tool but also that the importance of multiple research methods, such as social science and cultural anthropology, has increased.
From this point of view, the social issues that need to be addressed are by no means the domain of designers alone, and that design does not necessarily have to be the method of presenting solutions.
____
However, the word “critical” tends to be consumed like a label in the current design industry. One reason for this is the ambiguity of the word critical. Therefore, we will need to examine the very word, critical critically.
It all started when the curation team vaguely defined the term for the 2007 exhibition “Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design.”.
Since then, the word “critical” has been consumed like a label in the Internet media, and we have seen many ironic design expressions that seem to skim only the surface meaning.
Designers can now easily buy good reviews and followers on Social Networks. In such a situation, there may be a certain number of designers who have an allergic reaction to criticism itself. However, we must remember that these criticisms are made not for the designer’s identity but as part of their social contribution.
___
Reference :
Method of Translating
Material
I chose First Love by Hikaru Utada, Japan’s best-selling song, in 1999. Hikaru Utada is one of the most famous musicians and the first person who wrote R&B songs in Japan. She was born and grew up in NY, so she did not know much about J-pop. However, she consequently became a queen of J-pop. One reason for this achievement is that her parents are both musicians, and she was familiar with songwriting and singing from when she was a little child. When she made the song, she was still 15 years old.
Translatin experiments
I have tried three types of translation, linguistic, video, and sound construction.
Going through translating, I have noticed that some Japanese sentences, which are highlighted, do not have subjects. Hence, it is possible to imagine many kinds of love relationships, not only romantic but also general love.
To learn synesthesia, I analysed the original music video. It helped me pick up colours for my graphic design and know the tendency of metaphors which show a loss, confusion, disappearance, praying, loneliness etc…
I searched the instrument’s constitution, learned how to make a graphic score on YouTube, and tried to make it myself.
These references were helpful for making the final visualizasion.
#Final Visualization
The circle line follows time, inner lines follow the song’s progression. I reconfigured the lyrics depending on the process of time. Regarding white lines under the lyrics, which I made in week one, are vocal melody lines.
Feedback
What’s working:
- It was a challenging attempt for me to create a graphic score based on one complete piece of music. In this project, I succeeded in capturing all of my own emotions, reinterpretation of lyrics, and synesthesia elements obtained from analysis of music videos in one visual.
- The time axis represented by the circle and the progress of the song represented by the inner line worked well.
What’s not working:
- By carefully researching the relationship between each graphic score and the song in John Cage’s Reference, it is possible that my work has developed into a more abstract and cohesive output.
- There is a possibility that the relationship between the organisation of instruments placed in each section and the vocal melody can be enhanced.
To develop this further:
- By deepening my knowledge of synesthesia, I would like to deepen my insight into the relationship between music and visuals.
- It was interesting to hear the opinion that there might be a possibility for multifaceted interpretation. Of course, presenting the research process can be convincing to the viewer, but it should also be a concern that how much information someone seeing only the graphic score can get a new perspective from this visual. One possibility is adding ingenuity for making layers to the interpretation, such as arranging symbols like Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, that can help understand the meaning of the work.
Methods of Cataloging – Written Response
Methods of Cataloging
I picked up 10 books from the packaging shelf(688.8) at CSM library and collected 175 animal printed packages. As for experiments, I tried four types of sorting : chronological sorting, making colour chart, classifying the animal categories, and classifying the usage of animal images.
Then I noticed that people do not care about the meaning of animal packages even if same animal is used for the opposite meaning on the different package. I would like to look for the reason and hidden rules on packages.
Going through hypothesis and learning about animal welfare, I tried to make the original pork meat package which has more information about animal welfare and could be able to reduce the total consumption of the meat.
Feedback
What’s working:
- Going through four types of experiments, I could find my own questioning and context, and try to represent the package.
- I could build the design using logical reasons.
What’s not working:
- Finding the middle point between current marketing packages and ideal packages – but not so much shocking needs deep understanding of animal welfare. I am still in the process of learning, so that there is the possibility for making these information much better.
- I actually did lots of experiments, so that there are still possibilities that I could explore of packages.
To develop this further:
- I would like to observe package itself more deeply, and know how can I tell information through packages.
- I could also think about another approach, not only packages but also other media.
- I am interested in the history of animal characters as well. these understanding might help further creativity.