Words, Text, and Typography

In a DMS session last week, we also explored collaged Typography. We cut up news papers to create new compositions of text, not necesserily containing literate meaning, but focusing more on the visual. We looked into 3 methods: redaction, jusxtaposition, and reappropriation/recontextualization. Redaction involved finding already written bodies of text, and by blacking out certain parts, creating new meaning from the words left visible. Juxtaposition had us taking text from different places, and cutting them together in new contexts. Finally, reappropriation involved taking the text and putting it into a new context, for example using the shapes to create something visual rather than leaving the text legible.

At first for juxtaposition I was struggling to find text I liked, but I noticed there were numbers everywhere. Prices, statitics, dates. So I cut out as many as I could find at a decent size and I arranged them in increasing value.

Then I did some different recontextualization. The first one shows the Metro logo folded to spell out NERO, like the roman emperor. In the second two I was playing around with various headlines in the same typeface and stitching them together to make a bold, yet illegible headline. It looks urgent and eyecatching, but makes no sense.

I do like exploring typography and while I would love to learn more digital methods, I have used this collage medium for zines before and I enjoy it too.