Related Works & Inspo
During my research, I encountered many intriguing related works which pushed my inspiration further for this project. Here are some of the most significant works that I came across:
"Ursonography", Jaap Blonk & Golan Levin, 2005
In this video, Poet Blonk performs the poem “Ursonate”, and his speech is supplemented with Levin’s concurrent motion visualization of his speech as subtitles in a video projected behind Blonk (Blonk & Levin). The work uses expressive typography with variations in opacity, speed, direction, scale, repetition and overlap. This correlates to my project as it takes speech into an audiovisual typographic realm which expresses sounds, while my project intends to take a script (conversational text) and bring visual expressive elements to its typography to express emotion.
This work inspired me substantially. The creativity of the techniques and varieties of type expression were so thoughtful and opened my mind to new possibilities for visual exploration. I found the conversion of sound to expressive type and the idea of responsive subtitles to be innovative and gripping. It certainly maintained my attention throughout the performance despite not understanding the words, and this feeling of captivation is something I hope to achieve with the likes of a print script for high schoolers.
"Srsly Hamlet", O.M.G. Shakespeare
This adaptation of Shakespeare into modern day text language is intended to use text bubbles, emojis, photos and social media posts to make a Shakespearean text something familiar and understandable/enjoyable to digital natives (YAYOMG). The series incorporates humour and visual imagery to supplement the stories of Shakespeare in a way that hopes to interest youth in his tales (YAYOMG).
This work is very similar to my project, as it takes a script, and adapts in (in a different form; texting) to something which intends to heighten communications with the specific audience of teens. My project also seeks to bring more interest, excitement and relatability to Shakespeare’s age old text, and while I don’t plan on using abbreviations and text messaging (as I feel Shakespeare’s work should be learned in the language it was written), I can learn a lot about how these writers sought to connect to teen audiences from digital media inspiration. This idea of text-messaging inspired me to think more about conversational representation in my project. I had already experimented with text messaging and expressive typography, but adding the idea of conversation into my experiments in expressive typography could strengthen the design of the project’s intended book creation.
"La Cantatrice Chauve", Robert Massin, 1964
This book adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s “La Cantatrice Chauve” play designed by Robert Massin in 1964 takes the play’s text and brings it to life through expressive typography and character imagery, balancing the text/visuals to create a stimulating, energized and dynamic work (Gabor). It brings the space of the stage to the pages of print. Massin used italics for the woman’s voice, and roman type for the man’s. The background became black if the setting was dark, and the type varies in direction, scale, and placement, often emerging from the mouths of the actor’s images.
This relates strongly to my project’s idea of using expressive typography to enhance the reader’s engagement and interest in the written scripts of Shakespeare. Here, Massin used image, space and typography to communicate the speech of characters. From my introduction to this book by Richard Hunt when explaining my topic, I was truly inspired and excited. This is the type of visual expression of type that I had envisioned in my mind, and this work exemplified it. I also particularly love the 1960s era for style and popular culture, so felt tied to the book. Each way of transforming speech tone into visual type is creative, innovative and so visually interesting.
"Inception", Alicja Pona
This expressive typography book created by Alicja Pona took lines from the script of the film “Inception” and translates them onto the pages of a print book. Using various types of paper and type treatment, her project aims to interpret the script in expressive, unexpected ways that match the scenes of the film through only typography and some photography. This relates to my own pursuit of taking a play script and presenting it expressively on print pages.
I am truly inspired by the book’s simplicity and energy it captures. I would love to be able to hold it in my hands and experience the materiality of it. The book is beautifully crafted, bound by hand and so playful with type. She uses distanced letters through tracking, acetate printing to create layers, distortions of letters for mysterious, dreamy treatments, and unique blurring of letters for motion and confusion. This inspired me to think more about treatments that can apply to Shakespeare's scripts.
Manga Shakespeare, Self Made Hero
This series titled “Manga Shakespeare” is specifically targeted to teenagers, taking Shakespearean scripts and transforming them into Manga comic style with abridged scripts (Manga Shakespeare). This correlates to my project which also seeks to make Shakespeare approachable to teenagers through a physical book medium. The goal of the series is to bring Shakespeare into an accessible format that can be digested and enjoyed by teenagers, especially those of whom English is a second language.
The testimonials on the series' site note its success, explaining in one quote that a teenage son prefers Manga and film to traditional reading, and was to the father’s surprise engrossed by the Manga adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. It is this excitement and captivation that I hope to achieve when creating my book adaptations that engrosses teens into a book rather than a digital means of communication.
Are.na Page
Through presentations of past thesis students, the site Are.na was brought to my attention. I fiddled around with the site, and used it to search for images that could inspire future directions of work, with a focus on emotions and typography. To view the board, click here.