🔠 TYPOGRAPHY
| ⚙️ OBJECT / TOOL
| ⚙️ OBJECT / TOOL
TNR Press and Graphite
This project began with a prompt to reintroduce a ubiquitous typeface and present its history in a new light. I chose to research and work with Times New Roman. In tracing its trajectory, I was struck by how drastically its use shifted from its inception: starting its journey as a newspaper typeface and eventually becoming the omnipresent font and web typeface it is today. With each shifting application, the letterforms were altered and adjusted slightly to fit their adapted use.
I was interested in how Times New Roman’s long history was thus represented in its physical form, with meaning and connotation layered like artifacts within its very structure. In order to insert myself into this long history of shifting contexts, I drafted and 3D printed relief plates of Times New Roman letterforms, and then used those plates to create both graphite rubbings and letterpressed versions of each glyph.
The final outcome of this project was to digitize these new iterations of Times New Roman to make them usable fonts that express new formal additions created through the use of the differing physical processes to create them.
The letterpressed ink prints were made on Open Press Project’s mini etching press, designed by Martin Schneider and Dominik Schmitz. I downloaded their shared files via Thingiverse, and 3D printed and assembled the press myself.