Print Vs. Projected Type

When discussing the elemental differences found in the contrast of screen and printed type by its fundamental nature we must realize that the printed word holds almost no limitations it can be constructed into a extreme sizes such as environmental graphics to even the smallest of sizes found in Die Gestalten Verlag's 2002 publication The Smallest Book in the World. This range of sizes is however lost when translated to the idea of the screen. It may be possible to project extremely large variations of type to sizes that cover city blocks but even though it is possible is it going to be read within the span of time it exists. The pixel becomes the limitation to the smallest of sizes of screen type and makes the creation of "The Smallest Website in the World" inconsequential.

In such it wouldn't matter when the characteristics that differ the most widely between the printed word and (for lack of a better term) the projected word are perhaps found best in Walter Benjamin's use of the word "aura" in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin's use of aura was to refer to the sense of awe and reverence one experienced in the presence of unique works of art. The printed page has for nearly 400 years instilled upon its viewer the ability to transfer (at times) this sense of aura when dealing with the visceral qualities of the printed word. Any printed piece brings with it the textural qualities of paper, the smell of binding agents as well as the beauty inherent in the ever-minuscule inconsistencies of the print itself. We adore the flaws we find upon the printed page because they communicate to us that it was another human being, a real person than was at the other end of that/this particular piece of work.

The onset of the projected word has floundered in many aspects to capture that quality until as of late. Movie titles did nothing for the movie itself until Saul Bass decided to change that viewpoint, samples of which can be seen here. His work became the clarion call that the projected word could do more than merely straight-forward tell us something but also add to the experience in which we were about to begin. The ephemeral quality of the projected word and in many cases the inability to go back (without difficulty) and reread what we have seen again leave the case that the projected word must not just communicate on literal level but on an emotional and psychological level as well. We interpret what we see as best as we can and the more that the designer gives to the audience to interpret (in the sense that it is strengthening and reinforcing the message, not distorting and disguising the message) the better chance the audience has at obtaining the true meaning of the message. Danish science writer Tor Norretranders states in his work, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, "During any given second, we consciously process only sixteen of the eleven million bits of information that our senses pass on to our brains."

In D.A. Dwiggins 1922 work New Kind of Printing Calls for New Design he states, "The point to be stressed is that the new standard must not be a mechanical standard merely, it must also be an aesthetic standard." Unfortunately as designers and artists we have skewed what the idea of aesthetic has come to mean in typography. Type sizes, color, legibility, font choices are all well and good and are the foundation, the backbone of good typography but there is more to communicating an idea than furbishing new window dressing around it. As Paul Carlos, a New York publications design consultant and old professor of mine said to me "It not about picking colors or choosing typefaces, its about whether it works or not." We must find the best means to communicate the idea and concept we wish others to perceive rather than squabble over whether it merely looks pretty and in this we must begin by addressing the standards in which we communicate.