Typographic Selfie + CODE I to IV
Description
A Hybrid is something that is mixed. Hybridity has been used to generate new structures, objects and practices from being existed in separate ways. Typographic Selfie + CODE incorporates self-portraits, typography, and computation, to give rise to a new practice of modern typography.
Takeaway
It showcases experimental digital storytelling, typography practice, and education by using selfies, self-portraits photographs, and computation.
Abstract
A selfie is a form of art. Over 1 million selfies are now taken every day. Selfies are not always as spontaneous as they seem. They can be a communication tool like any other that can be manipulated for purposes. The Typographic Selfie + CODE is an extension of Selfie + CODE, a collection of generative selfie series by using computer algorithms. The algorithmic processes expend the concepts of traditional self-portraits to generative and expressive selfies delivering thought or feeling. The visual style was inspired by Impressionism, a 19th-century art movement that captures a moment, and Expressionism, expressing inner troubles and feelings of anxiety rather than technical skills or beauty. The artist started taking her generative selfies in 2015 to raise awareness of Asian female faculty being isolated and marginal in a predominantly white institution (http://www.socialhomelessness.com). Her generative selfies have captured psychological moments to express those individual identities are devalued and deconstructed by a homogeneous institution in the United States. It has been shared by social media. The virtual supporting system at Facebook, “Like”, by her diverse mentors and friends, helped her to persist and survive in a regionally isolated and exclusive community. Eventually, It has brought her psychological reconciliation and healing to succeed in dealing with difficulties. Typography is a form of art to make written language expressive. Each typeface has its own personality. Based on the type choices, different emotions and moods can be visually delivered through generative selfies. The typographic selfie + CODE I is visual research with diverse typefaces to implant visual expression into generative selfies. It showcases distinctive visual moods by using different typefaces such as Baskerville, Futura, Helvetica, Zapino, etc, to express their own typographic voice in generative selfies. It is an extended and different us of contemporary typography practices. Typographic Selfie + CODE II employs an intercultural typography method. Typographic Selfie + CODE II uses a custom English typeface, Hangul, inspired by Korean vowels and constants, to construct an English alphabet set from A to Z, designed by Taekyoem Lee. The typeface, Hangul, is legible for English readers, but not legible and readable in Korean since it is an English typeface, not a Korean typeface. Typographic Selfie + CODE III uses two Korean typefaces, Namun Gothic, similar to san-serif typeface, and Namun Meyongjo, similar to serif typeface, created by Sandoll Communication and Fontrix in South Korea. Using different languages demonstrates visually unique and linguistically eccentric typographic expressions in generative selfies. Typographic Selfie + CODE IV fosters an extended and experimental use of typography in Graphic Design education as a class project of the course, Creative Coding for Graphic Design, in the spring of 2020, at a research institution where the artist works. This visual research suggests how to use selfies as a communication tool for purposes to express conceptually deliberate emotions by using computation and typography. Also, it demonstrates how to use modern typography principles and functions such as typeface choice, to a generative selfies in the contemporary graphic design practices.