We were each assigned a section from Italo Calvino, Invisible Cites. We were instructed to use live action video and animated text, to create a typographic narrative that captures the story of, and gives life to the city as Marco Polo is describing. Emphasis was placed on efforts for the text to interact with the live action.
Reflection
Invisible Cities written by Italo Calvinoexplores the imaginary cityscapes described by the explorer, Marco Polo. Presented through a lens of abstractions, the text is arranged in eleven groups (cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and signs, thin cities, trading cities and eyes, cities and names, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, continuous cities and hidden cities,) all of which are tied to the imaginary characteristic of fictional places. The significance of the cities serves as a catalyst for contemplation of human civilization, values and the nature of storytelling. While the typography is literal, just like the word cities, I intended to capitalize on the subtleties presented in the typeface Montserrat. Invisible Cities could be interpreted as “fictionally literal,” but more likely could also offer endless possibilities for invented interpretations and metaphors. Representing this concept through the use of type treatment required a typeface with a variety of styles. I was particularly drawn to this historical aspect of this typeface, quite literally being conceived on fading memories of distinct typographic elements in a changing urban landscape.
Type Choice
Montserrat, designed by Julieta Ulaovsky, is a san serif family with lots of variety. Geometric in style, the family has a wide range of subtle optical adjustments reflected by its original inspiration. The typeface is inspired by the old signage found in the historical neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. The intention of the typeface was to rescue the beauty of urban typography from the first half of the twentieth century. As urban development improves city spaces, it can sometimes come with a cost. Development can overhaul the neighborhood’s original, unique characters marked by old typographies and canopies irretrievable when replaced. These quaint nuances give beauty and life to urban spaces.
Champion is a san-serif typeface designed by Jonathan Hoefler. Many of Champion’s weights are translations of classic wood typefaces, which lend the family to slight mismatches providing an eclectic quality to the fonts. Champions unique diversity in styles could reflect the distinct characters and cultures found in an urban landscape. Each weight of Champion feels like it’s own typeface because they don’t obey a particular obligation to one another.
How Was It Made?
The properties of water had to define the aesthetic treatment of my final composition. “This city, a city of a thousand wells”— I ran with the visual this brought to mind. First, I began experimenting with digital text and fluid masking in Affect Effects. During this process, I determined this method lacked a particular depth I wanted to capture through material choice treatment. I rented a 360 camera and a waterproof case. The final version is a analog/digital hybrid. I typeset the text in Indesign, printed, and captured footage with a 360 camera in a tub of water. The water disintegrated the ink on the page naturally. The footage was transferred and assembled in After Effects. Blend layers were used to further enhance the dreamy characaterstics of the final shots.
“Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock’s calcareous sky. Consequently two forms of religion exist in Isaura. The city’s gods, according to some people, live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the wells, in the revolving pulleys, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings, in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aqueducts, in all the columns of water, the vertical pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the weather cocks that surmount the airy scaffolding of Isaura, a city that moves entirely upwards.”