Letter=Image, excerpt from The Triumph of Typography

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Introduction Right from the beginning I thought of letters as images. Besides being a sign, a letter was also form. This led me to an eclectic use of letter design taken from the history of typography in which American pulp fiction typography went hand-in-hand with the typography of De Stijl or designs from Hermann Zapf’s Manuale Typographicum (1954) that are based on mediaeval letters. During the eighties, monumental typography gained in significance over the classical treatment of informative text. During the second half of the eighties and into the nineties I produced large, monumental light works, and in doing so I came to realise that typefaces are independent forms that can be emblematically applied. By travelling to India and study ing Mogol and Hindu architecture and ornamentation, I learned to master the principle of raunak: converting complex, interwoven forms or texts into a single archetypical main form. The next step was the discovery of the work and thought of Robert Venturi, with his emphasis on the importance of narrative typology and design language in architecture. From Venturi I learned the meaning of active façades. Residual image It was in designing a flexible, applicable architectonic skin for a series of despatch offices for PTT Post (1999–2001) that I employed the effect of residual image, which has to do with the following insight. If a form is properly broken down into separate, repetitive elements, it remains recognisable even after it has been rearranged, at least if the original form was widely known. 01 02 03 04 05 06 In this case it had to do with broadly distributed company logos that had degenerated into a kind of Gestalt (STIP, System Typography Integrated Program, 1998). A further development is applying the same idea in light works with an active low resolution (i.e. variable luminosity), such as the IJ Tower in Amsterdam and later in and on top of the Frits Philips music building in Eindhoven. A static variant was applied in Geheugenwerk (Memory works) at the Westerstein complex for the elderly in Hoogvliet. Ornamentation The design methodology used in the Post St. Joost Graphic Design master’s program in Breda, on which I worked until 2008, was aimed at the role of design in the context of urban visual complexity. The focus was on the development of alternative visibility strategies within the usual cacophony of commercial and directional messages. Visual research resulted in the notion of ornate seeing, which refers to the fact that every person who makes use of what the city has to offer is led by a perception that differs from that of other users. The result is an approach to design that is aimed at the application of a graphic form as an independent – call it ‘monumental’ – phenomenon that concentrates on one user group and as such can be read in the urban context. Ornamentation plays an important role here. An ornamental approach to the typeface makes it possible to add visual elements that reinforce the orientation of the message. These alternative visibility strategies can also be applied in the standard media, which are dominated by the 07 08 09 Letter = Image 325 The Triumph of Typography (16 mrt).indd 325 31-03-15 11:20
massiveness of the resources used. After all, the only law that applies in communication is this: whatever is visible is also observed. In practice this means big and many, and often both. In order to be visible between the chinks of this media barrage, a design language is necessary that is self-referential. Every typeface has to be a bearer of the elements of the message; every letter has to be a logo. Applying the typeface in a commercial culture During the eighties a commercial glorification of the street culture took place that has continued virtually unchanged. Major changes in the youth culture, such as pop music and fashion, no longer manifested themselves as the replacement of an earlier culture but became part of a motley mélange where rocker, hippie, punk and yuppie mixed together in the street scene and the media. These developments had a huge impact on mass communication and the brand culture, which came under pressure from the steady expansion of medial forms of expression. One consequence of this was greater refinement in the development of medial distribution strategies for combating the fragmentation of the message, as well as a stronger focus on the target group in the design process. Against this background the brand/ logo began playing an increasingly important role in expressions of communication; it took the place of simple signatures and came to set the tone for the image of the sender – a marketing tool. The key word here is complexity. First of all the viewer has to be visually stimulated and tempted, if necessary, 10 11 12 13 to observe the product. In the monumental projects for KPN Post and TNT international, the logo design became so complex that observation exceeded the repetitive recognition and the viewer took pleasure in looking at the banal, everyday graphic form. In the case of simpler applications such as correspondence and websites, the form must be applied in a coordinated way, as in the case of the standard corporate identity, although with greater and more coherent visibility and in a manner that departs from that of regular (classical) typographic expressions. Every expression – from printed version to website – should exude an identical visual stimulus. 14 15 326 The Triumph of Typography (16 mrt).indd 326 31-03-15 11:21
Page 1: Letter = Image Gerard Hadders The T
Page 5 and 6: 02 Hard Werken-group 02 a. The Manu
Page 7 and 8: 04 Mughal architecture & Raunak a.
Page 9 and 10: 06 Serial signalisation & STIP arch
Page 11 and 12: 08 Geheugenwerk (Memory works), Wes
Page 13 and 14: 10 Visibility strategy, Hofbogen, R
Page 15 and 16: 12 ‘Making Almere’, auxiliary b
Page 17 and 18: 14 TNT Benelux, Houten: neon frieze

Letter=Image, excerpt from The Triumph of Typography

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