Re: Typography's Role In Art / Dance or Type?

Warde's assertion reminds a little of literary formalism, where readers of literature are to regard things like authorial intent, cultural context, history and biography as superfluous and irrelevant when they evaluate a text. To most of us, this seems not only a ludicrous way of looking at literature, but unrewarding and ultimately very difficult to accomplish.

The further we progress into our roles as designers, the more difficult I imagine it will be to not notice a well developed typographic logo, nicely kerned store sign-age, and the charm of a deceptively hand-written typeface (remember Jinji chocolate?). The same goes for all the bad examples of these things we encounter everyday. 

There's a parallel metaphor happening in Maryam's Daft Punk video post, a commentary on the value of art and performance in our culture (literally) on a street level. First, we have the dancing and the elaborate manipulation of the sign object through movement, framed by the perplexed and occasionally disapproving stares of passerby; second, we have all that type, a pastiche of fonts on the side of a building and on a flying foamcore arrow pointing both nowhere and everywhere. Would Warde regard this handling of letterforms with equal confusion and skepticism?

Just like history and culture matter in literature, aesthetics matter in type. They MATTER. But is it because the message isn't interesting enough on its own?  Do you just need to dress it up with a snappy collection of typefaces and some fancy footwork? No, I don't think that's the point. Sometimes the message IS the aesthetics.

Image by Amandine Alessandra

Re: Dance or Typography

This was a difficult topic, but I researched dance and type and found an interesting student project from Behance that I wanted to share:

• STUDENT PROJECT 2012

  IDENTITY / BOOK DESIGN / ILLUSTRATION / ANIMATION

  This workshop is called Dance Typography and its aim is to connect the art of writing with the rest

  of our body, to bring us into a different relationship with type, typography and space. All this can be

  achieved by using authentic movement in relation to space, as well as by learning the correlations

  of the Alphabet (letters) to the different body-parts (organs). Through various exercises of improvisation

  the participants are to create their own typographic synthesis, by using their bodies as the main tool,

  their voices and the space around them.

  This was a workshop coordinated by Magdalena Papanikolopoulou. In the context of the university

  project, it was part of a series of workshops called “Typography Workshops”, which also contains

  Calligraphy and Graffiti workshops. 

  Inspired by the workshop results, a traditional watercolour style has been used for the various illustrations. However, a more modern approach towards typography has provided contrast, and a contemporary feel to

  the project as a whole.
• LOGOTYPE

  The design of the logo uses the letter "a" to dance.

Typography's Role in Art

Great videos, everyone! I think this brings up an issue of whether or not typography is a medium used to disseminate information or whether it is an art form in and of itself. Many of you may recall reading Beatrice Warde's essay, The Crystal Goblet, or Why Printing Should be Invisible. In her essay, Warde contends that the most important purpose of printing is that "it conveys thought, ideas, images, from one mind to other minds." Warde tells us that the fine arts will stimulate our aesthetic sensibilities, but that is not the purpose of printing--that printing, first and foremost, should do something (i.e. transmit ideas). Moreover, Warde believes that the type which has "arbitrary warping of design or excess of 'color' gets in the way of the mental picture to be conveyed, is a bad type."

What do you think? Do you agree with Warde? Having wrote this essay in 1930, I wonder if Warde would feel differently now. It might be taking the easy way out, but like a typical Libra, I see both sides of the argument. In addition to serving the purpose to transmit ideas, Typography/Graphic Design is an art form if the product design was designed solely for the purpose of art. For example, I have a large "S" in the shape of a pancake framed and hanging in my kitchen--while it includes typography and transmits an idea, it is clear that this piece was designed, and should be thought of, as art.

Here's an image of the syrupy "S" poster I own:

Re: Dance or Type?

We're talking about typography in music videos now? Cool. Typographic music videos are actually a thing-- see kinetic typography. As an example, I'd like to share the video to "Weird Al" Yankovic's tribute to Jim Steinman's epic ballardry, "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me," directed by Koos Dekker. Enjoy.

Re: dance or type

This post reminded me of this video that switches out the original typeface in movies for a crappy typeface. It's fun and accentuates the importance of type in design. As you see, not any font will do. It also is a good reminder of the importance of readability. 

RE: Dance or Type?

I think I counted 15 different typefaces, but like Antoinette said, some scenes moved so quickly I may have missed some or counted the same twice. When I first watched this video after reading the blog title "Dance or Type" I was expecting to see people making words or letters with there body. I realize this may have been a kind of ridiculous idea, but I must admit I was a little disappointed to find a typical music video. So, I went searching the internets and found this cool little RickRoll typographical "dance." For your viewing pleasure please click here.

But back to the music video. When I first watched the music video, I honestly didn't think much of it. I saw some cool break dancing, sign spinning, and interesting neighborhood scenes. Nice, but nothing special. But, when I watched it a second time, I realized that everything was shot at a certain angle, in front of a certain sign, for a certain length of time, for a reason. Just like print design, everything was in the screen for a reason. The graffited stores, and store signs, and lettered posters where not in the background just because that was the easiest place to shoot the video. Each decision, each typeface and word and letter help to set the mood of the video. It gives the song and music and dancing another level of meaning.

RE: Dance or Type?

First of all, I LOVE this song. I was distracted by the music and the cool tricks performed by the sign twirlers because I also love to dance. Aside from those interests, this video is a good example showing that typography is everywhere- you can't walk down a street, enter a store, or watch t.v. without encountering examples of it. Selecting type in your design is essential. As designers we are trying to communicate a certain message, theme, idea, product, etc. to an audience and a fantastic way to reach our clientele is through the use of type in different contexts and environments.

When looking at this video, I thought it was fun to try to guess the number of different typefaces in the video. Some clips are fast, but I counted at least 10. Did anyone see more?