Beyond the Type

While I'm sure all of us can appreciate well-done, beautifully set type, I find myself drawn recently to type that accomplishes something beyond communication, both visual and literal- type that is more conceptually based. I recently stumbled upon a project done by Caspar Lam and YuJune Park, of Synoptic Office, both of whom hold masters degrees in Graphic Design from Yale, but also Biology degree. This interest in science and design led to this fascinating project:

(Click for full versions)

Called Alphabet Typography, a typeface, this project visually maps the use of letters in our speech, showing more common letters with higher slopes and rarer letters with smaller ones. The W to E contrast is particularly sharp, and communicates very well.

Here are some more images from the project:

More information about this particular project can be found here.

The pair has also created another project, Swell, with fewer details, that may or may not be similar. The aesthetic has definite resemblance but the material is completely different:

This project was done completely with black, presumably electrical, tape at a much larger scale. More details:

For a video of the process, click here.