Manipulating Surroundings to Create Typography

I began this project by observing my surroundings to find lettering. I generally looked at constructions for this, rather than random occurrences in nature. Lines often intersect usefully when they are artificially made.

One of the photographs I took was of an F, illuminated by the overhead light as its crossbar. This led me to explore how artificial light could be used to create lettering- playing on how things written can be temporary and fleeting- just like light. (Fig.1)

Fig 1.

So I cut the shape of a capitol A from newspaper and shined direct light behind it. This was with a similar electric pink, maintaining the vivid manufactured feel. (Fig.2.) However the bright A was juxtaposed with the newspaper's shadow, which I consider to be a natural, organic object. (Fig.3.) From this I wanted to create more scenes that appeared natural but through using light, lettering could be subtly made to shine through.

Fig 2.

Fig.3

After this I experimented with shadow work, using hand shapes and angled legs to create an alphabet, yet I felt this no longer had the subtlety I wanted.

 So I decided to temporarily manipulate the artificial LED light created by traffic lights. By using masking tape over the light to create shapes, they suddenly became illuminated. This meant that the everyday traffic scene was changed by making an X occur for a fleeting moment. (Fig.4.)

Fig.4

  The florescence of the traffic lights and signs surrounding it led me to explore how glow sticks could be used to make lettering. Using them within balloons allowed a glow and contrast of colours to occur. Their distorted nature led me to consider how distorting light drastically can create such natural, curved letter forms. (Fig.5-7.)

Fig.5

Fig.6

Fig.7

Also by naturally moving the body holding the glow sticks, it created momentary blurs of colour, which I then was able to make into words. Again this was the juxtaposition of natural human behavior and artificial placement (Fig.8.) So I edited the movement photographs to create a word- "Jump." (Fig.9.)

Fig.8

Fig.9

After visiting the Barbara Hepworth, a particular sculpture called "Group of three magic stones" captured my attention. This was a collection of glass stones chiseled to have reflections coming off every angled face. (Fig.10.) It appeared differently from every place it was viewed, making the experience feel unique. This made me consider how light could be bent in such a way to create several beams to collide for letters.

Fig.10 "Group of Three Magic Stones" Barbara Hepworth 1970

So I developed a box that could refine light to a pinpoint, allowing for it to directly come out in line within a dark room. Then using mirrors I bent the light. This angling and manipulation felt extremely artificial to perform, however the end result was something quite angelic and peaceful. The letters were fleeting and obscure, but the paths crossing felt special to view and added far more meaning to simple letters (Fig. 11-13.)

Fig.11 A

Fig.12 H

Fig 13 X