Image courtesy of: alexbinetti.wordpress.com
Swiftly clicking through typographic art on the web, I stopped to look at this composition. It struck my interest because of the contrasting ground and figure. I'm interested in how type is used as image and here, type is used to illustrate an image of a face- something I have never before seen. The enlarged letters in the foreground are what first command attention and melodically carry the eye through the composition to find a distinct figure amongst the collection of letters. What is most interesting here is that the figure of a face is not directly drawn with lines, but what the eye sees are groups of letters that create lines- the result is that we can easily see a figure of a face against a stark white background. The artist's choice of typeface, Times New Roman, in no way deviates from the design of the composition. The universality of the typeface allows viewers to be familiar with it and concentrate on the design of the entire piece.
Binetti comments: "typographic art does not have to involve straight lines of text, it can be made up of jumbles of different sizes, fonts and angles." Binetti's composition clearly conveys this message. The use of typography as an art form- overlapping layers of serifs, cap heights, ascenders, descenders, etc.-creates interlocking patterns for the viewer to discern. In this unconventional approach towards typographic art, Binetti's piece employs visual creativity: the viewer must capture unity. In other words, the figure is not directly "spelled-out".
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