Taekyeom Lee - Tangible Type I
Channel: The New Art School
Date: 2020-11-06

Taekyeom Lee - Tangible Type I

Technology and design have been in a symbiotic relationship, and the demand for the typography with 3D printing has already arrived. 3D printing is one of the emerging technologies which can bring groundbreaking impacts in many industries. As 3D printing has become more refined, efficient, and accessible, what will happen to the field of graphic design, specifically typography? Typography has always evolved with technologies and creative processes as new technologies, processes, and materials fused new ideas and creative design solutions.

This research started as an experimental research project to investigate the possibility of implementing 3D printing in typography to enable new typographic experience using emerging technology. Various conventional and unconventional materials in 3D printing such as Polylactic acid (PLA), Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), Nylon, Stainless steel, and even Ceramics have used. Notably, 3D printing can allow text to be printed/materialized in the physical world, and this will change how we experience typography and the notion of printed text. The tangible type does not lie on the static surface or live on-screen as a mirrored image. The letterforms are convergent and still provides artistic visual expression but tactile experience in the physical realm. Thus, these letters acquire new characteristics such as texture, structure, volume, dimension, and even interactivity with their physical tangibility.

Taekyeom Lee is an educator, maker, and designer using the artist's material and artistic sensibility. He is currently an Assistant professor of Graphic Design at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. He received an MFA degree in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Recently, his research draws attention nationally and internationally. He exhibited his work and provided workshops and lectures across the country and abroad. He presented through national and international conferences including ATypI(Association Typographique Internationale), ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art), TypeCon, AIGA DEC(Design Educators Community), and NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts). His work has been featured by various media including Communication Arts, Make Magazine, Now This News, Core 77, Art Insider, and New York magazine.

My research explores unconventional materials and digital methods to graphic design to create 3D type, graphics, and even designed objects. This research began with two questions: Where does typography belong in the post-digital age? How do we bridge digital and physical experiences? Post-digital typography is engaged with tangible experience assisted and/or created with various digital controls. For the post-digital typography, the cutting-edge digital techniques play a crucial role in turning intangible ideas into tangible design products with physical substance, also combined with augmented reality to build the strong connection between analog and digital realms. In response to this movement, my research actively adapts digital design and various fabrication methods, specifically 3D printing and CAD design. In a broad sense, my research is aiming to develop, test, and find the place of the emerging technologies in the design process and creative practices.

Designers have worked with the merits and demerits brought with the new technological era while the technological innovations yield influences. Typography has always evolved with technologies and creative processes as new technologies, processes, and materials enable new possibilities. More importantly, they fused new ideas and creative design solutions in graphic design like the digital revolution with the introduction of personal computers caused radical changes. The digitization of type in the digital age reshaped our visual culture and how we experience typography. As a consequence, today, we are mainly consuming letters on the static surface of a page or a screen. The text is living on screen as mirrored image and it could be disappear in a second with no trace. Ironically, however, the new digital technologies naturally redirected the digital experience toward the physical world. It became an agent not only to bridge digital and physical realms, but also to enhance visual and tangible interactions with physical and virtual objects using cutting-edge technologies. 

https://www.instagram.com/taekyeom/
https://portfolio.taekyeom.com

-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-
Please watch: "Design Education Talks Ep. 80 - Tony Pritchard" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1xo5ew0yg
-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-