One Form, Many Letters: Fluid and transient letterforms in screen-based typographic artefacts

Abstract

Current understanding of the nature of type assumes it to be static, with properties of form and colour. With the introduction of temporal media, typographic artefacts may additionally have properties of behaviour. Temporal media allow type to perform and evolve. ‘Fluid’ (Kac, 1997) type, as it appears in onscreen, is ‘dramatized’ (Helfand, 1997). A single form may present multiple letters through processes of morphing, rotation or deconstruction, and multiple forms may present a single letter through processes of reorganisation. Analysis of such artefacts not only requires us to re-evaluate our understanding of the nature of type, but also to reassess the notion that a single letterform may only have a single identity. Referencing examples of typographic performance, this paper will discuss the nature of fluid type, and propose that current typographic theory may need to adapt in order to respond to the introduction of temporal media.