Deconstructive Typography
B.F.A Dissertation Project
Bilkent University Graphic Design Program - 2009
Deconstructive Typography explores the relationship between writing, typography, and the philosophical ideas of deconstruction.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida's writing on language and the work of Antonin Artaud, the project examines the stability of written form, legibility, and the visual structures through which language is represented.
The project centres on Deconstype, an experimental typeface developed from Helvetica. The typeface begins with Helvetica's associations with modernist rationality, neutrality, and systematic order, then transforms its letterforms through fragmentation, distortion, and structural intervention.
The project approaches typography as a visual system in which letterforms can carry meaning through their form, organisation, and transformation.
The resulting work was developed across a typeface, a series of posters, a publication, and a moving-image piece.