Virtual Typography

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Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

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‘Ours is a brand-new world of

allatonceness. “Time” has ceased,

“space” has vanished. We now

live in a global village ...

a simultaneous happening.’

Marshall McLuhan

The temporary image aspect

As explained previously, an image-like quality is attached

to more or less any typographic composition. The

difference between static and transitional typography is

that in the latter case the image aspect is dynamic. If we

look at typography as an amalgam of text and image,

then the dominance between the two fundamentally

different forms of communication may shift from one

to the other. Rather than simply altering the spatial

arrangement (for example, the typographic composition

over time), virtual typography involves a change in the

nature of information. As text elements move across

the screen, it is not the image aspect of a typographic

arrangement that changes, rather that the text

elements evolve directly from the image. In other words,

virtual typography results from changing the formal

representation of meaning itself, rather than from simply

changing the location of its different components, such

as images, words, or individual letters.

The phenomenon of gradually evolving type existed

long before the introduction of digital mass media in the

1980s. The question is, therefore, not to what degree

digital technologies may facilitate or improve the creation

of virtual typography, but how virtual typography can help

to compensate for the problems that evolve from the

use of digital communication technologies. How can it

help to reinstate the time space that is so signifi cant for

communication, and how can it help to decompress the

information density that makes digital media so stressful

to use?

Channel 4 – Brett Foraker

Together with his team (Gwilym Gwillim (Producer), Adam

Rudd (Editor), Sean Costelloe (Post-production Producer),

Russell Appleford (3D Special Effects Supervisor) and Rich

Martin (Sound Designer)), Foraker created a considerable

number of variations using a different theme each time. The

Channel 4 brand campaign was awarded the D&AD Black

Pencil, one of the world’s most prominent design awards.

Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

1st Proof Page:73

001-184 01212.indd 73001-184 01212.indd 73 12/19/08 3:04:19 PM12/19/08 3:04:19 PM