MUSE
2020
Tasked with creating a typeface based on an article of choice, MUSE is a typeface inspired by the empty words given and received in everyday settings. The process took place for an entire semester, but once finished we held an exhibition to proudly display our work.
RESEARCH
The first step of our typeface design required us to each pick an essay from the online e-flux journal. Personally, I chose 'Why Are People Being So Nice?" by Martha Rosler, an article that discusses the empty conversations we have on a day to day basis. After reading the article, we then selected excerpts with the following criteria: 1 paragraph, 3 sentences, and 5 words.
Cover of the online journal
1 Paragraph:
"Art-world business communications, mostly as emails between museums, galleries, and artists, show more limited tropes, neither casual nor quite formal, located in a linguistic space not recently (or ever) inhabited, and generally confined to strangely elaborated greetings and salutations. In these work documents, a newcommon formula after the still-formal "Dear," is "I hope this message finds you well," ,” 6 an intrusion into the personal that is both empty and confusing, and no more meaningful than an air kiss. This vague bodily invocation is an imaginary throwback to a Victorian epistolary mode, signifying, one imagines, not courtesy but courtliness. In a more colloquial register, standard signoffs are amped up so that “Best wishes” swells to “All best wishes,” and “Have a nice day” 7 to “Have a great day!” and so on. This stems more from shop-assistant culture than from Victorian letter writing but has most decisively replaced formal closings. 89" (page 4-5)
3 Sentences:
"Every service-oriented exchange, including those with online “bots” and faraway call-center employees, is meant to enfold you in cozy, infantilizing warmth, while every corporate employee, real and fake, is open to “feedback” and evaluation on those grounds" (page 7)
"But this leading “new economy” has been observed, like our false friends, to deploy the same old predatory business practices, rebranded with “dreamy, sentimental stories of new-corporate idealism, a belief in the defining heroism of creative innovation,” in the words of journalist Nathan Heller." (page 7)
"The experience economy demands authenticity, which axiomatically takes shape as heightened faux emotion." (page 2)
"Why Are People Being So Nice?"
Martha Rosler
5 Words:
Courtliness, Fake, Dreamy, Polite, Distant
INSPIRATION & IDEATION
The second phase of the process, we researched different types of inspiration relating to our journals as well as the beginning of ideating design styles ourselves. This phase took about 1-2 weeks depending on our individual processes.
Inspiration:
Mateusz Witczak
Lettering Artist and Graphic Designer
Based in Poland
I came across Mateusz's work online and was drawn to the intricate forms that seem to latch themselves onto the letters themselves. Its elegant curls and whimsical figures do nothing to add meaning behind the letters themselves, but add beauty to them.
Because of this, my initial goal was to create a typeface that is both illustrative and add a 3D perspective to it. However, during the ideation phase I came across several concerns with each grouping.
Ideation:
During this phase, we spent time hand drawing quick sketches for different ways to implement our typefaces. We had to keep in mind the similarities between letters, style aspects, and how to translate the drawings onto the Glyphs app that we would use later to create the typefaces.
While continuing to ideate, I came to the realization that my initial goal of creating a 3D typeface would prove to be more difficult and costly than the time allowed.
Instead, I continued drawing with the new goal of alluding to a 3D form with the negative spaces. With the image to the left, you can see these spiral shapes for vertical forms. I wanted to imply that there could be an invisible column during these moments. Furthermore, there are these "brush stroke" like shapes for the more complete sections.
But overall, I hated this version. It didn't feel right to me. I wanted it to reflect the journal and Mateusz's work with beautiful pieces of forms and illustrations. So I moved on to the next groupings.
Finally, I reached a breakthrough. The kept thinking about the keywords from the journal and "fake" and "courtliness" were ones that I couldn't stop thinking about. While doodling, I got the urge to draw a leaf, which lead to a vine, and more leafs, and finally a flower. And voila! I came up with this design.
The basic shapes of the letter are basic, but the "flowers" are what give it beauty. And although it may be a pain to transfer to Glyphs, it would be worth it to me. So on we move to the next phase!
TYPEFACE DESIGN - V1
Each letter is split into 2 main components: block and vines. The blocks, as seen in the first image, are the base of the letter's outline. They are very basic, only illustrating the structure of the shape itself.
I wanted these to represent the words explained in the journal. How words are very basic and empty by themselves. Nothing standing out, just getting to the point as the letters/words they represent.
Once the blocks are done, I moved onto the vines which is where the "beauty" comes into play. Vines act to illustrate the letter's features. It's how you can distinguish the same blocks from each other.
For example the letter "O" and "Q" have the same block, but have different vines. Without the vines, you would think they're the same letter.
Also, I wanted to incorporate decorative pieces such as flowers, leafs, and orbs. These are part of the vines layer. They add no meaning, only add in beauty.
TYPEFACE DESIGN - FINAL
After much time to revise and edit the first version, I finally came to the final version which I call MUSE. The reason behind it is the concept of inspiration via appearance. Looking at the typeface you will feel inspired, but if you look closely they are all rather basic with the blocks at their core. When it comes to the blocks and vines, without one or the other it would be incomplete and lose meaning.
Letters
Special Characters and Numbers
"How Are You? I'm Okay. You?"
"Social Relations. Every service-oriented exchange, including those with online “bots” and faraway call-center employees, is meant to enfold you in cozy, infantilizing warmth, while every corporate employee, real and fake, is open to “feedback” and evaluation on those grounds"
"The experience economy demands authenticity, which axiomatically takes shape as heightened faux emotion."
Taking the drawings, we then translated them digitally with Adobe Illustrator. This process also took up a decent amount of time to get to this version, mainly due to the need to make each letter unique yet similar.
EXHIBITION
Remember that exhibition I mentioned earlier? These are some photographs from the event. For my portion I bought some frames and hand drew the phrase "I Hope This Message Finds You Well", each letter per frame. I purposefully scattered them around and made the top ones more difficult or impossible to read. My reasoning being that this sentence has no meaning, it's only meant to sound meaningful in conversation. Just like my display: it looks nice, but it holds no deeper meaning.
