WORD OR IMAGE?
Workshop for Typoday 2015, at IDC, IIT Bombay
As a part of Typoday 2015, I facilitated a workshop where local phrases were translated into typographic installations constructed in open spaces. We played the role of lettering metaphorists who transform everyday objects like bright fabric and cutting chai glasses into letters which when hitched onto a space makes the word come alive. The first two groups used pixelations as a method for creating ‘Gup-Shup’ with glasses and biscuits, while the other two had to explore open spaces and write ‘Item’ and ‘Abey!’ with fabric. The results were quite interesting and led to the question: When does a word cease to exist and become an image? When staging typography in a space, the word carries context, so does the space and people interacting with it. The efforts were directed in juxtaposing meanings - the meaning of the word, with the quality of the materials. The takeaway being a new and suggestive pictorial language - communicated via interactive typographic installations.