OUGD405 - Cell Phone Symphony - Research

OUGD405 - Cell Phone Symphony - Research

“What’s the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it?”

- Wolfgang Weingart

“Don’t mistake legibility for communication” 

- David Carson

Two designers with a masterful command over typography are Wolfgang Weingart and David Carson. Both of them defied standard approaches and applications of typography and instead thrived in illegibility and more abstract approaches. While Weingart was credited for the creation of 'New Wave’ or “Swiss Punk Typography”, Carson was hailed for his new ‘Grunge Typography” style. 

A great deal of inspiration can be taken from both of these masters of design when creating posters for Cell Phone Symphony; utilising techniques such as; non standard layouts/grids, the manipulation of letterforms and a generally more visual approach to typography, using the forms figuratively.

Cell Phone Symphony evokes a number of approaches which could be taken to effectively visually communicate it. Mostly by representing auditory experience; this could be done through appropriate imagery, but it could also be done by eliciting movement through more fundamental aspects of the design such as the typography or grid system. The basis of Cell Phone Symphony is the idea of a multitude of signals and sounds almost chaotically crossing paths and against all odds, interacting in a melodic way. This is very similar to David Carson’s use of typography; random and seemingly non compliant to a grid system, however resulting in a concise and stylised design. 

A good way of generating ideas is restricting yourself to certain rules or creating visual tasks with specific instructions, for example taking 10 phone numbers and producing imagery based on patterns within them or texting your ‘text door neighbour’. The most important thing is to try and defy the standards rules and approaches. The main restriction of a poster is that it’s 2d and static, so one approach could be to make it 3d or move somehow, or yo could simply challenge these ideas visually - How can movement and auditory experience be induced in a poster? How can the imagery and type be made dynamic and exciting to look at?