Imagery using digital type

With backgrounds in architecture, ni9e.com began as a space on the web where we could experiment with ideas free from budgets and committees, enabling us to explore notions of randomness and fluidity. Turning away from clients and embracing experiments such as the ones described on the following pages enabled us to create work that lies between the worlds of art and design. With no previous training in computer programming or typography, Flash offered an inviting platform to experiment in both. Typographic Illustration and Typoactive are presented here as two such studies in type, code and interaction.

Typographic Illustration (http://ni9e.com/typo_illus.html) is a drawing technique that uses text to create imagery. Drawing on data gathered from expressive and imperfect strokes of the hand, images are revealed over time. Image, text, and music are used together to communicate content. The underlying goal of this piece (main image, pictured here) was to illustrate lyricists visually using their own words. This project is deconstructed to demonstrate how relatively simple code is used to create tools for building compelling imagery.

Typoactive (http://ni9e.com/typoactive.html) is an interactive animated type tool. This project represents the user’s keystrokes as an impermanent and active series of random type styles, scales, and placements. Design characteristics of specific typefaces blur into one another as relationships between very different character forms are questioned. The Typoactive project is explained from start to finish in Part 3 of this tutorial.

Expertise provided by Evan Roth and Max Asare of www.ni9e.com.

All the components needed to complete this tutorial can be found here