Type Morphology

Co-taught with Diane Mikhael

A typeface is a family of alphabetic and non-alphabetic signs which have structural and stylistic features in common, and which allow them to be perceived as members of the system. In this project, students learned to identify, analyze and describe a typeface and to understand the underlying principles of type systems and type anatomy. They then deconstructed the typeface and broke it down into smaller components grouping them into constants and variables in order to discover its underlying structure.

The project went through three phases which built upon the outcomes of the initial research and analysis phase. The phases were: deconstruction, synthesis and morphology. The first phase explored an existing typeface and analyzed its underlying system. The second was to identify a morphological process and analyze it. In the final phase, students were asked to use their chosen morphology to synthesize a new typeface based on the existing one that was analyzed in the first phase. The results of these projects were initial proposals for typefaces that were iconoclastic while maintaining consistency and an understanding of the underlying principles of Arabic type design.