SWITCH: A Modular Typeface for the Letterpress
Project Description
SWITCH is my senior thesis project. It's a modular woodblock display typeface designed for the letterpress. My inspiration for this project was how much I personally like working with the letterpress and how much I've learned by working with my hands and using just my brain and the tools available to me to solve a problem. Technology is great and has given us amazing new ways to design but it's also made it easier for designers to just copy tutorials and experiment with tools without having to think much about their decisions because there's nothing that can't be undone.
Thesis Statement
With the advancement of digital technology in the past few decades, it has become easier for users to create, customize, and modify display typefaces to fit their needs. By contrast, wood type for the letterpress is extremely limiting. I want to bring more variety to display types for the letterpress to help connect new designers to this older tool by creating a modular woodblock typeface.
Typeface Design
My initial research turned up that there are a few main ways to make a customizable type system. One is to use a simple grid system and repeat one shape multiple times in different ways to create each letter. Another is to use a more complex grid system that have multiple shapes meant for different parts of the letterforms and when put together they make each letter. There’s also letterform anatomy systems that are similar to the complex grid systems, but the pieces are even more specialized and when put together the grid is not nearly as obvious. And then there are chromatic typefaces, which use a layered approach with a base piece for each letter and then other designs get added to it to change the final look.
The direction I thought would work best for my concept was to combine the letterform anatomy and the chromatic systems.
Initial sketches.
Finalized and digitized typeface with two variations.
Functionality and Production
When printing on a letterpress, the letters need to be backwards in order to print the right way on paper. Because it’s more difficult to create a letter out of pieces, let alone create it backwards, I decided it would make more sense for the user to be able to compose with the letters facing the right way and then be able to flip them over for the press. To make this possible I put the design that each block would print on the back.
After I had decided to compose with the blocks upside down, I thought about how to transfer the letters to the press easily. I didn’t want to have to flip over every block one by one and put it in place on the press so I came up with the idea to use magnets. This would allow the user to stick the entire composition to a board and flip it all at once then transfer it over to the press.
In this system, I noticed some pieces were difficult to tell apart which was causing problems when users tried to compose with them. To help distinguish between the pieces better, and make the process of composing faster in general, I added color to the background of each piece. To choose which piece got which color I split the pieces up into groups of ones that looked similar and when I assigned the colors to the pieces I tried to put varying colors in each group.
Diagram of how each piece was made (left), list of each piece in the system (center), and groups used for color choices (right).
Full alphanumerical system with colors added.
Examples of one piece built for each of the variations.
Job Case
Because this is a modular typeface, the quantities of each piece needed aren’t the same as in a normal set of letters. To determine how many of each I would need I compared where and how often each piece in my system is used to how often each letter is used in the English language and I adjusted the quantities of each piece based on that. Once I had the quantities for each piece, I created this design for the job case. I wanted to put all three styles of each piece together instead of separating the case into three different sections. I also put all of the each color in the same area to make it easier for users to find which piece they wanted.
Job case design.
Job case built and holding all pieces.
How to use SWITCH
1. Compose your message.
2. Stick the piece of metal to the backs of the pieces and flip them over.
3. Transfer the pieces to the press and lock them into place.
4. Ink them up.
5. Print.
1. Compose your message.
2. Stick the piece of metal to the backs of the pieces and flip them over.
3. Transfer the pieces to the press and lock them into place.
4. Ink them up.
5. Print.
Conclusion
Overall I feel SWITCH accomplished the goals I set in the beginning. All of the designers that I’ve talked to about the finished project have expressed a lot of interest in using and experimenting with it. I'd like to continue working with this project and improve it by adding more variations, finding a way to make the production of pieces easier and more uniform, and instead of having the magnets in each piece I'd like to have metal in them and one magnetic board they'd attach to so that they don't repel each other and you wouldn't need the composing stick.
