Project 3
Design a Typographic Interface
- Free write in response to "interfaces for interfaces."
- Jumping off from a thought in the free writing, compose a text (fiction, essay, instruction manual, or other rhetorical form) about an experience with an interface.
- Read/perform the story in class accompanied by some typographic representation.
- Design an interface using only (1) your text; (2) its typographic embodiment; (3) any technological means.
- The outcome should employ visual rhetoric to augment the text.
I wrote a poem about the ambiguous nature of interface, which I then had the pleasure of "performing" in class:
Ambiguous Propensity
Just
tell me what to do.
How to be,
where to go
what to push or
pull
which seeds to sow,
when to leave.
Feel
for me—
see what I cannot
the thought or word or deed
arrayed.
Absurd
to depend
upon something so unlike me.
Composed of ones and zeros
frozen until dispatched.
Yet, I latch onto
you and your weird rhythm.
Anthropomorphized
prized—
detested.
I am completely invested
and rubbed raw.
Just
pluck out the beats
frenetic bleats and blips.
I twist my lips,
“Show me the way!”
Say
it plain—
entice and entreat
but don’t repeat yourself.
Don’t dwell or shill
or build it up too much.
Tell me something new.
Unknown, unbidden,
hidden from view.
Unwind it, bind it, bend it twain,
then rein me in
grin
and shove my nose in it.
Tower
shower over me
display your grandiosity
until I cower in the corner
like a child.
Just
guide me, lead me,
free me.
Oh! And make it
snappy.
The quality and range of the texts created by my classmates was amazing. The eleven of us wrote content that was personal, funny, witty, engaging, profound, exciting. I think the personal nature of the assignment helped everyone to loosen up a bit and let go.
The next part of the project was to create an interface using this text as content. However, Denise asked that we make the typography the thing that is acting as the interface. That we make it seen as type and not just as content.
