For many of us, the alphabet is one thing be taught early and internalised shortly; a well-recognized framework we not often examine. Nonetheless, a brand new e-book invitations us to pause and rethink this basis solely. Alphabetical Playground is an expansive 698-page journey throughout typographic programs, conceptual alphabets and visible experiments. And its central thesis is that letters will not be steady endpoints, however engaging beginnings.
Writer Nigel Cottier, design director at Settle for & Proceed, is thought for main high-profile business initiatives for manufacturers comparable to Apple, BMW, Google, Nike, and NASA. But alongside this industry-facing work, he is additionally spent years exploring how sort may be pushed far past its conventional communicative perform. His first e-book, Letterform Variations (2021), centred on producing numerous letterforms from a unified system.
Alphabetical Playground, nevertheless, is extra open-ended and exploratory, spanning 24 themed sections, every gathering a number of alphabets and conceptual analysis threads.
Alphabet as an open system
So what drew Nigel to see the alphabet as one thing greater than a impartial car for language? “I believe it is the malleability of the alphabet, its capability to be interpreted in numerous other ways,” he replies. “Our alphabet has the scope to be each a communication software and a container for quite a lot of conceptual concepts, visible programs and themes.”
This duality is central. The alphabet is acquainted sufficient to be accessible, but summary sufficient to hold different constructions, concepts and emotions. Alphabetical Playground is, on this sense, much less about exhibiting what letters appear like, and extra about what they will do. As Nigel places it: “Typography generally is a code inside a code, a sport inside a sport, a system inside a system.”
In brief, the e-book invitations designers to look once more on the invisible assumptions underpinning their observe.
Past legibility
One of the vital putting features of Nigel’s work is his willingness to maneuver previous legibility. He acknowledges that some alphabets within the e-book are “virtually fully impractical” when judged strictly as communication instruments. However this impracticality is the purpose. As he places it: “Having the ability to push sort to its limits, and typically past legibility, is one thing I discover actually fascinating.”
This boundary—the place letters turn into one thing else—is private and interpretive. “The place is that time the place it stops being verbal communication and turns into one thing else?” he ponders. “Typography generally is a stunning sample, a puzzle, and a language abruptly.”
For designers accustomed to prioritising readability, this angle gives each problem and liberation. It expands what typography can specific.
Chaos and management
Regardless of the e-book’s visible playfulness, Nigel’s strategy is much from arbitrary. He describes his personal artistic course of as being formed by each construction and shock. “I really like each these phrases, chaos and management,” he stresses. “The concept one thing can embody two seemingly opposing qualities is actually alluring.
“I’ve all the time been desirous about utilizing numbers, formulation and patterns to generate visually expressive varieties,” he continues. “Creating programs and formulation can sound inflexible and ‘unartful’; nevertheless, permitting the system to create the shape typically results in stunning, even serendipitous outcomes.”
In different phrases, construction doesn’t get rid of freedom. As an alternative, constraint can produce surprising magnificence.
Past typography
Whereas Nigel acknowledges typographic influences comparable to Hamish Muir and Paul McNeil, his references span far past the sphere. He is additionally drawn to algorithmic and conceptual artists, together with Sol LeWitt, Vera Molnár and Manfred Mohr, in addition to visible abstractionists comparable to Bridget Riley and Ellsworth Kelly. “They’re evoking feeling by form and kind,” he explains, noting that that means doesn’t all the time require linguistic readability.
He additionally speaks warmly of discussing Alphabetical Playground with Hamish Muir, who wrote the foreword. “It is reassuring to have somebody like Hamish say freedom is nice, do not be slowed down by guidelines,” he says. Lastly, we ask Nigel to complete the sentence “The way forward for sort is…” With attribute simplicity, he responds: “No matter we wish it to be.”
It is a pithy reply, but additionally a profound one; a reminder that the alphabet isn’t completed. It has all the time been altering, formed by cultures, supplies, instruments and applied sciences.
What Alphabetical Playground underscores is that designers can play an energetic position in that evolution. For creatives, then, this e-book is greater than a reference. It’s a name to look once more on the programs we take with no consideration… and to push them additional than ever earlier than.
