Virtual Typography

6.3

6

Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

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The signifi cance of ambiguity: 6.3 Ambiguity and memory

6.2 Time-based ambiguity 6.4 Information overload

Ambiguity and memory

The construction of meaning (that is the attribution of

signifi cance to visual signals) becomes more diffi cult if

the stimuli are transitional and abstract. The process

of visual transformation allows for infi nite possibilities

of evolving forms. The viewer’s expectations of virtual

typographic forms to change into actual typographic

information may prove right or wrong. The message it

is going to reveal and the typographic shape that the

message will take on offers many more than two options.

Thus, virtual typography shares some of its ambiguous

characteristics with works of art that usually allow for

multiple interpretations. The extent to which design

should be dissociated from art was much discussed

following the introduction of digital media to graphic

design. Modernists often declared postmodernists to

be artists because they sought emotional expression

and individualism in their work. Modernists, on the

other hand, were sometimes accused of being overly

rationalist and of depriving their audience of the

joy that postmodernists felt should accompany the

communication process. But the attribution of meaning

to visual information follows more fundamental principles,

which transcend such categorical differentiations. The

main question we need to ask ourselves as designers

is: to what extent can we challenge the perceptual

capabilities of our target audience in order to attract

and sustain their attention?

Art versus design

If designers seek to sustain the attention of their target

audience through aesthetic stimulation, they might want

to learn from the ambiguity that is inherent in works of

art. It seems that the aesthetic impact of incompleteness

is too much neglected (or too little understood?) in

the fi eld of graphic design. The captivating potential of

visual designs is often compromised in order to optimise

the communicative effi ciency of information. To verify

the multitude of possible interpretations, viewers must

‘...art puts to sleep our active

and resistant powers and makes

us responsive to suggestion.’

Henry Bergson

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