Different Tools for Making Letterforms

As I seek to formilise the tools I will create as part of my project I have undertaken research into how different tools and methods can be used to create letterforms.

Cut and paste shapes, Shape Stencil and Silicone Stamps (Smith 2021)

The work of illustrator Alyn Smith is defined by the creations of his own tools for mark making. These range from silicone stamps to stencils. He has created his visual language initially around shapes that have an imperfect, hand cut element to them. The tools he has created allow him to continue to explore that language in a different medium.

Lustig (Lustig and Cohen 2017)

Lustig is a typeface produced for Hamilton Wood Type by Lustig and Cohen that is formed through the strict adherence to a custom grid. The curves, distances between strokes and heights of letters are all defined by the shape of this grid.

Shape Grammars (Jannis Maroscheck 2021)

Shape Grammars is a book by Jannis Maroscheck and is described as “a dictionary of 150,000 shapes and systems” in an interview by Ayla Angelos (2020). The shapes within were created by running 12 different algorithms through a computer resulting in “a 836-page study into automation in design”. The resulting forms are abstract shapes that when presented as a set of shapes encourage the eye to explore and our brain to understand, are the letterforms or are they purely shapes? Maroscheck comments that while “the computer is quick at drawing…the machine is mindlessly executing a ruleset with some random variation…It is limited; it can never escape a system’s given logic.” This rings true to a quote from a calligrapher, Paul Standard, as quoted in the fy{T}i newsletter (2021) that states “Geometry can produce legible letters, but art alone makes them beautiful . Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character transcending mere measurement.”

Goertek (KONTRAPUNKT 2021) 

The typeface Goertek by KONTRAPUNKT (2021) is a sound reactive typeface which has been designed to have stroke widths and components that warp and respond to sound. The result is a typeface that is in a state of flux, mirroring its surroundings and making it’s context integral to the forms in which it presents itself.

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