Visual Communication Pathway Session

In the Visual Communication Pathway Session we were first give a lecture going over themes such as the relation between type and meaning, visuality and narrative, looking and reading. We were shown some exemples of designers that explore these relations in their work, mainly using typography in ways that visually represent the content of the words beyond just writing them out.

We were then given an assignment to look through newspapers to find phrases or words that we could use to explore these relations in a similar manner. We were advised to work with the photocopier and printer to explore as best as we could the unique possibilities that they allow, and were restricted to using the Univers typeface (with all its different weights and styles) to do so.

I found an article about a child’s death with the headline “good bye my angel: now you’re untouchable.” I thought it sounded quite lyrical and allowed for different interpretations when separated from the article, so I set out to try to use it.

My initial thought was to try to contextualize it in a way that it read like the end of a relationship instead of a death, but I don’t think I managed to achieve that, and my final piece ended up looking more eerie and dark than romantic and sad:

I couldn’t get the typeface to work on my computer so I manually photocopied it, cut and pasted each individual letter to form the sentence. I like the crooked look of the different style types cut and glued together, but that ended up costing me a lot of time that I could have used to experiment and create different approaches to my theme.

I used heavier type weights for the first part of the phrase and lighter ones for the second to try to make the lightness of the letters represent the emptiness and space that the word “untouchable” evokes, but maybe it would have looked more visually balanced (and aesthetically pleasing) if I hadn’t. The small images on the corners of the paper sheet in the middle are illustrations of a surgical procedure for the separation of conjoined twins I found on the newspaper, I used them to symbolize the process of separation.

I think my classmates’ works were mostly very good but I didn’t like the outcome of mine very much. I think I ended up straying a bit from the intention of the activity and should’ve tried exploring more the visuality of type and maybe used less images. I could have managed my time a little better too in order to be able to experiment with different possibilities. Oh well, there’s always next time. 😛