The old phrase “A picture tells more than a thousand words” can now suitably stand for the dominance of the pictoral visual language in various media platforms. In the information age where the newer mass media like televison and internet have taken over from the older print media, communicating through pictorial visuals has become a new universal language with its own grammar and meaning. The often heard remarks that the quality of writing as script and as a form of personal expression, goes to hell in a handbasket, also suggests that writing as communication tool has lost its ground.
Popular verbal communication environments like telephone, cell phone, radio and television rely to a large extent on the spoken, not on the written word. Additionally, as a result of educational budget cuts and the introduction of the personal computer, the need to develop a personal penmanship virtually disappeared and is replaced by typing on a keyboard and producing bitmapped letters on the computer screen. If, on the other hand, today we still talk about written language, it is because even in an increasingly visual world of communication, texts still play a major role as primary and most precise source of information. And when we talk about text, we talk about both the message and its appearance.
These two aspects of text are inseparately connected. Legibility enhances reading and advances understanding. But if the quality of writing would only lie in the quality of expressing ones thoughts, the way writing is executed whouldn’t matter. So, what is writing, what is the written language as we know it? What, in short, is the place of writing in today’s visual communication? My shortest answer to that question would be: writing = image. Both meanings of the word “image” apply here: writing, transferred and transposed to typography, becomes image and acquires a visual form of its own; and the typography of the writing is the first indication of the “image” the author wants to convey. In graphic design, typography is another layer onto language.
The way we express our thoughts reflects our environments, culture, its developments and changes in values. The changes in values are mirrored in our changing points of view, and in our opinions on how these must be read and should sound or look. Understanding the use of language in (visual) communication, as a source of imagination and expression, is the primary way to trace developments and changes in its cultural environment. Written language in any form - printed or on screen - is an essential aspect of (visual) communication. There will always be a need for its visual appearance in type and typography.
Visual expressions in graphic design, including type and typography, not only reflect the cultural status quo, but also the cultural currents and changes of our societies. There will always be trends and fashion, subcultures and the hip and cool. Type and typography are an integral part of how these movements express themselves. So the need to feed this unstoppable appetite for renewal and change will not abate. The quality of visual communication depends a lot on how we read its written messages. Legibilty of words and legiblity of visuals largely define whether we will be able to understand their meaning. Legiblity is limited only by our cultural references and imagination – and although these may seem limitless, we as designers should study and know their confines.
It is up to new generations of graphic designers, artists and writers to redefine all aspects of language, writing and legibility in our constantly shifting and changing cultural environments. They need to find valuable forms of expression and imagination, which will speak in the voice of their times to the people they share it with.
Max Kisman, February 2004 | Tribe04 Home >