ESCAPE FROM REALITY
Personal Research — Fall 2020
Personal Research — Fall 2020
Type Design ︎︎︎ Experimental
As a fan of abstract form, when I read The Grammar of the Ornament by Owen Jones for the first time, I was deeply attracted to its structural combination and color assortment. However, after several weeks of trial and research, I found out that, for me, it’s tough and challenging to derive a graphic language from another one. So, my biggest problem was how to make the extension.
After discussing it with classmates about my problem, Katie Burwick offered me an idea to lay the foundation for the entire topic; that is, why not change the direction of thinking? How about starting from my perspective and discussing my understanding of ornament? As far as I am concerned, the ornament is harmonious, beautiful, and neutral, and the opposites are disordered, ugly, and extreme. Based on the opposites and my recent experience, soon I identified a target — information. The outbreak of COVID-19 is just like a sword, cutting out the mask of hidden negative emotions and revealing them to the public. As an overseas student, I sit before the computer every day, receiving the “negative emotion” pushed to me on the internet in a confined space, and it is so hard for me to be relieved. The endless push of such information also hurts people invisibly. So, as a user, how can I avoid the negative emotion of such information?
Therefore, I decided to create a set of beautiful and harmonious ornament typefaces to replace the original Latin characters. If an alphabetic combination conveys information, the ornament characters convey intuitive emotion. When you see the graphic combination converted from characters, even a message full of violence can be converted into colorful visual language. The ornament typeface represents an abstract, metaphorical, and even floppy feeling. We can try to escape from the fast information world for several seconds and enjoy the aesthetic feeling and harmony brought by the simple graphic combinations.
As a fan of abstract form, when I read The Grammar of the Ornament by Owen Jones for the first time, I was deeply attracted to its structural combination and color assortment. However, after several weeks of trial and research, I found out that, for me, it’s tough and challenging to derive a graphic language from another one. So, my biggest problem was how to make the extension.
After discussing it with classmates about my problem, Katie Burwick offered me an idea to lay the foundation for the entire topic; that is, why not change the direction of thinking? How about starting from my perspective and discussing my understanding of ornament? As far as I am concerned, the ornament is harmonious, beautiful, and neutral, and the opposites are disordered, ugly, and extreme. Based on the opposites and my recent experience, soon I identified a target — information. The outbreak of COVID-19 is just like a sword, cutting out the mask of hidden negative emotions and revealing them to the public. As an overseas student, I sit before the computer every day, receiving the “negative emotion” pushed to me on the internet in a confined space, and it is so hard for me to be relieved. The endless push of such information also hurts people invisibly. So, as a user, how can I avoid the negative emotion of such information?
Therefore, I decided to create a set of beautiful and harmonious ornament typefaces to replace the original Latin characters. If an alphabetic combination conveys information, the ornament characters convey intuitive emotion. When you see the graphic combination converted from characters, even a message full of violence can be converted into colorful visual language. The ornament typeface represents an abstract, metaphorical, and even floppy feeling. We can try to escape from the fast information world for several seconds and enjoy the aesthetic feeling and harmony brought by the simple graphic combinations.
