Type as Concept

- conference in Copenhagen about the underlying ideas behind typefaces

The Black Diamond of The Royal Library in Copenhagen formed the setting for the conference Conceptual Type – Type Led by Ideas on 19 November 2010.
Photo: Anne Mie Dreves

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A typeface is the carrier of an inherent concept or set of values. But the discussion about the relationship between typefaces and their underlying ideas needs to revitalised. That was the message from the researchers of the Danish Centre for Design Research who on 19 November 2010 welcomed 500 participants for the conference Conceptual Type – Type Led by Ideas with the British design writer Rick Poynor as one of the speakers. He emphasises the importance of using visual means to reflect on the world.

By Hans Emborg Bünemann

CONFERENCE REPORT The creativity that characterised the discipline of typeface design in the 1990s has been lacking in the past decade. Instead, computer technology and a tendency in the Western world to play it safe rather than engage in experimentation have led to a high degree of uniformity in typeface design. Mads Quistgaard, master of design and a research assistant at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, explains that we are currently seeing the same polished, professional and somewhat conform typefaces being introduced into the marketplace, again and again. Therefore he believes that that it is time to ask, what is happening to experimenting typefaces? Artistic typefaces? Idealistic and political typefaces? This introduction set the theme for the conference Conceptual Type – Type Led by Ideas, which was held on 19 November 2010 in The Queen’s Hall at the Royal Library in The Black Diamond on the Copenhagen harbour front.

The typeface designer visits the world of surrealism and forces the reader (the beholder) to consider what sense of meaning is being conveyed besides the letter itself. Illustration: M/M (Paris): The Alphabet [Stephanie Q. Stiles] and The Alphabet (Generic). Based on original photograph by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin 2001 and 2004. Courtesy mmparis.com

Retro spirit

Mads Quistgaard chaired the conference, which was funded by the Danish Centre for Design Research. The 500 participants included active typeface designers, students and researchers within the field of typeface design. Mads Quistgaard believes that typeface designers have been influenced by today’s retro spirit of preserving and perfecting existing achievements rather than addressing it critically and experimenting with new forms.
“The technological development has enables us to optimise existing typefaces, but we have seen little conceptual innovation and critical discussion over the past ten years,” he says. “In the 1990s, many designers believed that the artefacts and symbols they created had the capacity to alter our perceptions of the world on an ideological level. That mindset has been replaced by a search for ‘more of the same’. The old typefaces have been relaunched in a sort of ‘supersize me’ burger concept – where one gets a whole lot more type by paying a little extra.”

Rick Poynor, British writer and curator, spoke at the conference about the value of carrying out experiments in typeface design with inspiration from art. Photo: Anne Mie Dreves

The Ideas Behind the New Typefaces

Based on the notion that the typography environment has a built-up need to highlight and debate the ideas behind typeface design, the conference put the conceptual aspect of the production of typefaces on the agenda. Typically, typeface development has been explained with reference to individual typeface designers’ unique capacity for renewal as well as a series of technological advances, such as the transition from photocomposition in the 1970s to digital technology in the 1990s. The purpose of this conference was to revitalise critical reflection on the role of typefaces as conveyors of certain values.
“With the conference we wanted to kick-start a debate about the relationship between typefaces and their underlying ideas. Typography is one of the most widespread visual phenomena in the world, and each typeface carries with it a concept or a set of values,” says Mads Quistgaard, who in addition to his position as a research assistant at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, is also the owner of the design firm Pleks.

By experimenting with the creation of typefaces, typeface designers can spark associations in the mind of the beholder. Illustration: M/M (Paris): Taken from ‘Malaga’, An Album Of Covers [A Factory In The Snow] With Liam Gillick 2006. Courtesy mmparis.com

Mads Quistgaard explains that companies can convey certain messages through their typeface and logo that are not consciously noticed by the recipients, because as readers we are trained to ignore aesthetics and focus exclusively on content. This allows the typeface itself to become a means of manipulation. For example, corporate fonts – typefaces developed for specific companies – match the image that a given company wants to convey to the world.
“It’s no coincidence that many oil companies are currently using a benign corporate identity, for example with green typefaces and logos with flowers,” he says.

Concept Over Legibility

Among the speakers at the conference was the British writer and curator Rick Poynor, who works with visual communication. He offered a historic review of the conceptual approach to typeface design. To Rick Poynor, the justification of this approach is that it makes it possible to reflect on our designed world by visual means. The designer’s main focus when working with conceptual typefaces is not on the visual product but on the underlying concepts.
“In conceptual type, the underlying idea is the most important factor, even at the expense of legibility,” he says.
Still he argues that the idea must by necessity be followed up by visualisation. Experiments with visual means of expression are valuable in themselves, because the effort of working with them and the resulting visual product can bring out new ideas. For example, in creating letters, the designer may draw inspiration from surrealism or other experimental art forms and thus underscore the importance of associations and convey the notion that text is subject to interpretation.
In a follow-up to the conference, in 2011 the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and the Danish Centre for Design Research will publish a book about conceptual type, which presents current knowledge and discussion points from the conference in an edited form.