Surrogate Multiplicities: Typography in the Age of Invisibility

Abstract

Historically, much critical discussion, particularly among typographers, has centered on the role typographical form plays in conveying meaning. Beatrice Ward's image of the crystal goblet, evoked in a 1932 essay of the same name created a framework for considering the ways in which value and meaning are assigned to a text based not only on what is written, but how it was written. While Ward was primarily concerned with the dynamics of letterform and legibility, this essay attempts to extend her metaphor into the realm of social difference by exploring the myriad ways in which spaces of cultural inclusion and exclusion are mediated via typographic form. Within such an argument, qualities of transparency and lightness attributed to the crystal goblet operate as agents of invisibility for non-standard speakers, or a whole host of "others" that fall outside of the normalizing boundaries of linguistic standardization supported by Ward's image of an undifferentiated typographical surface. The discussion begins by tracing historical precedents for the marking of social difference through distinctions in typographic form. Typefaces from Jim Crow to Tiki Magic demonstrate how the "display" of otherness relies on the historicizing mechanics of cultural standardization. Similarly, an analysis of pictorial trademarks developed in the mid- to late-nineteenth-century reveal how fractured letterforms served as the visual equivalent to the "broken" English of a growing immigrant population. Finally, a connection is made to the ways in which contemporary software, through specified feature sets and "default settings," supports a long tradition of representational standardization.