Typography is one of those things that is literally EVERYWHERE but is not really thought about by the average person. It’s just words that can be read and give information, right?
Wrong.
Typography has such an impact on how we perceive and consume information. The height, width, and spacing of each individual letter can make such a difference. The placement of those letters in words, and then into sentences (lines) adds complexity but is equally important. Have you ever visited a website and instantly closed it because it was either too hard to read (visually) or the layout was just plain horrendous? Layout matters.
Generally, text accompanies an image and plays the supporting character role, as seen in posters, book covers, magazine covers, etc. Sometimes, the text and image intertwine to become one entity. More uncommon is when the text itself is the image. Communication designer Ji Lee (who currently works for Facebook) published a book back in 2011 titled “Word as Image” which illustrates 90 images made using only the letters in the word. The video below is a sampling from his book. I must have watched this at least 5 times by now.
My personal favorites are The Last Supper, Spiderman, and Tunnel
Using this incredible concept, I tried to create my own image using one word:
I’m now realizing this would have been slightly enhanced if I put a thin border around the image to highlight that it is a square.
The basic unit used in this image is a cube, which is then arranged in the letters that spell cube. So essentially, using cubes to create the word cube. You can’t tell here, but the canvas size is a square, playing on the 2D shape that makes a cube. The letters are then arranged in a square and are spaced equally within the canvas (called letter spacing and line spacing).
If I were to place grid lines that separated the canvas into fourths, each letter would center within each quarter (or module). Because of this, the image is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically.
Since my native language is English, I read words from left to right and aligned the letters that way to facilitate the visual flow. Top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.
I wanted the letters to be uniform in size, which is easier to do with uppercase letters than lowercase. I kept the height (point size) at 5 and the width (pica) at 3. As I’m reflecting on this now though, I should have attempted to use the same number for each (5 x 5) to have another element resemble a square. I’m not sure if it would have worked out because letters are generally square in shape, but it would be interesting to try it.
Where have you seen some words as images? What is one that sticks out in your mind?
References: Graphic Design Solutions, by Robin Landa, 6th ed., Cengage, 2019. Lupton, Ellen. Thinking With Type, thinkingwithtype.com TEDxUofM. 2016 April 2016. The Power of Typography. Mia Cinelli. . Youtube. https://youtu.be/C_RzDqgGcao
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