Virtual Typography

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Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

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68—69

Shorts – Rudd Studio

Rudd Studio is a young London-based design agency

specialising in brand identities. With a team of three, Matt

Rudd has created a lot of work for the television sector. His

introductory sequence to a Film4 television series entitled

Shorts plays with the confl icting relationship between

continuity and fragmentation. The word ‘Shorts’ evolves

gradually from a pattern of elongated lines that turn by 90

degrees. The fi rst draft version of this animation showed a

continuous transition of the line pattern. In his assumption

that consistency in transition would not offer enough visual

stimulation, Rudd inserted a close-up section to disrupt the

continuity of change and to increase the visually confusing

effect. Thus Rudd replaced the very moment where the word

becomes recognisable as a typographic piece of information.

The passage where the image pattern turns into virtual

type has thus been hidden and the graphic part becomes

separated from the typographic phase. The temporal

continuity has here been replaced with the succession

of two events.

Delayed communication

The different stages of the communication discussed

earlier help us to understand that time is needed for

any communicative activity. Yet, virtual typography

can delay transitions in excess of the time required for

decoding information. Thus, virtual typography acts

in a disturbing fashion. If we want to attribute syntax

to virtual typography, we must assume an evolving,

(time-based, structural) rule that is initially unknown to

the viewer. The novelty value of this time-based code

provokes discomfort and tension. This tension, however,

is of an aesthetic nature, and it stands in opposition to

stress caused by information overload. The stretching

of the transitional process, which the viewer requires for

determining the syntax, causes a decompression of time.

While the eye traces the continuity of motion, the mind

aspires to detect its function. As opposed to hypertext,

which fragments not only the content of text, but also

its temporal structure, virtual typography reinforces the

sense of a temporal continuity.

‘Of what value are typographic

choices – bold and italics, for

example – when words can dance

across the screen, dissolve or

disappear altogether?’

Jessica Helfand

Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

1st Proof Page:6 9

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