The One Show
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About the Work
Typeflash.com by Peter Vajda
Typeflash is a game of typographic creation and customization. Its purpose is to invite everyone, casual users and professional designers alike, to participate in the process of designing a typeface. Users of Typeflash are able to express their feelings and tastes by playing with freely adjustable letter forms. They can choose to distort their letters to the point of visual spectacle or fine-tune them to emphasize the textual content. As well as providing a sandbox for typographic experimentation, Typeflash offers facilities for recording and sharing the results with others.
After landing on typeflash.com, the user begins by typing an arbitrary word or phrase in one of fifteen typefaces. The user can then modify the appearance of the typeface by adjusting a number of variables. Attributes like size and spacing are variable in all typefaces; others depend on the particular features of a typeface. For example, there are typefaces formed of distinct components that can be colored separately, while the more linear typefaces feature adjustable stroke width.
In addition to playing around with letters interactively, users can choose to make a permanent artwork by naming and saving their creation on the Typeflash website. It will then appear in the Typeflash gallery, and its author can send it to friends in the form of an e-card or publish it as a banner on any website. The author's typographic choices are preserved in each case. Furthermore, the message is animated in a manner that enhances the characteristics of the typeface. When the e-card is opened or the banner is loaded, the letters emerge, pause, and vanish in a leisurely loop.
The typefaces are listed and briefly described below. The first six have the same underlying geometry, but the remaining nine are structurally different. What they all have in common is minimalism, in the sense that each letter consists of the smallest number of elements required to make it legible.
Hungarian The overlapping circles and shaded intersections of this typeface are reminiscent of a folk motif traditional to Hungary. During animation the circles appear in scattershot fashion, so that the overall pattern is only revealed when the last few circles fall into place.
American, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Lover Instead of the statically positioned circles of the Hungarian typeface, the characters in these typefaces are built from clusters of five iconic shapes that can be colored, enlarged, and shifted relative to one another.
Morph The letters of Morph are formed by segments sliding out from one another in succession before telescoping back together. They are plain by default, but can be decorated with clusters of up to four different symbols taken from the typefaces above.
Caps The constituent parts of this typeface resemble two types of medicine tablets―oblong capsules and round pills―which are available in two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions. The capsules and pills roll along separate axes as the letters assemble and disperse.
English, German These are tastefully three-dimensional gothic typefaces, with English achieving a ribbon-like effect while German gives a boxy impression. The letters unpack themselves in a series of swiveling flaps, then fold themselves back together.
Greek, Wired, Zion The shape of each character is traced by lines following one or two unbroken paths. The Greek typeface has labyrinthine letters; Wired is characterized by loops and intersections; Zion follows 60-degree turns instead of right angles.
Molecule This typeface replicates the look of a chemistry modeling kit with letters made from a lattice of either four or six nodes.
Sex The letters are composed of male and female symbols enacting various states of a relationship as they pursue, approach, touch, and entwine each other before disentangling and growing apart. The gender roles can be switched by clicking on the M/F buttons next to the color picker.
The following are a few pages that feature banners generated by Typeflash.
http://www.unc.edu/~shauntru/
http://jhollyb.multiply.com/journal/item/485
http://diegomarulanda.blogspot.com
http://fassoljouedupianodebout.blogspot.com
http://vega.soi.city.ac.uk/~abcz712/box/kareokeboxhome.html
http://www.booooooom.com/2008/07/31/typeflash/
http://poletto.ru
Typeflash is a game of typographic creation and customization. Its purpose is to invite everyone, casual users and professional designers alike, to participate in the process of designing a typeface. Users of Typeflash are able to express their feelings and tastes by playing with freely adjustable letter forms. They can choose to distort their letters to the point of visual spectacle or fine-tune them to emphasize the textual content. As well as providing a sandbox for typographic experimentation, Typeflash offers facilities for recording and sharing the results with others.
After landing on typeflash.com, the user begins by typing an arbitrary word or phrase in one of fifteen typefaces. The user can then modify the appearance of the typeface by adjusting a number of variables. Attributes like size and spacing are variable in all typefaces; others depend on the particular features of a typeface. For example, there are typefaces formed of distinct components that can be colored separately, while the more linear typefaces feature adjustable stroke width.
In addition to playing around with letters interactively, users can choose to make a permanent artwork by naming and saving their creation on the Typeflash website. It will then appear in the Typeflash gallery, and its author can send it to friends in the form of an e-card or publish it as a banner on any website. The author's typographic choices are preserved in each case. Furthermore, the message is animated in a manner that enhances the characteristics of the typeface. When the e-card is opened or the banner is loaded, the letters emerge, pause, and vanish in a leisurely loop.
The typefaces are listed and briefly described below. The first six have the same underlying geometry, but the remaining nine are structurally different. What they all have in common is minimalism, in the sense that each letter consists of the smallest number of elements required to make it legible.
Hungarian The overlapping circles and shaded intersections of this typeface are reminiscent of a folk motif traditional to Hungary. During animation the circles appear in scattershot fashion, so that the overall pattern is only revealed when the last few circles fall into place.
American, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Lover Instead of the statically positioned circles of the Hungarian typeface, the characters in these typefaces are built from clusters of five iconic shapes that can be colored, enlarged, and shifted relative to one another.
Morph The letters of Morph are formed by segments sliding out from one another in succession before telescoping back together. They are plain by default, but can be decorated with clusters of up to four different symbols taken from the typefaces above.
Caps The constituent parts of this typeface resemble two types of medicine tablets―oblong capsules and round pills―which are available in two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions. The capsules and pills roll along separate axes as the letters assemble and disperse.
English, German These are tastefully three-dimensional gothic typefaces, with English achieving a ribbon-like effect while German gives a boxy impression. The letters unpack themselves in a series of swiveling flaps, then fold themselves back together.
Greek, Wired, Zion The shape of each character is traced by lines following one or two unbroken paths. The Greek typeface has labyrinthine letters; Wired is characterized by loops and intersections; Zion follows 60-degree turns instead of right angles.
Molecule This typeface replicates the look of a chemistry modeling kit with letters made from a lattice of either four or six nodes.
Sex The letters are composed of male and female symbols enacting various states of a relationship as they pursue, approach, touch, and entwine each other before disentangling and growing apart. The gender roles can be switched by clicking on the M/F buttons next to the color picker.
The following are a few pages that feature banners generated by Typeflash.
http://www.unc.edu/~shauntru/
http://jhollyb.multiply.com/journal/item/485
http://diegomarulanda.blogspot.com
http://fassoljouedupianodebout.blogspot.com
http://vega.soi.city.ac.uk/~abcz712/box/kareokeboxhome.html
http://www.booooooom.com/2008/07/31/typeflash/
http://poletto.ru
2010 Awards
Total Points: 5
Merit
Credits
Art Director
Peter Vajda