TYPuzzle: Exploring Conditions for Typographic Experimentation.
Citation Summary:
Mitchell, I. (2014) author, TYPuzzle, in Type Motion group exhibition at Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool, (13/12/2014 - 08/02/2015), curated by Stenzer, S., Zehle, S. & Stubbs, M. Results published online, typuzzle.co.uk (author. Mitchell, I.), typeface and animation (2015), open-source design files (2016), web application (2019), available [online] at: http://typuzzle.co.uk. Featured in Visible Signs (author. Crow, D.), Bloomsbury Publishing (2015); and Getting Hands on with TYPuzzle (interviewer. Arnett Phillips, N.), TYPOgraph.her, available [online] at: http://www.typographher.com/blog/2017/1/21/getting-hands-on-with-typuzzle. Mitchell, I. (2019) author, TYPuzzle - A Physical Typographic Game, presented at 7th International Conference on Typography & Visual Communication, Patras, Greece (20/06/2019).
- Submitting institution
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Liverpool John Moores University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32IM1
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool; [online] http://www typuzzle.co.uk
- Brief description of type
- Digital exhibition installation featuring external dot matrix video wall; website, presenting results and documentation of the exhibition, published and downloadable version of typeface, open source product design files and web application.
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- January
- Year
- 2015
- URL
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http://typuzzle.co.uk
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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1 - Contemporary Art Lab
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This ongoing research explores the conditions for experimental type design and how the use of haptic and digital interfaces can encourage experimentation with typographic forms. Although there are well documented periods of typographic experimentation which have pushed the formal and conceptual boundaries of type (e.g. Fuse and Émigré of the 1990s), a vast proportion of typeface designs are still based on an underlying skeleton which resists change. However, the technical, aesthetic, and socio-cultural requirements of typefaces will always present challenges and opportunities for the creative process of contemporary type design, which this practice-based research addresses through the design of an innovative interaction method to construct new typographic forms within a very restricted modular system. TYPuzzle challenges users to generate bitmap letterforms using a moveable grid of pixels based upon the classic sliding puzzle game. Informed by theories of modular design systems (Le Corbusier, The Modulor, 1950; Gerstner, Designing Programmes, 1964); the pedagogic use of play (Froebel, 2001); Mitchell’s previous generative type design innovation Chinese Whispers; and the possibilities of multi-sensory approaches in UI/UX (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991; Norman, 1999), the research aims to further the possibility of typographic creativity, whilst questioning the influence of comparative interactive methods and user interfaces on this creative design process. The system was implemented and trialled as an interactive installation for Type Motion (2015) a major exhibition showcasing motion graphics and typography at Liverpool’s Foundation for Art and Technology with results (typeface, animated motion type) and further developments (open source product designs and web application) published online at typuzzle.co.uk. The research has been featured on the Australian typography website Typograph.Her, in the acclaimed visual communication textbook Visible Signs (Crow, 2016) and presented at the 7th International Conference on Typography & Visual Communication in Patras, Greece in 2019.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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