A main block of text to a typographer is usually referred to as the ‘body’: defined as an ongoing sequence of words, it has more integrity and wholeness than any surrounding elements, including headlines and captions. It’s a sturdy object that flows from page to page and is treated consistently, with long texts broken down into chunks offering shortcuts and alternate routes such as indents and hyperlinks.
Before the mass production of movable type, handwritten texts usually consisted with errors, each with their own glitches and gaps where copies were copied from copies, making them seem more personal. They had their own interpretation from the one who wrote it, which meant that the reader was left questioning what the text was saying. Printing text introduced a new way to ensure the faithfulness to the author’s handwritten original, making the role of the ‘proofreader’ to correct any errors within it right from the original copy to the final production, without misrepresenting the authors work.
Contemporary typographers produce bodies of text for various contexts, each with their own limitations and opportunities, ensuring the help for the readers to navigate the flow of the content. Typographic pages emphasize the completeness and closure of a work, and follow a grid of known coordinates. They ensure that the reader isn’t aware that they are reading, but at the same time they certify that the content is read in a certain order that is intended, making the typographer invisible to them. Even so, their role is just as important as the spaces and punctuation, where French philosopher Jacques Derrida quotes they are ‘seen but not heard’.
French critic Roland Barthes believes that the reader ‘performs’ the writing – ‘death of the author’, where the reader chooses to create meaning. Todays Graphic Designers embraced Barthes’ idea of the readable text using layers and interlocking grids to explore his theory breaking grids and rules, making how the text is used more important than what it actually means. By destroying structure, it makes the reader more aware of it: unpicking it, making it strange and question what is normal. It changes the way that the text is read and makes the readers’ role more active and thought provoking, revealing how the type affects meaning. Writing occupies space as well as time, and liberates readers from bonds of linearity; which is amongst typography’s most urgent tasks.
David Carson / End of Print Presentation Poster / 1996 / URL
David Carson's work is very representative of the deconstructionists style. The example I have included is good as it consists of just type, so it showcases how it has allowed Carson to completely destroy the structure. Even with the headline section at the top with the bolder text: it overlaps and doesn't read in the right order, so even though the immediate reactions are primarily drawn to this, it still makes the viewer think more about what they are reading. The rest of the body of text with all the relevant information has a strange, random layout, with no obvious beginning or an end, leaving the viewer to start reading anywhere and unpick the structure within it - making them question what is normal and become more active in finding out the relevant information they want to gain from it. The way that Carson has used multiple typefaces also adds to the effect of the deconstruction as it causes more immediate confusion that the viewer then has to untangle, and reveals more effectively how type affects the meaning. Definitely with this poster, the intention to absorb the information from it works a lot better than one that follows a typical grid and reads in a particular way as it is down to each individual to 'find' what they want to know - this ultimately achieves a better response from it as they are then more likely to actually remember it.
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