'What is the definition and the role of "legibility" in relation to contemporary practices'
My initial thought in this project what that I would have to create either a highly legible or illegible typeface or both. The prospect of this seemed very achievable although it needs some kind of unique stance and a reason behind it. I then considered the possibility of rebranding a national service from a typography perspective and settled on the NHS as unsung heroes that need bolder promotion. However as I began writing this brief out as a mock I felt very little inspiration to actually carry out the project. I decided that perhaps I should stop thinking about the end product and instead consider what other people have done that covered a similar typographic question. Exploring legibility through existing typography that is say re imagined or against varying textures and backgrounds, using different mediums has potential to be more interesting.
A quick google search brought 'The LetterMaker Zine' by Kelcey Towell to my attention. 'The zine illustrates the conceptual heritage of the LetterMaker Stencil — a typographic stencil that enables user to create custom, analog, modular typography — and features two essays on the value of experimentation, chaos, and form'. This concept is exceptionally simple, but the zine produced has some really nice results. I love the idea of interactivity within the final zine, something that I could look to develop within my own. Through a modular system like this it would be easy to explore legibility as there are potentially loads of different combinations of components that might alter the legibility of type. An example of how I could change it would be to make amalgamations of serif and san serif faces and test which combinations are more legible.
Kelcey Towell's publication then reminded me of a visually similar piece by Sascha Lobe used in a double page spread of '»hallo deutschland«, soirée graphique 10'. Lobe uses a collection of geometries to help break down and translate features of the human face and clothing that is being worn on the left hand picture. The contrast provided by the photograph is something I find really effective. Lobe is systematically breaking down a far more complex image, a process that is essentially done by language and therefor in typography. Breaking down words and letters into more minimal, simplistic forms would be an interesting direction for the project. Also the style of overlaying prints gives an idea of process and looks almost diagrammatical, removing the human element gradually. What makes a letter the sound that it is trying to portray and how much can be taken away which maintaining legibility, a very interesting concept.
The progression from abstracting traditional letters to a series of simples shapes representing physical objects made me reconsider legibility again. Although in my essay question typography is specifically addressed, legibility does not have to be for type. Logo semiotics is exceptionally interesting as there is a clear visual memory that most people have of certain popular brands we are surrounded by. Peter Saville's Lacoste 80th birthday rebrand in 2013 involved abstraction of an already very well known logo. This project goes against logo convention that all logos must be uniform, clear and bold. Instead the collection is more of an exploration of form whilst also maintaining legibility due to our pre established understanding of the shape, size and placement of a Lacoste logo. For my project tapping into these preconceptions of what a letter is and the shape it holds couple be a good angle for abstraction. For example if it was a zine in which people were given a word and then they had to write out the word on each page but with a different restriction each time e.g. holding the pen with your mouth. The results would be a real test of legibility and could break down exactly what it means for something to be legible.
As I have gathered from essay research legibility is the ease with which a reader can recognise individual characters in text. "The legibility of a typeface is related to the characteristics inherent in its design … which relate to the ability to distinguish one letter from the other." Aspects of type design that affect legibility include "x-height, character shapes, stroke contrast, the size of its counters, serifs or lack thereof, and weight."
The introduction of case studies or essays on legibility into my zine could be a great way to fill pages and also allow for a more editorial stance to be taken, giving the publication greater depth.
Kelcey Towell's publication then reminded me of a visually similar piece by Sascha Lobe used in a double page spread of '»hallo deutschland«, soirée graphique 10'. Lobe uses a collection of geometries to help break down and translate features of the human face and clothing that is being worn on the left hand picture. The contrast provided by the photograph is something I find really effective. Lobe is systematically breaking down a far more complex image, a process that is essentially done by language and therefor in typography. Breaking down words and letters into more minimal, simplistic forms would be an interesting direction for the project. Also the style of overlaying prints gives an idea of process and looks almost diagrammatical, removing the human element gradually. What makes a letter the sound that it is trying to portray and how much can be taken away which maintaining legibility, a very interesting concept.
Another exploration of form comes from the Nora Kaszanyi's 2015 typeface loc that I found on behance www.behance.net/gallery/22145423/l-o-c-TYPE-FONTBOOK. The presentation of the face explores legibility via increasing line thicknesses that over exaggerate forms and raise questions over legibility. The simple idea is executed beautifully in a publication with consideration for paper stock, showing the importance of presentation to communicate ideas.
There is an important distinction between legibility and readability. Readability is the ease with which a reader can recognise words, sentences, and paragraphs. Legibility is a component of readability. Other typographic factors that affect readability include font choice, point size, kerning, tracking, line length, leading, and justification. I must ensure that is is primarily the actual legibility of the forms in correspondence to their semiotic rather than readability factors I am exploring.
With this in mind I decided to explore some scholarly research into legibility in order to build up a greater contextual understanding of what makes things legible. Although I didn't read any of the reports in great detail I did manage to gleam some areas of legibility that I might explore. One such study talked about the size of smoking regulation signs at airports which suggests that its more of a readability level showing that there is some grey area between the two that I might be careful of.
A test by RUDI W. DE LANGE, HENDRY L. ESTERHUIZEN AND DEREK BEATTY done in South Africa in 1993 suggested that there is no notable difference in legibility, measured by reading speed, picking out words etc between Times New Roman, a serif type face, and helvetica, a classic san serif. I found this study particularly interesting as I have always assumed one must be more legible than the other hence one of my earlier ideas being to create a typeface that is both. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5936/22000cdca280fb6b4df3720844ba44ba7427.pdf
Unsurprisingly there are an array of studies in basic contextual elements of type such as colour and spacing. Another common theme appeared to be way finding and retail based solutions, with others about public health. There is a wealth of resource for me to explore with this, however full reports tend to be paid for an very expensive but just conveying the basic talking points around legibility would be fine for a primarily aesthetic zine.
Some articles tackled very real every day problems such as Sandra Grabriele's 2006 investigation into how we can solve the problem of patients mixing up similar sounding drugs with typography alone. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e0f/267e854c10e89bfc905e49231baf5bc6da01.pdf
