Tipografia modular : bases teóricas para o desenho de letra

Abstract

Modular and Geometric Type Design, commonly called Modular Typography in a simplified and unspecific fashion, is an area of activity within Typography which, thanks to the technical ease offered by digital media towards its exploration, enjoys appreciable popularity both as an expressive medium in contemporary Communication Design and as a tool for teaching the theoretical principles of Typography and the practice of Type Design themselves. However, and unlike Conventional Lettering & Type Design, the cohesion of the critical mass that follows the popularity of this area is not sufficient for it to be taken up scientifically and systematically by those who partake in it or by their peers. This theory deficit expresses itself mainly in two interrelated facets: Lettering & Type Design Theories and anthologies, which frequently refer to principles essential to Modular and Geometric Type Design but stick mainly to Conventional Lettering & Type Design or, when they do focus on the former, overemphasize more conventional specimens, and Typographic Taxonomy systems, which do not contain the categories needed for classifying modular fonts according to their structure and the Lettering & Type Design theories which originated them. Our main goal is, then, to approach this lack of specific studies on this practice and its categorization and, as such, we will seek to divide it into its main components, so as to complete a State of the Art which, in its essence, is composed of a corpus of several practical examples and a few theoretical notes which sometimes accompany them. Thus, in order to better explain the processes which might have been intuitively used by its authors, we will focus on the study of preexisting Typographic Taxonomy systems and Modular Lettering & Type Design Theories, as well as of all the structuring elements of typographic modularity, such as modular geometry and typographic grids. As for our specific goals, we will take to the task of codifying a Theory of Modular and Geometric Type Design and an extension to a pre-existing Typographic Taxonomy system, which will be tested with several case studies. With this contribution, we hope to benefit all those who teach, learn and/or practice Modular Type Design, as well as all communication designers in general and who may potentially resort to their work, or who may wish to enter that profession