Abstractype
Abstractype is an ongoing investigation into experimental typography — letterforms explored outside their linguistic function, as matter, structure and form.
I work with Cinema 4D, X-Particles and Redshift to build 3D alphabets, type animations and modular systems: each experiment starts from a typeface or a system and tests how far its identity holds when matter, structure or time are pushed.
Manifesto
01Type is not only a shape.
Type is a system.
Type is a behavior.
Type is a mutation.
Type can fail, deform,
react, grow and disappear.
Abstractype studies
these transformations.
Method
02Every Abstractype experiment is set up the same way: a question, a set-up with constants and variables, a documented process, and a result that is published as it is — failed experiments included. These are the terms used on every project page.
- Formal reference
- The model the experiment starts from: a typeface (Baskerville, Arial Black, Futura) or a system (FORM).
- Constants and variables
- Constants are what never changes across a series — typeface, material, lighting, parameters. Variables are the only things that do — the letter, the framing, time. That is what makes the results comparable.
- Levels
- Formal (the shape of the letter), Procedural (the process that generates it), Motional (how it changes over time), Relational and Compositional (how pieces relate and are arranged as a whole).
- Reactive / non-reactive
- A reactive process responds to external data or interaction. A non-reactive one is set up, run and recorded, with no outside input.
- Motivation
- Free exploration: no closed hypothesis. Preliminary study: a probe before a series. Specific series: a hypothesis tested on a complete set, such as an alphabet.
- Publication
- The procedure, the variables and the framework are shown with the result, so every experiment can be read, compared and repeated.