Maeda's SIMPLICITY

The Power of Light

Typography mates well with the un-flat surface.

While the age of digital typography took us by a storm in the late 80's, I had the fortune of being in the backwaters of Japan where computers were something of a taboo. Type was set in the previously high-tech way of shining light through negative stencils of letters on glass plates to be absorbed onto photographic paper. You'd cut out paragraphs from the developed prints of typeset text, and handily paste them to a board with good old rubber cement. "Cut and paste" really meant something back then.

The "power user" of the photo typesetter was Tadashi Morisaki who could easily have a successful comedy show on television as he was always so funny. Because the transfer process was optical in nature, the process of modifying the lens through which the light shined was always an interesting trick. Morisaki would create optically warped type in ways that would make even Photoshop a bit jealous. Those were the days.

At the Mercer Hotel I enjoyed the sort of accidental motion graphic titling that was occuring at the entrance. The gentle swaying of the curtain made the moment come alive. There are people that will become extremely mad when you take a perfectly good piece of type and stretch / contort / shred it so that it is disturbed from its purity in form. And there are some people like Martin Venezky that torture type for a living. The logic behind the "Right to Read"-folks is that one cannot appreciate type when it is no longer type and is instead just incoherent forms. I tend to agree with their logic, especially when I am trying to figure out where I am or where I am to go. Reading is a power that I prefer not to give up. But if I am just there enjoying the day and the moment, I'd prefer for all type to just go away. Let it merge with the splatter of the everyday unintelligible beauty of a city. Interpret the moment without interpretation. Or even easier and with less philosophy, just take off your glasses. That will do the trick. It works for me.

Posted by maeda at April 27, 2005 06:13 PM