This Is Typography - A Study Of Micro-Aesthetics is an investigation into the minute details of letterforms that was begun as a series of hurried sketches made in 2009. They were later picked up and expanded in 2011 in a project incorporating action research involving a participant group. The work was a final deliverable produced for a required research methodology course within my Masters of Design program documenting practical strategies for teaching design fundamentals. The audience for the work was directed towards first year design students who held no previous experience with typographic eduction.

This form of analog mark-making serves as the background to this typographic exploration in which I am researching hand-led modes of drawing. This mode of working has been integrated into a methodology for creating new formal structures and arrangements through deconstruction, re-construction, and assembly through repetition. Type and letterforms here serve as the starting point for a process of making, hacking, interpretation, and production of new forms. The underlying structure for organizing content—the grid—has been integrated as a primary element within this body of work, and serves as a crucial tool in the final structure of the elements.

Within this body of work, the primary strokes that letterforms are structured around have been taken out of their primary configurations, have been reworked and stripped of their immediate connection to letters. This study incorporates formal typographic principles involving kerning, spacing, leading, H&J settings, and side bearing voids. ‘Greeked’ strokes have been combined through re-worked relationships within the context of the grid to form patterns according to the rules of type setting. These strategies culled from the laws of typography have created new relationships in the formal aspects of the re-interpreted drawing compositions

The final article can be read at Medium.