In his 1956 short film Q & A, the American designer Charles Eames articulates what he calls the ‘Design Problem’ as, “ ... the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list.”

Graphic design too has its own list. The reader/audience/user is always at the forefront of a graphic designers mind. S/he is constantly working around issues of legibility, readability, visual hierarchy, contrast, etc., while at the same time infusing concept, identity, and message.

Traditionally, the overriding constraint that concerns the work of a type designer is simple: the alphabet. This series of predesigned characters serves as a marker onto which ideas can be projected. Once the simple recognition of a letterform is achieved, there is no other limitation for new ideas or expression.

There have been several distinct periods of wholesale typographic experimentation; the first happened around 1800-1840. The Industrial Revolution had fine-tuned the printing press for mass production and its effect spread throughout the globe spawning new fields in affordable literature, newspaper production, and advertising. Before this period typefaces were beautifully proportioned and designed for optimum legibility on page-after-page of text. Printed advertisements now needed new and more engaging typefaces that would draw attention to themselves and scream short, sharp messages: Look at me! I'm new! I'm improved! I'm on sale! I'm beautiful! Buy me!

Vincent Figgins was one of several type founders who reacted to this need for dramatic new letterforms. He designed many groundbreaking styles of lettering including In Shade, the first drop-shadow; Pearl Outline, the first outlined specimen, and in 1832 he coined the term, San Serif. Although the majority of his work was largely restricted to what today we might describe as 'display' faces, designers like Figgins and his contemporaries-Robert Thorne, William Caslon IV and William Thorowgood-can been seen as the first typographic players. Their contribution to typography was immense. They were the first to design self-conscious typefaces: letterforms that drew attention not just to the message they carried, but also to their own design.

It was the reaction to another new and spreading technology that would forge more possibilities in typographic experimentation in the 1980s and 90s, a period that is often referred to as the Digital Revolution. The introduction of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 drastically altered the field of visual communication, bringing the basic tools of page layout to a wide user-base. The introduction of type design programs such as Fontographer and Font Studio gave graphic designers the means to generate their own typefaces. Not surprisingly, this was a time of great experimentation both in type design and page layout. All areas of typography where reshaped by the limitations and related aesthetic that had grown from this still blossoming medium. The perceived constraints of this emerging medium were fleeting. Technology was developing at such a pace that within ten years most of the early problems (memory, pixelated forms, etc.) had been overcome.

Designers work best when they are exploring boundaries and working with new, often unclear, constraints. Like Figgins before them, the typographic players of this period (notably Zuzana Licko, and the designers associated with Neville Brody’s Fuse project) were reacting to new possibilities, and they did so by pushing forward with an experimental agenda.

Perhaps it is because designers need constraints, and the computer no longer seems to possess them, that we now seem to be moving away from digitally inspired and conceived letterforms. Today’s typography is shifting into what could be viewed as a post-digital period: a digital evolution. The computer itself no longer drives typographic form or a contemporary aesthetic. Although it is still the primary tool for construction, delivery, output and display, designers are now looking beyond the screen, investigating other disciplines, and working with unconventional processes to generate their designs.

This book exemplifies this new approach and showcases the work of the world’s leading typographic players. They are designers and practitioners who push at the boundaries of tradition. The projects shown here, either client-based commissions or experimental exercises, are hard to categorize. They are tactile, yet often digital. Real, yet manipulated. Personal, yet profound. The common thread that binds this work together, and permeates this entire book, is the desire to challenge traditional limitations and push at the boundaries of typographic conventions.

It is with this mind-set of playful, experimental expression that today’s designers can embrace the seemingly limitless possibilities of technology and the reassuring constraints of the alphabet to explore new forms in typography.