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Evolving a Practice Methodology for Designing Screen Typography

with reference to the teaching methods of Emil Ruder

Ms Hilary Kenna, Lecturer in Design & Digital Media, Joint Programme Chair Visual Communication, Institute of Art Design and Technology, Dublin

This paper sets out to explain the way in which the renowned Swiss typographer Emil Ruder has influenced a practice-led PhD study focusing on the need for creating new design principles for screen-based typography. Specifically Ruder’s seminal book Typographie (1967) where historical knowledge created for a print-based context has made a sustainable contribution to the future development of typography within the context of the screen. This study has led to a re-examination of the relevance of Emil Ruder’s teaching at the Basel School of Design, and his work as positioned within a contemporary context. Screen typography is characterised by new properties such as motion, time, 3D space, sound, and interactivity, which traditional design principles and methods of typographic practice do not sufficiently, if at all, address. This PhD research focuses on the need for new and experimental models of practice to systematically explore these screen properties. At the same time, such models must remain independent of specific technology, if they are to remain sustainable in the changing environment of digital media. These requirements refined the aim of this research to examine design principles and methods of practice that are conceptually and critically focused on the underlying materiality and aesthetics of screen typography. The search for such models that systematically describe the core properties of typography and the associative design principles that activate these properties in practice, led to the specific analysis of Emil Ruder’s work and its relevance for screen typography. It is the aim of this paper is to explain: • Why Ruder’s methodology emerged with particular relevance to screen typography and became a critical focus in this research; • How the critical distillation of Ruder’s core ideas were used as a platform upon which to build a comprehensive analysis of the material and formal properties of screen typography; • How his historical model derived for print typography was critically reinterpreted and combined with contemporary research findings to build an experimental practice methodology for screen typography. This paper presents the theoretical and historical context behind the core practical outcome of this PhD, which is the evolution of an experimental practice matrix for screen typography. It is presented here for discussion as research in progress.