Graphic Design
Graphic Design
Umberto Eco, an Italian semiotician highlighted a participatory approach to visual arts, music and literature in his 1962 publication, The Open Work. In Eco’s terms, "open" in a tangible sense can be defined as works that are left unfinished, the author seems to hand them on to the user / performer / maker more or less like the components of a construction kit.
These are two "open" methods for creating typography, the first is a strict rule based stencil, the ‘plaque découpée universelle’, invented by Joseph A. David in the 1870’s to produce the entire alphabet, numbers and symbols from a single device. The second are several stencils with various abstract shapes made for experimentation and have continued to be used for an ongoing lateral investigation with design students and artists.