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If h is a chair…

While Block Club brainstorms upcoming editorial themes, stories, and features for the magazine, our graphic designers Tim and Julie begin to explore the potential visual language of each page. 

As a writer, I am awed by the power of words. When used well, they translate through language, culture, age, and experience with an effortless weight of meaning. A finished story is similar to a thoughtful piece of art; each word is a vehicle of the story’s inherent meaning, breathing with purposefulness both on its own and as a function of the whole.

Typography, then - like the structures of storytelling - is a powerful vehicle in evoking a further, more abstract experience of meaning. Perhaps in a visual juxtaposition to a word’s typical connotations, or the way its design seems to breathe life into the very bones of an idea, typography allows for a creative assault from all angles. It is a layer of expression woven into the visual fabric of the word itself.

Above, Andrew Byrom, a UCLA faculty member and graphic designer, explores the typography of everyday objects in this TEDxUCLA talk: if letterforms are imagined as actual physical objects, how does this change how we view them, how we interact with them, and ultimately how we allow the message they convey to communicate with us? “If h is a chair, then what do the other 25 characters look like?”

- Maggie