Liminality
For our final project of the semester, I used systems of physical form making and typographic hierarchy to develop a sculptural typeface.
In a previous project, I created a two dimensional font inspired by the form of skeleton keys, where the uppercase letters were keys and the lowercase letters were key holes. In the design, the teeth of each upper case key corresponded to its lowercase counterpart, creating a theoretically functional design. The end-product was a poster, featured on the following page.
Since this process I have been wanting to develop the system three dimensionally. Being prompted to think about liminality sparked a line of inquiry that led me to the key designs; keys and keyholes being a literal symbol for in-between spaces, but letters also representing the liminal space between ideas and words. I began to sketch designs for physical versions of the keys, along with a locking mechanism (pictured on the next page).
Many of these ideas were scrapped in the development process, they helped me figure out how to imagine the but objects in an analog format. I eventually scrapped the spring-loaded locking mechanism, and instead opted for a larger-scale development of the letters themselves.
I opted to engrave my design and laser-cut wood panels to create both uppercase and lowercase sets. During this process I experienced several rounds of trial and error in the materials selection, engraving depth, and physical design before achieving a final draft of the entire alphabet. Some stills of the iterative process are included below:
Once printed and cut, the keys were housed in a metal type case drawer, as well as photographed to be risograph printed. The photography was done under high-contrast lighting to offset the lowercase shadows cast from the uppercase wooden forms. Under the same system I created a stop-motion animation of the keys as well.
This process taught me a lot about iteration, materiality, functionality, and concept. I began to develop a system for analog/physical form making, which I hope to bring to my work in the future. The next steps for this project are to develop locking mechanisms to push the functionality of the design even further.
