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Dear Ms. Dodson:
Experimental Typography Collage
This is a multimedia project that uses collage and experimental type to reflect on one of the few points in my childhood in which my thoughts, feelings, and emotions were well documented. I collaged school journal pages over photos of myself around the same age. This allowed me to put a face to the random, hilarious, emotional, and even at times unknowingly profound thoughts of an elementary-age girl. I found myself interested in my clumsy handwriting - at a time when I was still learning how to read, write, and spell - and how the shape of it could sometimes be so expressive. I was curious to see if I could somehow emulate this clumsy, emotive feeling to typography, which is typically very straight and regimented. I chose Times New Roman as opposed to something that might be closer to a script typeface, because I thought the familiar typeface would better show off the intentional mess I was trying to create to emphasize my fumbling, unrefined handwriting. In contrast, I kept my teacher’s handwriting in a neat italic to show our difference in maturity and character. Even if her own handwriting isn’t perfect, the way I used type for her writing indicates that she has a practiced and consistent handwriting. I took this project as an opportunity to let myself play with formatting, spacing, and size, trying to see how many typographical rules I could break and still make and end product that looked good and made sense to the tone of the project.
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