My project focuses on the development of western letterforms based on latin alphabets. In the 2014 documentary about her by Edward Tufte, Inge Druckrey posits that “the classical Roman letter is the ancestor of all later formal developments of our alphabet.” From these original letters you can trace a direct connection from what we see as the latin alphabet to the progression into formalising these letterforms via mechanically reproducible typefaces. Druckrey believes the connection between the hand and tool, and of the marks it makes on the paper are important in understanding letterforms, that since the “letter was originally written. The written letter is a memory of motion.” Before we can write, we can draw. So to understand this movement and the way we perceive these marks we can look to the act of drawing.
To draw is not too simply make marks on a substrate with a tool, there is intent in the meaning produced by the drawing of the marks. In his book Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain (2013, p.18) Edwards explores how the human brain perceives forms. The concepts he explores are primarily linked to drawing skills, believing that the skill “is basic to training visual perception and is therefore the entry-level subject —the ABCs—of perceptual skill-building.”(p.18). The low economic barrier of entry and availability of the materials allows anyone, of any skill or age, to become learned in the process. However in outlining the series of five subskills needed Edwards realised they “were not drawing skills in the usual sense; they were rock-bottom, fundamental seeing skills: how to perceive edges, spaces, relationship, lights and shadows, and the gestalt. As with the ABCs of reading, these were the skills you had to have in order to draw any subject.”(p.10).
At its most basic a letterform is made of a combination of black strokes, arranged together in varying weights and angles. But alongside seeing the black of the letter, we also see the internal white space that these strokes encapsulate, as well as the strokes interaction with the space around it. This white space is called negative space. Where the negative space meets a stroke it creates an edge, Edwards believes “In drawing, the term edge has a special meaning, different from its ordinary definition as a border or outline. In drawing, an edge is where two things come together, and the line that depicts the shared edge is called a contour line. A contour line is always the border of two things simultaneously—that is, a shared edge.”(p.151). This concept of an edge or boundary is further explored by Martin, Buskist and Carlson in their book Psychology where they discuss our perceptions of forms, stating that “one of the most important aspects of form perception is the existence of a boundary. If the visual field contains a sharp and distinct change in brightness, colour or texture, we perceive an edge. If this edge forms a continuous boundary, we will probably perceive the space enclosed by the boundary as a figure”
So to perceive a shape as a letterform we first see it as a combination of strokes and space, joined by edges. We must next recognise that combination of shapes and space as being related to our pre-existing notion of the different letterforms that make up our alphabet. One of the exercises that Edwards instructs his students to do is to draw a portrait from memory and then to analyse the work, commenting that drawing from memory “brings forth a memorized set of symbols, practiced over and over during childhood… by countless repetitions.” (p.52). This set of childhood symbols seems very applicable to our understanding of a shape as a letterform. In order to write language we must first learn how to make marks, then shapes. Finally we learn to write a letter through the repeated practicing of a series of these fundamental shapes.
The act of recognition relates to the idea of an objects gestalt. Edwards believes gestalt “emerges as comprehension of the thing itself or the thingness of the thing, resulting from intense focus on the parts that make up the whole, and the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.”(p.31).
The theory of gestalt was first outlined by German Psychologist, Max Wertheimer. In his lecture about the subject, David Hogue, describes how when Wertheimer’s viewed a theatre marque covered in lights that “a series of blinking lights creates the illusion of motion.”(2018). Even though it is just the individual lights turning on and off in sequence, our brain perceives it as being one illumination that moves from light to light. This interaction highlights two of the key laws of Gestalt; the Law of Figure-Ground, that our brain can perceive foreground objects as different from background objects, and the Law of Simplicity in which our brain seeks to “organize our perceptions into the simplest possible experience. We will interpret ambiguous, vague, or complex objects in the simplest way possible, because it is faster and easier to perceive things in a simple rather than complex way”.
These laws further inform other principles relating to our perceptions of form. The most relevant ones to the understanding of letterforms as words are the principle of Proximity where “objects near one another in space or time are perceived as being a group and belonging together”. This can very easily apply to the grouping of letters into words, sentences and paragraphs. The next is the principle of Similarity which states “that objects with similar characteristics, such as form, color, size, and brightness, are perceived as belonging together.” So for a series of letterforms to be perceived as either a word or, in a more abstract way, a typeface the repeated characteristics in them must be similar (ie similar stroke width, use of angles etc).
References
- EDWARDS, B., 2013. Drawing on the right side of the brain. the definitive, 4th ed, expanded and updated. London: Souvenir Press
- MARTIN, G.N., W. BUSKIST and N.R. CARLSON, 2013. Psychology. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson
- Interaction Design Foundations Gestalt principles, 2012 Directed by David HOGUE. Linkedin Learning. Oct 2,
- UX Foundations: Interaction Design Gestalt principles, 2018 Directed by David HOGUE. Linkedin Learning. May 31,
