With the 21st century avantgard movements in painting, calligraphy as a form of artistic expression changes its meaning. The art of beautiful writing starts realizing the values which were invisible for logocentric and narrative traditional discourse. Calligraphy transgresses the category of beauty, rooted in its ethymology as “kalos graphein”. Instead of the set of rules and culturally accepted formes of letters, calligraphy opens itself for an experiment. The demand for legibility, beforehand serving the function of written communication, is no longer valid. This emancipation leads calligraphy to explore its pure visual and material qualities. What is more, the writing act as the final effect becomes the act of infinite perfomance.

In view of the above, contemporary calligraphy artworks seem to be strange and uncomfortable for the viewers. It is very often impossible to refer to them in a linguistic mode. Hence the question on the value of such writing. The aim of the lecture will be to look for a new discourse framework for visuality, and determine concepts which could empower calligraphy beyond representational mode. 

The pre-Hispanic Mexican divinatory books are bone of contention between specialists if the graphic communication system (GCS) applied in them can be considered writing or it is rather iconography. These extremely colorful, screenfold books of religious content, originated from multilingual regions of Central Mexico, hardly ever codify linguistics units as such, contrary to the Aztec books focusing on economic or land subjects, and contrary to the Maya codices, where the glottographic writing is also used. The aim of this paper is to present how the meaning is codified in this particular books, with special focus on two of the means. First of them is codifying meaning through the visual distribution of signs (so-called notational principle) with wide use of visual symmetries. The second is the composition of meaningful signs of three-level semantic units, which assured that the whole graphic system is generative.

The presentation’s subject is one of the first complex wayfinding systems. I will show its history, basic principle and relation to Mexican traditional.

In year 1969 in Mexico City the first metro connections were opened and in parallel a unique signage system of wayfinding was developed to facilitate orientation among metro’s lines and stations. American graphic designer Lance Wayman, having in mind both the illiteracy rate in Mexico and the idea of cosmopolitan modern city, decided to base the system mainly on visual means: signs and colors. The concept was to create a universal system capable to communicate beyond the spoken languages. As a result, each station has its own icon, used to the same extent, as station’s name. Due to archaeological works and general social movements, the issue of national identity was widely discussed, and the awareness of the ancient heritage was appearing among Mexicans. The inspiration for signs is deeply rooted in traditional Mexican repository of motifs. Each sign refers to one of the following: 1) element of the urban space, 2) mixed Aztec-Spanish cultural heritage, 3) significant figures from Mexican history.

The full, elaborate visual information system was created – logo, typeface, maps, station icons and signboards. It has existed for half of century now. During these 50 years the city has developed tremendously and so the public transport did. The “icon strategy” was not only continued for newly created metro connections but also extended to other transport facilities like rapid buses or trains. Nowadays the icons number exceeds 500 what raises a question about the system’s functionality. Is it intuitive or in contrary – overwhelming? Do passengers benefit from applied solutions?

Applying characteristic features of local visual tradition instead of culturally neutral style in the process of designing undoubtedly gave the system an extra value exceeding aesthetic aspects – it made the project to take root into the local culture and become its integral part. Investigating its reception can enrich our knowledge about the role played by the urban visual layer, in particular such information systems, in shaping city’s identity. Its iconic character, strong inspiration of local motifs both on the level of style and the very essence of symbols, makes it an extremely interesting example worth to analyse.

The talk will discuss how the analysis of historical records and archival materials that are typically held in collections, such as the Non-Latin Type Collection at the University of Reading (UK), can inform and inspire original designs to provide appropriate textual representation of languages to best serve the needs of diverse linguistic communities.

The kinds of materials under discussion include manuscripts; early imprints; metal type; fount synopses; case lays; keyboard layouts; letter-drawings; and typeset copy. The issues discussed include the access to relevant material; the reliability of resources; the evaluation of past and current manuscript and typographic practices; the impact of technology and its legacy; information on linguistic behaviour and stylistic conventions; and the use of complementary resources.

The issues, which have relevance to all scripts, will be generously illustrated by examples of particular projects that have drawn on collections-based resources for their design and development to offer better typographic solutions for many millions of readers across the world.

With the 21st century avantgard movements in painting, calligraphy as a form of artistic expression changes its meaning. The art of beautiful writing starts realizing the values which were invisible for logocentric and narrative traditional discourse. Calligraphy transgresses the category of beauty, rooted in its ethymology as “kalos graphein”. Instead of the set of rules and culturally accepted formes of letters, calligraphy opens itself for an experiment. The demand for legibility, beforehand serving the function of written communication, is no longer valid. This emancipation leads calligraphy to explore its pure visual and material qualities. What is more, the writing act as the final effect becomes the act of infinite perfomance.

In view of the above, contemporary calligraphy artworks seem to be strange and uncomfortable for the viewers. It is very often impossible to refer to them in a linguistic mode. Hence the question on the value of such writing. The aim of the lecture will be to look for a new discourse framework for visuality, and determine concepts which could empower calligraphy beyond representational mode. 

The pre-Hispanic Mexican divinatory books are bone of contention between specialists if the graphic communication system (GCS) applied in them can be considered writing or it is rather iconography. These extremely colorful, screenfold books of religious content, originated from multilingual regions of Central Mexico, hardly ever codify linguistics units as such, contrary to the Aztec books focusing on economic or land subjects, and contrary to the Maya codices, where the glottographic writing is also used. The aim of this paper is to present how the meaning is codified in this particular books, with special focus on two of the means. First of them is codifying meaning through the visual distribution of signs (so-called notational principle) with wide use of visual symmetries. The second is the composition of meaningful signs of three-level semantic units, which assured that the whole graphic system is generative.

The presentation’s subject is one of the first complex wayfinding systems. I will show its history, basic principle and relation to Mexican traditional.

In year 1969 in Mexico City the first metro connections were opened and in parallel a unique signage system of wayfinding was developed to facilitate orientation among metro’s lines and stations. American graphic designer Lance Wayman, having in mind both the illiteracy rate in Mexico and the idea of cosmopolitan modern city, decided to base the system mainly on visual means: signs and colors. The concept was to create a universal system capable to communicate beyond the spoken languages. As a result, each station has its own icon, used to the same extent, as station’s name. Due to archaeological works and general social movements, the issue of national identity was widely discussed, and the awareness of the ancient heritage was appearing among Mexicans. The inspiration for signs is deeply rooted in traditional Mexican repository of motifs. Each sign refers to one of the following: 1) element of the urban space, 2) mixed Aztec-Spanish cultural heritage, 3) significant figures from Mexican history.

The full, elaborate visual information system was created – logo, typeface, maps, station icons and signboards. It has existed for half of century now. During these 50 years the city has developed tremendously and so the public transport did. The “icon strategy” was not only continued for newly created metro connections but also extended to other transport facilities like rapid buses or trains. Nowadays the icons number exceeds 500 what raises a question about the system’s functionality. Is it intuitive or in contrary – overwhelming? Do passengers benefit from applied solutions?

Applying characteristic features of local visual tradition instead of culturally neutral style in the process of designing undoubtedly gave the system an extra value exceeding aesthetic aspects – it made the project to take root into the local culture and become its integral part. Investigating its reception can enrich our knowledge about the role played by the urban visual layer, in particular such information systems, in shaping city’s identity. Its iconic character, strong inspiration of local motifs both on the level of style and the very essence of symbols, makes it an extremely interesting example worth to analyse.

The talk will discuss how the analysis of historical records and archival materials that are typically held in collections, such as the Non-Latin Type Collection at the University of Reading (UK), can inform and inspire original designs to provide appropriate textual representation of languages to best serve the needs of diverse linguistic communities.

The kinds of materials under discussion include manuscripts; early imprints; metal type; fount synopses; case lays; keyboard layouts; letter-drawings; and typeset copy. The issues discussed include the access to relevant material; the reliability of resources; the evaluation of past and current manuscript and typographic practices; the impact of technology and its legacy; information on linguistic behaviour and stylistic conventions; and the use of complementary resources.

The issues, which have relevance to all scripts, will be generously illustrated by examples of particular projects that have drawn on collections-based resources for their design and development to offer better typographic solutions for many millions of readers across the world.