“Contextualizing Place as Type: Creating an Auburn Typeface”
by Harry Lewis | Xchanges 12.2/13.1
Design Perspective
In creating a typeface representative of Auburn, I had to analyze the University in a way that inspires rhetorical design choices that effectively encompass the lived, perceived, and imagined space of the institution, while still being strong, intelligent, professional, and approachable. To do this, I had to represent both the materiality of the campus, as well as the aura of student life and its spirit. My methodology and inspiration for this design exercise centered around Michel de Certeau’s (1988) perspective and analysis of Manhattan in the 1980s.
From high atop the World Trade Center, de Certeau observed Manhattan in The Practice of Everyday Life. While looming above the city streets, de Certeau noticed the ways in which observation from drastically different vantage points can yield contrasting perspectives of the same place (De Certeau, 1988). This bifurcation – or division of something into two parts – of New York was represented in the way 110 stories of separation from the streets below render physical identifiers of an individual lost, resulting in an unidentifiable speck navigating the cityscape’s material layout, which is consequently emphasized.
To replicate de Certeau’s experiment, I ascended to the Eagle’s Nest atop the Haley Center (the highest accessible point at Auburn University), to observe the topology constituting campus. While the New York skyline offered an expansive horizon of skyscrapers undulating into the distance, my view was much more contained and manageable for observation.
Auburn’s campus sprawls out over more than 1,800 acres, and harbors a legacy more than 150 years in the making. Iconic landmarks, like the Toomer’s Oaks on the Northeast corner of campus that become wreathed with toilet paper after a home football win, are out of sight. The most recognizable building on campus, Samford Hall, features a signature tower standing tall amongst the buildings surrounding it, with clock faces on all four sides inviting comparison to Foucault’s panopticon. Nearby, a big, red construction crane looms over both the library and an administration building built in 1910.
The sights and sounds, skin tones and genders, personal identifiers of the students below are rendered indistinguishable, lost amid my voyeuristic vantage point. From above, black and grey rooftops draw focus away from a vibrant campus community awash with spirit and tradition. But from ground level, the student body, the ornate pillars and arches, the ambiance of southern prosperity brings the campus to life.