Even in little ol’ Elmira, there is some great little spots for found typography. I’ve driven past this one enough times to remember to bring my camera. This would be a lovely piece to revive. Check out the whole set.
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Even in little ol’ Elmira, there is some great little spots for found typography. I’ve driven past this one enough times to remember to bring my camera. This would be a lovely piece to revive. Check out the whole set.<
For a while now, I’ve been fascinated in how semantic value is born out of context and on how many levels this works. It builds on top of itself. Relativity is quite a beautiful thing. Corresponding points create a line. Corresponding lines obtain meaning according to the context of a culture. These glyphs are refined to be put next to the other to build a more complex message…and so on and so on…This can be transferred across to nearly every other aspect of the world, but it’s most interesting when using relationships for communication. This is part of why I love design. Not only does a letterform communicate literal content, but also carries with it a personality and tone. Which can again be changed in it’s context of other forms. When juxtaposed to an image, shape, color, et cetera…a message can be drastically changed, and vice versa. As Walter Benjamin states in A Short History of Photography,
“…must we not also count as illiterate the photographer who cannot read his own pictures? Will not the caption become the most important component of the shot?â€
Thus, without context, an element has the greatest number of potential meanings. However, it is when these elements work together that the magic happens. As these elements are further woven, the message becomes more concrete and less subjective; allowing for clearer communication. The brain is a wonderful thing for allowing us to assemble these pieces.
While the abstract is absolutely wonderful and good in that it allows for meaning to be determined through being in the context of how it relates to the interpreter. It is placed in the context of all the experiences of that interpreter’s memory. For that reason, each interpreter can have a different meaning for that abstract element. This is probably why the minds of children are so beautiful. With a lack of as many experiences, there are lesser contexts to place things into. Therefore, the range of interpretations is far less narrow and they see things outside of the average adult’s scope.
However, we need these experiences and to understand the relationships in which we run into in our lives. We use it know where to walk, who to talk to and what to say. Even further, we use terms from previous contexts in order to translate into new contexts. You’re computer has a “desktop”, “folders” and “windows”. These terms were used to provide an understanding of how to use them elements.
The mind is a beautiful thing.
In a small gathering of business owners and entrepreneurs that I was part of last week, I was especially intrigued in a part of our discussion. The owner of a company who understands the importance of professional design and branding, brought up that now that their newsletter looks professional, it no longer feels like they are a small town company. His fear is that his client-base of the small town is being turned away by the idea that the company is too big.
The small town customer comes to the small town company often because of the fact that they are a small town company. But what happens when the company doesn’t look like a small town company? Can it actually bad for a company’s brand to look professional? Even if the company provides a higher level of quality in service while remaining a small town company?
It seems to me that there are two ways to approach this conundrum. One way is to refocus the brand in a way to not necessarily pull back in quality, but shift the message providing a strong focus on the town and the people being affected. The other way would be to actually reach out and grow to a size that is accurately being represented.
But where did this correlation of size of a company and the level of professionalism in the design of a company’s materials come from? When did this happen? Did this actually come from larger company’s having the budget to pay a designer or a studio to create their materials rather than a neighbor’s daughter who has photoshop? I’m very interested in what your thoughts are.