Special Issue: The New Typography - invited to co-edit an issue of Visual Communication Journal

Editing of a jourrnal issue
The New Typography is the overarching theme for a series of related research outcomes examining the significance of visual communication in contemporary society: ‘The New Typography: An International Symposium’ with Triggs (moderator and co-presenter); Triggs’ extended essay ‘The New Newness of the New Typography’ and Triggs’ as editor of a book which extended the debate first begun at the symposium.

The symposium attracted over 1,000 delegates from the international design community where leading academics and design practitioners critically examined the underlying assumptions of communication and visual design. Triggs co-presented with van Leeuwen a paper with piano performance -‘The Newness in the New Typography’. The symposium was significant as the first large-scale event to bring together linguists and typographers to discuss new and innovative ways of understanding language and typographic practices (reviewed in Eye Issue 62 No 48).

Triggs’ section of the co-presentation was expanded and published as part of ‘a unique and important collection of writings’ edited by Steven Heller the noted critic and New York Times Art Director. The essay explored the way in which the image is taking precedent in our media-driven world and consequently, asking how this might impact on the conventional reading of typographic form. Triggs’ research developed out of previous work into experimental typography.

The Special Issue: The New Typography edited by Triggs demonstrated the way in which image, text and typography might be explored - the multimodality of typographic forms, its spatial environments, and through performance and motion. The collection brought together for the first time a group of fifteen internationally recognised designers to critically engage in the subject through text and visual based investigations. Ultimately the collection set out to explore the potential that is found when disciplines cross over [and] new ways of looking and seeing emerge.