The use of text to attract attention and convey ideas in visual art is referred to as typography. Artists use techniques such as altering the size or typeface of words, using bold colors, or creating strong diagonals to draw the viewer’s interest to different aspects of a composition. The style of the text can, in these ways, affect its perceived meaning as much as the words themselves. Much innovation in the field of typography has come through graphic design. The Bauhaus, an influential German art and design school that existed between the World Wars, was home to an important typography …
The use of text to attract attention and convey ideas in visual art is referred to as typography. Artists use techniques such as altering the size or typeface of words, using bold colors, or creating strong diagonals to draw the viewer’s interest to different aspects of a composition. The style of the text can, in these ways, affect its perceived meaning as much as the words themselves. Much innovation in the field of typography has come through graphic design. The Bauhaus, an influential German art and design school that existed between the World Wars, was home to an important typography workshop. There, the photographer László Moholy-Nagy and designer Herbert Bayer devised ways of using text to communicate ideas as well as more abstract signals. For example, Bayer devised an all lowercase, sans-serif typeface for Bauhaus publications to indicate the institution’s avant guard identity. Contemporary artists who are notable for the use of typography in their work include Ed Ruscha, who has used both hand-lettering and a self-designed typeface in his text-based work, and Robert Indiana, whose bold style is influenced by road signs and billboards.
