In terms of history there has been a rich coupling betwixt branding and typographic glyphs. Since ancient times there has been the process of culturally agreeing upon typographic symbols and a similar process of crafting brands for companies and lines of business. The most modern way of describing the creation of glyphs used to convey information is type design and type design is done by the technological minded industrial type designers. Industrial Type design is the process where abstract symbols are created in relation to each to other for the utilitarian purpose of conveying information, ideas, and emotion. There is a parallel to be drawn between the process of developing a successful brand and the the process of developing culturally relevant and acceptable typographic glyphs that we collectively are deemed acceptable for use and worthy of being declared “type”. The collective effect of a culture understanding what a specific glyph denotes in terms of the information, idea, or emotion it reflects is done through what is now known as branding which is where the two disparate concepts find their point of similarity.
Consider this. In a conversation with John Recker, of LPK International, a company whose purpose it is to build leadership brands and to convey the intent and the purpose of its clients it was discussed that western civilization collectively understands the letter “R” and the Nike Corporation’s “swoosh” iconography in similar fashion. It was discussed with John Recker and Vitae Magazine that at the onset of the creation of a typographic glyph which is unique in it’s design and representation of information and for lack of a better term beautiful and arbitrary there is a similar construction to typographic glyphs as there is to iconic branding. Where the meaning of a typographic glyph, if you have never considered this before, is in the building of the brand of the glyph and the collection of glyphs that interrelate with each other for a specific purpose that is to collectively enable an adherent of the collection of typographic symbols the ability to communicate meaning to individuals and communities of people that also subscribe to being literate in the crafted typographic set of symbols.
Look to the Western Civilization’s Alphabet. The Western Alphabet in succinct terms consists of twenty six symbols in its most basic format. There are the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z in that essentially agreed upon beautiful arbitrary sequence. The process by which these twenty six symbols are given meaning starts in early adolescence in Western Culture where young children that are beginning to interact with their peers and are in generation after generation explicitly and with great effort taught how to use their youthful ability to absorb intelligence to develop an understanding of what these beautiful arbitrary glyphs represent and how to comprehend their collective meanings.
The Culture surrounding typography is a very serious one to an advanced civilization as there is no modern civilization that currently lacks having a cultural system in place where the community’s children are not in systemic fashion taught by adults already familiar with a set system of typographic symbols how to interpret the ideas, emotions, and information that various combinations of unique and arbitrary symbols are meant to represent. As children are learning to in their early years to speak and to mimic the vocalizations of their parents when they have matured to the extent that they are in youthful control of their voices it is typically around this time period that the children are taught how to equivocate their vocal pronunciations of words and to as they in their early years are beginning to understand the parallels between what they are thinking and what they are saying they are also being taught how to use a beautiful carefully constructed by industrial type designers abstract set of agreed upon typographic symbols to visually understand how what they are thinking and what they are saying can be represented in type.
There is a cumulative agreement within the culture that accepts these ideas as the core of its communication strata that every single one of these alphabetic glyphs resonates with singular utilitarian meaning. It was discussed with John Recker, again of LPK, that the origins of these glyphs has been lost in history and that the original authors of these glyphs have also been lost to history and that it would take extraordinary research and leaps of faith to ascribe to a singular historic individual who for instance the letter “R” was authored by. For lack of a better way of putting it John Recker of LPK put it this way, “The letter ‘R’ was developed by a caveman. Culture and the passing of time has come to describe what this symbol means and we carry it with us and accept it to be true collectively.”
This culture that has come to project meaning onto the arbitrary does so for a purpose. There are many different cultural glyph systems that are in use by various and distinct cultures. The Modern Chinese have their glyph system that consists of their unique sets of strokes and their unique sets of identity per each stroke based glyph which is unique to the culture of China. The Russians have their unique culture with their unique sets of glyphs that have been developed in line with the evolution of Russian culture. The field of Mathematics has itself a unique set of glyphs that it uses to denote advanced mathematical ideas which exists entirely in the advanced collective understanding of what a symbol means in terms of mathematics. Every major advanced culture has a set of symbols it uses to architect information that can be used to convey unique styles of information for the purposes of individuals being able to communicate from one to another what individuals and collections of individuals are disparately experiencing or are in need of experiencing to further individual and collective proliferation of what is necessary to be expressed for individuals and groups of people to be reliably understood.
The process of branding and the professional field of developing brands is not dissimilar from the process of teaching young children how to interpret and put to use to their benefit the ongoing striving for literacy and understanding of what the collective corpus of alphabetic glyphs represent phonetically. When someone is building a brand they are interested in being remembered in a certain light and with immediate recall similar to the way that when someone considers the letter 'R.’ The letter 'R’ immediately in the person that understands the individual meaning and use of the letter “R” what the letter “R” represents and how it is intending to be used. It represents the syllable and accompanying sound as symbolized here /rrr/ : (slight resonance of that takes place in the center of the oral cavity). Consider the Nike Corporation; their respective branded curve the indelible “swoosh” is a constructed symbol the same way a letter “R” is a constructed symbol. A branding symbol in business and a typographic glyph and tool and the process through which they are developed is not altogether dissimilar. It takes time and it takes understanding the same as each to be able to trigger the recall of meaning that the effort that goes into is supposed to create.
In my research for this article that is meant to provide a metaphoric magnifying lens on branding and typography I was serendipitously drawn to a link on reddit where I happened across Motate Media. Motate Media is on what I would consider on the leading edge of modern glyph construction because at the top of their company’s representative page they have a unique offering to the world of the traditional glyph and the traditional concept of branding. I happened across Motate Media from their pointer on Reddit and was immediately fascinated by what I saw. I saw at the top of their website interactive glyph branding in the form of a logo for their company. I saw something that I thought was new in the realm of typography and glyph creation and branding and in the interest of trying to find out more about this style of interaction and branding. I sought out and successfully landed an interview with Motate Media and had the opportunity to enter into a conversation with Chuck Mathias, from Motate Media. In conversation with Chuck Mathias, I came to understand that he wanted to create a unique branding interaction point for his company that was founded this last past July 2014. I came to find out interestingly enough that there has been an overwhelmingly impressive reaction to his branding icon. Chuck went into detail in this fashion in regards to his interactive glyph, 'What we want to do with our company is essentially inter-cultural design. People are different. We are alike in different ways and perceive different ways.” I was in agreement with him that people do perceive things in different ways and he went on to point out that because of how modern and unique his branding style is he has received feedback relating to the fact that there are people that upon initially coming in contact with the interactive glyph are not immediately aware that it is interactive. I brought up in conversation to him that such feedback can be informative of just how modern something is. We then went on to discuss how when the Google Corporation was in it’s initial years when it’s website that has stood the test of time was a very minimalistic website design involved much more white space than search engines such as Yahoo or Alta Vista and website visitors would wait forty five seconds for the Google Corporation’s web page to load much to the confusion of the Google Corporation’s researchers of their patrons interaction with their company’s front end.
It is interesting to Vitae Magazine that in the process of crafting modern iconography that when dealing with the new and the modern that through no fault of individual’s own that fully understanding a concept or a piece of information that is in the process of being branded; the entire idea when it is extremely unique and modern will not resonate immediately with someone unfamiliar with the modern solution in front of them. I feel that upon conversation with Chuck Mathias that his interactive glyph is unique enough to this modern medium that for some of the visitors to his branding position on the internet his company is in the process of experiencing the building of a brand, the same process that is undergone by generation after generation of youth seeking to gain literacy in the various symbols of the various cultures around the world and the process of coming to terms with agreeing on a set of symbols to represent refined and high minded ideas so too does Motate Media from time to time encounter the process of informing and bringing people further into the realm of increased literacy involving a new style and offering of creative and unique branding that up. For the typographic symbols that now inhabit this growing and ever more far reaching medium known as the internet there is from time to time as people reach new digital solutions going to necessarily need to be a transitional time period for visitors to websites to in similar fashion to the way it takes time to understand a new graphical user interface, it takes time to understand something new and to come to a point of understanding of the new and the unique. In light of the feedback Motate Media has received due to the nature that their interactive icon which has an interface associated with it there is at least a moment with which someone needs to take a moment to explore their interactive typographic symbol and to at least spend a moment to understand the interface which through this process of interacting with the interactive glyph can create a memorable moment of interaction that reinforces the brand and associates it with the modern.
I would like to point out the following book for those interested in exploring typographic and branding solutions Dimensional Typography:: Words in Space: Kiosk Report #1 goes to show that there is exploration in three-dimensional typography and typographic symbols and cutting edge explorative glyph branding which exist in space and have volume to them as opposed to flat typographic symbols of tradition, this is in essence the style and field with which Motate Media’s interactive typographic exploration is kin to. It is part of an exploratative field of the ancient creation of glyphs enmeshed with modern technology that Motate Media has aligned itself with. Motate Media is another in the experimental field of three dimensional typography and not only this but they add the element of interactivity as well, this is a field that to Vitae Magazine’s understanding has only come to fruition in the realms of the digital media as within the realm of digital media you can within reason craft three dimensional interactive typography a home that it was less suited for in prior physical mediums. It should also be discussed that when attempting to craft movement into once static typography that there can be a period of transition between what people are accustomed to experiencing in terms of typography and the branding of the meanings of these typographic symbols and that with every branding process that is no different with typography it takes time for people to fully understand the novel and the new which is part of the draw of the novel and new as there is a natural curiosity to people in general and when exploring new ways to brand a typographic image especially when interactivity is involved it can lead to a necessary learning curve before the AHA moment of realization of the concept is reached.
It is interesting to Vitae Magazine how interactive typography and typography that rests in the voluminous third dimension can at times catch people slightly off guard. Of companies that are seeking unique and exploratative technologies to couple their brand with, three dimensional interactive typography is a very valid and vast field with which to explore and to discover the possibilities of for the purposes of expanding what is possible and to craft ever more unique and creative positions as a brand.
During the conversation with Chuck Mathias, he went on to discuss how his logo was constructed. His logo was constructed using a plug-in for the Blender Modelling program from a Russian software company that represents itself as Blend4Web It is at this online software distribution portal that a developer can gain access to the software necessary to create a similar solution to Motate Media that realistically to an online savvy audience realistically is of the style of exploration that adds value and interest to an ever exploring the z plane and ever exploring the potential of this medium. The software uses Web GL technology and allows for extremely detailed and interactive models to be used to create unique interactive imagery online with very few lines of code being necessary to implement the solution into your developed web site once the Blender Modeling work and plug-in enabled export has occurred.
Mathias, went on to discuss his company’s plans for the future evolution of their logo and their branding iconography by stating that “We would like to animate it and to craft it to move upon the loading of the page. It’s a different and unique logo. It is a push back against flat design and it is taking advantage of the new potential of the new media. We can have an interactive and minimalist design that is not flat.” Motate Media is starting off it’s professional brand by allowing itself to become memorable as the very fact that someone took notice of their web design and development company and posted a link to Reddit is a sign that they have a successful formula for branding themselves that is taking root in niche social media culturiste locales online. In the history of their company upon looking back they could very well come to notice that they were stepping foot into territory and coupling with their identity a style of typography and a style of branding that is very new and very robust and is typically only being utilized in exploratory academic design communities that are seeking to explore what is possible.
Because of Russia’s Blend4Web it is now possible to with a few lines of code upon the exporting of a model incorporate an IFRAME into your website and now upon linking to the interactive file in the IFRAME you can with this solution that through Russian development have the ability to explore three dimensional interactive typography and make the statement for your company that you are interested in being associated with the modern and the unique and the new and the conceptual and are interested in discovery and exploration.
Where typographic glyphs become shared in spaces of interactive volume and where visitors to companies websites can now begin almost touching a brand with their finger and moving it around there could be immersive branding and typographic solutions coming that rely on interaction to make sense of them using motion and colored physical interaction with digital branding and typography that as advanced cultures become technologically driven there could be with the emergence of solutions and the needs of brands to as is traditional remain memorable and unique and disparate from other brands in ever and more robust fashion there are likely to be more explorations into interactive typography and branding icons.
What is not new, what is as ancient a tradition as can be experienced in this modern time of crafting modern typographic solutions and modern brand creations to the past is as Chuck Mathias pointed out, some people upon reaching something new are in fact when all of the information has physically not had enough time to be absorbed there is now with new glyph creation and new brand creation as what would have to have been in ancient times when modern evolutions of the works of some distant ancient scribes in caves such as the author of the letter “R” had to face. When the first symbol that represents the /rrr/ or slight growl sound was crafted when civilization was first stepping into the realms of the processes of branding and collectively agreeing on what symbols stood for what sounds at the onset throughout the entire process in similar fashion to the way that Motate Media encounters some people that are in need of spending time with a defined design choice it had to have taken time at the beginning of typography and the branding of the meanings of typographic symbols into society for us to reach the level of understanding that A comes before B and B comes before C and C comes before X and X comes before Y and Y comes before Z. It stands to reason the development of the static symbols and the process of branding these static symbols into the collective consciousnesses of communities of people and further entire cultures that the process of Motate Media of branding itself with an interactive typographic glyph is to its inherent nature new and unique as likewise is their business and because of this the traditional processes of branding and the process of teaching the meanings of symbols comes into play and just like in ancient times there is a process through which agreed upon conventions are established and the work of LPK of building brands is the work of increasing literacy in understanding the meaning of symbols and the work of Motate Media in branding themselves with uniqueness is all part of the process of expanding what the symbols we have agreed upon means and it’s the process of sharing this information and agreeing upon it is that gives us our ability to continually expand how we express ourselves from each to each.