How Can Words Be Visual?

How can words be visual ?

Words themselves are visual, we have to physically see the word in order to read it, to even understand it. From a young age we are taught to pair words and images together to be able to learn, talk, even to have an opinion. As Aristotle said “There can be no words without images”

As soon as a word or sentence is read, we automatically generate an image in our minds to establish a meaning for that word, a word doesn't really come to life until someone has read it. Until then its just marks on a piece of paper or computer screen. Society, and in particular the western culture uses visual words in every day life. John Rice states in his blog “Many of today’s most commonly used phrases suggest we agree with Aristotle … that we perceive primarily through sight: ‘I see your point,’ ‘Let me see,’ ‘Seeing eye to eye,’ ‘Love at first sight,’ …..”  

Artists and designers can play with the aesthetics of words to make them more visually relevant to meaning of the word itself. Images can be used to represent a word through colour, shape, or texture etc. It helps give even the dullest of words an interesting and new look. The Bauhaus movement saw designers really start to engage with visual typography. Designers such as Moholy-Nagy, a very big  user of experimental layouts, set strong design trends. He argued that typography was meant to stand out, it was meant to speak to us and that by standing it vertically or diagonally on the page meant that we could implement a new way of visually engaging with the viewers. Designers started wrapping text around objects, and also learned to arrange type “horizontally, vertically and even diagonally,” (murray) something that was not common at the time.[pic 1]

This poster, designed as an advertisement for the school in 1928 piqued interest when people noticed the unusual typeset and design. The layout is perfectly balanced, and uses just the right amount of contrasting and vibrant colours alongside geometric shapes to help make it stand out. Not only does it use both upper and lower case, but the words are flipped horizontally which creates a very engaging image, all whilst actually only being a series of letters and words on a page. Within this kind of typography there is always a connection between colour and shape. Their typography was architectural “— like a chair in a room — functioning on their own, as words, and as artistic tools in the space” - Anni Murray, Graphic Journalist.

In Paul Martins “Visual Communication: Images with a message” he explains how images and text must harmonise with one another and without the other, would be left completely diminished. “ an image begs for an interpretation, and the words usually supply it”.  A photograph or image gives us proof, it shows us something but has no meaning, it can be taken out of context by anyone. By having both image and text together not only are you showing the reader, but you are explaining it as well. “ together the two then become very powerful; an open question appears to have been answered”- Paul Martins. Words have a specificity and exactness that most images lacks, a sentence or word can explain to you what an image doesn’t. If there are too many images you might overwhelm the viewer but if there is too much text you run the risk of boring people.

Designers can utilise the familiarity of letters and words by carefully manipulating suggestive letterforms so that they become an image. This means that the type can actually become the image, or an object. Two O’s together could become pair of glasses, and a Z could represent a lightning bolt. just the same way that images and object can become words or letters, for example a compass creates the letter A, and the handle of a mug the letter C. You can also successfully use onomatopoeias which are often used in comic books or children’s story, the word imitating the sound that it describes. Things such as “tic, tock” “meow” are very common but in design its all about incorporating an image into it. By adding a large O to open you’ve created a visual action to go with that word, something that Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti employed a lot in the design on “Zang Tumb Tumb” [pic 2]

Marinetti was a futurist, and used this to influence the design for his book cover. He decided to take themes such a new technologies and mechanics to base his design on. The words running diagonally across represent flying bullets, while the repetition of the words “tumb, tumb” symbolises the sound of bullets being fired. Inside the book, this use of dynamic onomatopoeic design is continued really allowing the view to visualise the words along with sound. However people did criticise  Marinetti for his “in compassionate enthusiasm for war”.

In the book “Research into design across boundaries: Creativity” a diagram is shown which helps to show syntactic elements, and how a designer could go about creating an onomatopoeic letterform.

[pic 3]

The book explains how to successfully create a visual onomatopoeia “ the visualisation of the sounds is represented through variables like, style ,font, and letterings, colour, texture, orientation and alignment”

However some visual words are not always interpreted clearly. We all have our own opinions on what things should look like, and what they mean. Sometimes artists and designers will purposefully create visual words with no relevance to the meaning, or are warped to make the viewer think more carefully about the meaning. Instead of forcing an opinion upon them, they can create one for themselves.  I feel that this more expressive technique is actually more effective in making ‘words visual” as i said before all words are visual, as you have to see them to process them. But here the designer can influence the readers opinions slightly with his or hers initial representation of the word, but it if has no meaning to the viewer then, ultimately it is that person decision to create an image/meaning for that word. This expressive design “is rarely definitive or entirely rational . It is often lyrical, not intended to deliver meaning to the mind, but rather to ask questions” says