By The Way

Typog­ra­phy and mate­r­ial behav­iour

The master thesis describes a free design exper­i­ment using differ­ent media, which has devel­oped over time into a modu­lar system consist­ing of two compo­nents: The self-designed font produced by 3D print­ing is asso­ci­ated with a multi­tude of phys­i­cal processes.

Concept
The research basis of the Master’s thesis is the exper­i­men­tal handling of writ­ing and ephemeral mate­ri­als. The inter­play of typog­ra­phy as a system of signs to convey infor­ma­tion will be inves­ti­gated in combi­na­tion with self-form­ing processes of mate­r­ial change. The focus is on the result­ing design and appli­ca­tion poten­tial for vari­ous media.

Real­i­sa­tion
In addi­tion to an exper­i­men­tal box, the book docu­ments the search for constants for exper­i­ments, the design of writ­ing, stud­ies on vari­ous phys­i­cal phenom­ena, the devel­op­ment of 3D print­ing models, and the devel­op­ment of the book’s own labo­ra­tory. Refer­ences to the corre­spond­ing website show the cine­matic stag­ing of the exper­i­ments.

The modu­lar system of font and selected mate­r­ial processes allows new letter combi­na­tions to be gener­ated repeat­edly creat­ing a shift­ing over­all impres­sion. In this way, the other­wise static and reduced repre­sen­ta­tion of infor­ma­tion receives a complex and dynamic appear­ance.

The project consciously uses accents from digi­tal appli­ca­tions and trans­lates them anal­o­gously. Not only the acronyms of the models are common abbre­vi­a­tions from the net jargon, also the exper­i­men­tal box enables an analogue simu­la­tion of the other­wise exclu­sively digi­tally executable effect of stretch­ing of time (slow motion).

Concept & Design
Thomas Wirtz

Super­vi­sion
Prof. Philipp Teufel
Prof. Gabi Schillig

Univer­sity of Applied Sciences Düssel­dorf
2016