(in)visible (de)signs Keith Tam

Typography這領域在前電腦時代總帶著點點神秘。二十年前，在飛機上遇到鄰坐的陌生人問到你做什麼時，你說typography或typeface design，相信會引來滿臉問號。2023年的今天，社交媒體，博客，網媒，甚至主流媒體如報章雜誌和電視也討論著字體和文字編排設計。當科技令人人日常也可接觸和使用到字體和文字編排的時候，我們也發現有很多關於typography和typeface design的迷思或謬誤，今集我們一一探討。

#迷思vs都市傳說
#字體和文字編排設計的分別
#字體尺寸的迷思
#字體和文字編排設計的原創性
#設計師的神化
#復刻字體與保育
#印刷體與手寫體
#求新
#求精
#求效
#求真

伸延閱讀：
文字設計教育的四種思想流派
Martin Heijdra: The development of modern typography in East Asia, 1850–2000

Typography in the pre-digital era was mysterious to most people. Even merely 20 years ago, if you meet a stranger on a plane and you tell her that you’re a typographer or type designer, you would be looked at strangely. In 2023, typography and type design are all over social media, blogs, websites or even mainstream media. When typography and typefaces become accessible to everyone, many myths also abound. Keith and Kiki try to dispel some of these myths in this episode.

〔粵〕第六集請來我的同事Kiki Yau邱穎琛談雙語文字編排設計。Kiki現職香港知專設計學院傳意設計學系助理講師。本科畢業於香港理工大學傳意設計學科，畢業後留校於信息設計研究室擔任研究助理。及後負笈英國雷丁大學文字與圖像傳意學系修讀研究碩士課程，畢業論文題為〈“Outside Western typography” – The influence of technology on the hybridisation of Chinese-Latin typography in Hong Kong〉，研究雙語文字編排設計和科技的關係。本集跟Kiki詳談她的研究方向，也一窺雷丁大學的學習經歷和一些理論與實踐的問題。
[Conversation, Cantonese] Episode 6 is a conversation on bilingual typography with my colleague Kiki Yau, Assistant Lecturer in Communication Design at the Hong Kong Design Institute. Kiki graduated with an MA by Research from the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading in the UK. She has previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Information Design Lab at the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Bilingual typography is a familiar sight for people who live in a place like Hong Kong where there are two (or more) official languages. Kiki’s thesis at Reading was on bilingual typography, titled ‘“Outside Western typography” – The influence of technology on the hybridisation of Chinese-Latin typography in Hong Kong’. In this episode, we’ll have a conversation about Kiki’s work on bilingual typography, her influences, and her experiences and the ethos of the typography department at the University of Reading.

[Interview] Dan Szuc and Jo Wong have been involved in UX consultancy work for over 20 years with a long list of prestigious international clients. They also established the UX Hong Kong conference 10 years ago, which is well known in the field in this part of the world. More recently, they have launched the Make Meaningful Work platform – a set of tools that helps develop 21st century soft skills in the workplace. In essence, they would like to help everyone to move from sleepwalking to sparkling at work. We are honoured to have Jo and Dan on the show in episode 5, where we discuss how they moved from UX to MMW, and why the invisible stuff is often more important than what meets the eyes.

Make Meaningful Work

UX Hong Kong 2023

[Reading] Episode 4 is a reading of a post published on 21 August 2020 https://nontxt.com/articulating-text-hierarchy/

[Conversation] In episode 3, we are privileged to have Thomas Girard from Vancouver, Canada as our guest. We had an interesting conversation on whether or not typography can save lives. The conversation sparked from a passage in an essay that Thomas wrote for the British Columbia Review (formerly Ormsby Review) titled ‘Saving Lives', published on 24 January 2021:

The argument is always that design isn’t about saving lives. Some people argue for its importance, for example with the historical example of poorly-designed election ballots causing American voters to be confused enough to vote for the wrong party or candidate. Teaching typography during the pandemic puts an interesting lens on it. In one sense it is the least of our worries, but historically it has been so important that it must not be allowed to gather dust. I teach a class called Advanced Typography at a small private design school in Vancouver and I often reflect on how, throughout history, typography has been carefully documented and considered in practical ways in its relationship with current technologies, in the impact it has on people emotionally and, most importantly, in the way we read. Letters are meant to be read, and through the careful study of topics like typographic readability and legibility we can assess its continuing importance. Some say we can never see history while it’s unfolding, but I simply offer this précis of typographic studies so that perhaps we can reflect, “Wait a minute,  writing actually says a lot.”
Thomas has been running a very popular podcast channel Unique Ways with Thomas Girard where he interviews such personalities as John Maeda, Bisi Williams, Debbie Millman and Erik Spiekermann. I was fortunate to have been invited to an early episode. He is a UX designer, scholar, educator and author from Vancouver. He was speaker of a popular TEDx talk ‘How to feel at home in the airport’. 

The book mentioned in the episode:
Caps lock: how capitalism took hold of graphic design, and how to escape from it by Ruben Pater

[Reading] Episode 2 starts with a short intro about how this show came about, what to anticipate in the coming episodes, and a Cantonese welcome message. The main part of the episode is a reading of a post published on 4 September 2021. To read the post, visit https://nontxt.com/heinrich-von-kleist/