A Type of Chaos

Typography, the visual representation of language, primarily communicates meaning through written, printed, or digital forms. Through this tangible embodiment of language, typography offers an outward symbolic meaning, an external reality in the form of a ‘Sign’. Language, however, can also reflect onto itself, revealing a materiality, whereby a meaning is formed on the visual surface, foregrounding text as form, released from the constraints to represent or communicate. Visual language (words) can also be viewed as pattern, where arbitrary formations communicate different things. A disruption in this pattern forms a type of chaos where language and its communicative role becomes unfixed. This chaos, however, extends language enabling transformation as a new visual form, where meaning still resides.

Keywords: communication ; disruption ; form ; letraset ; logocentrism ; materiality ; meaning ; process ; typography ; visual language